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Grace Adams

From malaria nets to AI governance, see what's shaping our shared future.

April news: Big risks, small bites. AI, World Malaria Day, & more 

We often focus on problems we know how to solve — like distributing malaria nets or increasing vaccination coverage. But some of the most pressing risks to humanity’s future are harder to see, harder to solve, and even harder to talk about.


One of those risks is the unchecked development of advanced artificial intelligence.

, released a scenario for how AI development could progress in the next two years. Experts believe that as powerful AI systems grow more capable, so do the risks of misuse, accidents, or even losing control of the very tools we’ve built.

It can feel distant or speculative — but many experts believe we’re at a pivotal moment. Decisions made now could shape the trajectory of this technology for generations to come.

That’s why we believe AI safety and governance is a cause area worth considering. Donating is far from the only way to support this cause area — direct work & lobbying are pretty important here — but donors can help fund research & advocacy initiatives. Here are some programs impact-focused donors may be interested in supporting that are working to address AI risk — either as a sole area of focus, or as part of a broader set of projects to address global catastrophic ris

You can also donate to GWWC's Risks & Resilience Fund, which currently splits donations among our two recommended programs: the Emerging Challenges Fund & the Long-Term Future Fund.

sn't to minimise the current funding crisis for global health programs. I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention World Malaria Day, which is tomorrow (25th April). Funding for malaria prevention programs has been affected by the recent aid cuts, meaning that support from individual donors is more important than ever. Currently, around 600,000 people die of malaria each year, a number that will almost definitely rise without additional funding.

That said, I also believe challenges like those posed from rapidly approaching advanced AI (and little advanced governance to accompany it) have the potential to shape the future of everyone on the planet, including those living in extreme poverty and the animals that inhabit earth with us.

Read on for more updates, events, and opportunities to support impactful work — from AI to global health, animal welfare, and beyond.

Here are some of our favourite responses from people who took a pledge last m

What motivated you to take a pledge with Giving What We Can?

 blogs, announcements, & news from Giving What We Can

 in order to focus more on our broader mission.

fabulous blog from 10% Pledger Eric Arellano about the challenge – and necessity – of balancing impact with personal goals

Highlights from our community & the wider effective giving ecosystem

Saloni Dattani, global health researcher at Our World In Data, writes about how foreign aid cuts in both the US and the UK propelled her to take the 10% Pledge this month, and how she’s changed her views on the importance & power of individual philanthropy. She urges governments & other individuals to step up too. Read “

We don’t have to sit back and just watch the horror unfold

Philanthropically-minded people interested in Financial Independence (FI) may find 

Yield & Spread’s new “FI Purpose Planner”

 useful: it’s a free tool that allows you to map out various life scenarios (like increasing your donations or taking an income pledge!) & see how they’ll impact your FI timelines.

Ever feel like donating is just a drop in a very large bucket? Check out Trial Pledger 

Rory Fenton’s crystallation of this sentiment – and his reframing

 work on early detection of novel pathogens.

Luke Freeman, former CEO of Giving What We Can, published a call for Australians to take some easy advocacy actions for AI safety, including 

 and contacting your local candidates to ask for their positions. 

Read more about the AI Safety election campaign initiative here, and see more ways you can help.

If you are running a similar campaign in another country, The Good Ancestors team would be happy to share their signature/scorecard platform and lessons learned.

Animal Charity Evaluators (ACE) is hiring for a Development Director. The Development Director is accountable for securing the financial support needed to run ACE, as well as increasing funds for the effective animal advocacy movement to optimally advance ACE’s theory of change. 

 for the Global Health & Wellbeing Partnerships team to help direct more funding to high-impact, evidence-backed giving. 

Apply by April 27 for the Strategy Fellow role and by April 25 for the Partnerships Associate role!

to support efforts to identify the most promising grantmaking opportunities to help animals confined on factory farms by facilitating the day-to-day operations of the team’s work. 

Effektiv Spenden is looking for a Country Manager in Switzerland. Applications will be reviewed on an ongoing basis, and the position is expected to be filled by mid-2025 at the latest. 

Highlights from the high-impact programs we list on our platform along with evaluators & grantmakers in the effective giving space 

. Highlighted grants include advocacy work on applying local animal welfare standards to imports; cage-free initiatives in Ghana, Egypt, Morocco, and South Africa; and a research & pilot program on humane chill-killing at Indian shrimp farms to inform global certification standards.

 shared some exciting animal welfare news: on 2nd April, Domino’s Pizza chain

 announced plans to commit to the Better Chicken Commitment

 (BCC), a decision that will positively impact the lives of approximately 1.4 million chickens annually. Domino’s commitment comes after years of collaboration with leading animal protection organisations, including The Humane League UK.

 to explain cultivated meat in an accessible, science-led segment—highlighting its health, sustainability, and potential to reshape the future of protein.

