10 effective altruism websites

Last week I reviewed Peter Singer’s book The Most Good You Can Do, which introduces the emerging effective altruism movement. It’s a subject I’d like to know more about, so I’ve been looking up some of the many organisations the book mentions. If you share my interest, here’s a round-up of various groups and projects to consider.

1. Centre for Effective Altruism – an umbrella group that includes some of the other organisations listed here, this is the starting point for exploring effective altruism.
2. Giving What We Can – A community of people aiming to “inspire donations to the world’s most effective charities”.  Members pledge to give at least 10% of their incomes.
3. The Life You Can Save – founded by Peter Singer off the back of his books on giving, The Life You Can Save provides information and runs public outreach campaigns to encourage effective altruism.
4. 80,000 Hours – this is the number of hours you will spend working during your career, and this organisation will advise you on finding work that is rewarding and makes a difference. If you’ve ever thought that the best thing you could do is make as much money as you can so that you can give more away, you’ll find good company here.
5. Animal Charity Evaluators – a lot of people care passionately about animal welfare, but give ineffectively to things that tug our heartstrings. ACE show how donations can reduce suffering and help as many animals as possible.
6. GiveWell – a non-profit agency that reviews and recommends charities on the basis of their effectiveness. Where other charity evaluators look at finances, GiveWell looks in-depth at how well charities’ programmes deliver.
7. The Open Philanthropy Project – a research and grant-making organisation committed to the question ‘how can we accomplish as much good as possible?’.
8. Give Directly – I profiled Give Directly last week, but I’ll mention them again as they’re a relevant organisation. The charity aims to maximise its effectiveness by linking donors directly to poor households in East Africa, and it was founded by philanthropists to provide a baseline by which other programmes for the poor could be measured.
9. The Global Priorities Project – a research agency based at Oxford University that weighs up global problems and looks for opportunities for effective intervention.
10. Raising for Effective Giving – a niche organisation dedicated to helping professional poker players to give away their winnings.