October 2021 Newsletter

Welcome to our October 2021 Newsletter!

With the 2021 giving season fast approaching we invite you to use this time to spread the word about effective giving.

Here's what you can do to help:

• Join our Pledge Drive, and invite your friends!
• Sign up for our Effective Giving Advocacy Challenge for daily advocacy tips during the month of December.
• Run an event related to effective giving (see some event ideas). Feel free to contact us if you would like help organising an event for the 2021 giving season or pick a time if you'd like us to give a talk online or help facilitate a giving game.
• High Impact Professionals is also supporting impact-minded working professionals to run fundraising campaigns at their organizations. You can sign up here.
• Read our new guide to talking about effective altruism and giving effectively and our interview with one of the co-authors, Geetanjali Basarkod, discussing the key concepts and tips.
• Join the EA Giving Tuesday campaign for Facebook donor matching (ideal for US taxpayers).
• Read more tips for how to share our ideas.

We hope you enjoy the rest of this newsletter, which covers our upcoming online events, the latest from the effective altruism community, and news and updates about relevant cause areas.

5 years ago today I took the @givingwhatwecan pledge to donate 10% of my income to the world's most effective charities (via @GiveWell @EA_Aus). I'm both proud and grateful that I've been able to do my bit for the world. It's been awesome: 1,826 days without a single regret.

— Michael Noetel (@mnoetel) September 18, 2021

Thanks to Dr. Michael Noetel for sharing your commitment on Twitter -- we're proud to have you in our community for over 5 years!

Attend An Event

Come along (and bring a friend!) to meet other people who are to giving effectively:

• EA Global London
  October 29-31
• GWWC Online Meetup (Americas/Oceania)
  November 6: 21:00 UTC
• GWWC Online Meetup (Europe/Asia)
  November 7: 09:30 UTC
• Spain / Spanish Speakers Discussion (online)
  November 10: 19:00 CET
• London Effective Giving Walk (Hampstead Heath)
  November 13: 14:00 UTC
• Effective Giving Open Forum
  Ask anything, discuss donations, meet effective givers
  November 18: 17:00 UTC
• Salary Negotiation for Earning-to-Givers (apply by November 7)
  London: November 20: 10:00 UTC
  Online: December 4: 15:00 UTC
• Effective Giving Day Events
  • Americas (online)
    November 30: 20:00 ET
  • Australasia (online)
    November 30: 17:00 AEDT
  • Europe/UK (online)
    November 30: 18:00 UTC
  • Germany (online)
    November 30: 20:00 CET
  • Berlin (Fundraiser)
    November 30: 18:30 CET
  • More events
• EAGxPrague
  December 3-5
• Sydney Effective Giving Walk (Sydney Opera House)
  December 5: 10:00 AEDT

If you have any questions or want to discuss your donation decisions with other members or our team, we recommend coming along to an Open Forum event. See our events page to register.

News & Updates

Giving What We Can

• Charity Talks had us on their podcast to discuss effective giving and how to do the most good with your donations.
• We co-hosted a video, 'You Can Help The World's Poorest: Here's How', on the A Happier World channel on YouTube.
• We interviewed Marcus Daniell about High Impact Athletes and Geetanjali Basarkod about how to talk about effective altruism and giving effectively.
• We published member profiles of Rick Holland and Andrew Leeke.

Effective altruism community

• Ezra Klein's interview with Holden Karnofsky (from Open Philanthropy and GiveWell) gets deep into the weeds about effective altruism and some of the weird and wonderful findings of Holden's work.
• The Wall Street Journal featured the work of 80,000 Hours that helps people find high-impact careers.
• 'Effective altruism in a nutshell' -- Keiran Harris & Robert Wiblin, 80,000 Hours.
• The EA Form now features a groups and events directory so you can easily find opportunities to meet other people dedicated to doing good effectively.

Evaluators, grantmakers and incubators

• EA Funds now supports donations to the newly launched Patient Philanthropy Fund, managed by Founders Pledge.
• Open Philanthropy is hiring for many roles across legal, communications operations, finance and recruiting.
• GiveWell is discontinuing their 'Standout Charity' designation.
• Charity Entrepreneurship (CE) have presented their 2021 Incubated Charities. Here is each charity and its aims:
  • Training For Good: Solve skill bottlenecks in effective altruism cause areas.
  • High Impact Professionals: Help working professionals to have the biggest positive impact possible.
  • Shrimp Welfare Project: Improve the lives of hundreds of millions of farmed shrimp in Southeast Asia.
  • Healthier Hens: Improve the welfare of farmed egg-laying hens via a cost-effective intervention focused on feed fortification.
  • Center for Alcohol Policy Solutions: Save lives and promote well-being through alcohol taxation.
  • You can support these new charities using EA Funds.
• CE and CE-incubated charities are hiring multiple part time interns (deadline November 7).

Cause areas

Animal welfare

• 'How 4 companies control the beef industry' -- Laura Bult, Vox.
• 'China is quietly making moves on cultivated meat' -- Ryan Huling, The Good Food Institute.
• 'Evidence from two studies of animal advocacy careers advice interventions' -- Jamie Harris, Animal Advocacy Careers.
• 'Analysis of EA funding within Animal Welfare from 2019-2021' -- James Ozden, Animal Rebellion.

Global health and development

• 'Why the WHO approval of the first malaria vaccine is a big deal' -- Kelsey Piper, Vox.
• 'Initial thoughts on malaria vaccine approval' - Julie Faller, GiveWell.
• The Against Malaria Foundation now has tax-deductible status for donors in Switzerland.
• 'Donating money, buying happiness: new meta-analyses comparing the cost-effectiveness of cash transfers and psychotherapy in terms of subjective well-being' -- Michael Plant, Happier Lives Institute.

Long-term future

• 'The common-sense case for existential risk work and its practical implications' podcast interview with Carl Shulman -- 80,000 Hours.
• In 'Maybe losing the AI race to China isn't such a bad idea' Adam Clark Estes from Vox argues "The rise of AI shouldn't feel like a race against China. It's more like a high-stakes poker game."
• 'Why Europe needs to focus on industrial decarbonisation' -- Magnolia Tovar, Clean Air Task Force.
• 'How biological detective work can reveal who engineered a virus' -- Kelsey Piper, Vox.
• AGI Safety Fundamentals shared their AI safety course curriculum and application details on the EA Forum.
• Holden Karnofsky published 'Summary of history (empowerment and well-being lens)', 'Has Life Gotten Better?' and 'Pre-agriculture gender relations seem bad' on his ColdTakes blog.
• 'On the assessment of volcanic eruptions as global catastrophic or existential risks' -- Mike Cassidy and Lara Mani.

We recently co-hosted this video about global poverty with A Happier World

Thank you!

Thanks again for taking the time to read our newsletter! As always, here are some useful links to help you maximise your charitable impact:

• Review our giving recommendations.
• Report your donations with your dashboard.
• Share our ideas to help grow our community and multiply your impact.
• Join other members in the Giving What We Can community Facebook or LinkedIn groups.
• Find more ways to get involved with Giving What We Can and effective altruism.
• Discuss effective giving and effective altruism on the EA Forum.

You can follow us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, or TikTok, and subscribe to the EA Newsletter for more news and articles.

Do you have questions about effective giving, Giving What We Can, or effective altruism in general? Check out our FAQ page, or contact us directly.