! Yearly, GFI funds open-access alternative protein research projects through their philanthropy-powered research grants program. This year, they expect to grant up to $3.5 million across innovative projects, with a priority focus on projects exploring fermentation-derived ingredients or cell line development. A 

previous grantee’s work on cultivated octopus has since catalyzed a €7M EU-backed project

Apply to the Research Grant Program by May 15th

a new paper by Senior Researcher, Michaël Beaulieu, arguing that wildlife rehabilitation’s positive impacts on the welfare of individual animals is a sufficient reason to justify it

, where university community members had the opportunity to meet WAI grantees and hear about their research.

, highlighting that philanthropic donations are a lifeline in a world where a child dies 

 from a preventable and treatable disease.

Reflections on the Covid-19 Pandemic: Five years of response, adaptation and impact

, a timeline-view of the challenges the organisation faced, the actions taken, and the lessons learned.

’s vice president of programs published an op-ed in Devex: 

Deep aid cuts show cash transfers have never been more urgent

 published an article sharing the results of an impact assessment it conducted in partnership with Zanzibar’s Ministry of Health, measuring progress towards elimination of parasitic disease in the region and 

showing significant progress against schistosomiasis

! The article also emphasises the importance of impact assessments to inform treatment strategies.

, which aims to build resilience to global catastrophic food shocks through research, development, and policy recommendations. published an emergency funding appeal: 

Help us raise $800,000 to avoid cutting half of programs

it is now offering a new service for donors looking to donate over 100K a year to AI safety projects

, which includes access to top AI grant recommendations.

a call to action for global health security

, which focuses on how the US government’s cuts to global & domestic health programs impact health security & pandemic prevention worldwide. At a time when “all countries remain dangerously unprepared for future public health threats,” NTI | bio calls for an increase in global commitments and urges national governments to step up.

 to provide an overview of how it is responding to the US aid cuts, which includes summaries of grants GiveWell has made and information on how donors can help. GiveWell is balancing a targeted, near-term response to urgent needs with a broad, long-term perspective of needs that may emerge.

 with the research team that shares timely snapshots of the rapidly evolving global health aid situation.

 (released on March 19, 2025): A broad overview of the impacts of US government aid cuts and GiveWell’s initial response.

: (released on April 3, 2025): Zooms in on a specific case, focusing on grants GiveWell has made to support urgent funding gaps for seasonal malaria chemoprevention.

Subscribe to receive notifications on the latest episodes 

 to identify potential flaws in their iron research before considering $10-20 million in additional grants for 2025.

Applications are open for the Spring 2025 round of High Impact Professionals’ 

 (IAP), designed to help experienced (mid-career/senior) professionals not currently working in a high-impact role identify paths to impact; take concrete, impactful actions; and join a network of like-minded, experienced, and supportive professionals. The free, 6-week program begins the week of June 16, 2025; 

U.S. Foreign Aid Funding Pause: A Framework for Giving in Uncertain Times

 comparing the cost-effectiveness of different charities using WELLBYs per dollar, concluding: “The best charities in our sample are hundreds of times better at increasing happiness per dollar than others.” The research was 

HLI believes this research may be the first attempt to directly compare the cost-effectiveness of a wide sample of charities, including cost-effectiveness calculations for large, well-known charities or typical acts of charitable giving. (Most cost-effectiveness calculations within the effective giving ecosystem focus on the charities that are most likely to have higher cost-effectiveness than typical, in order to identify the best options.)

This month's featured social post from our community

When foreign aid cuts were announced, Saloni Dattani — a researcher at 

— decided it was time to act.

“I’d thought about taking the 10% Pledge before,” she says but the cuts made her realise how easy it is to take global health and humanitarian programs for granted — and how urgently they need support.

She points out that these aren’t just abstract numbers being slashed — they’re programs that keep people alive, healthy, and able to care for their families.

 and stay connected with us for more news and updates.

One of the key tips to make your money go as far as possible is to use the research of impact-focused charity evaluators. But what is an impact-focused charity evaluator and how are its methods different from websites that feature hundreds of charity ratings?

Do you have any feedback on our newsletter or communications? 

 with Giving What We Can and effective giving.

Do you have questions about the pledge, Giving What We Can, or effective giving in general? Check out our 

Eric Arellano 

10% Pledger Eric Arellano discusses the challenge — and necessity —  of balancing impact with personal goals.

Recalibrating for sustainable giving

 after an unexpected move from Mexico to New York, due to cost of living and other factors). This year, I'm giving 10%.

In this blog, I share the existential crises that led me to recalibrate how much I donate. I conclude with how I found a more sustainable framework by shifting from the principle of "each starfish matters" to "help the starfish I can."

Disclaimer: I recognize my immense privilege to make these decisions. I am not trying to compare; each person's situation is unique. Rather, I am sharing in the hope that this is insightful to others.

 past two years, one of my six guiding principles has been the phrase "each starfish matters." While I know I can't throw back every starfish, I remain convinced there are 

 for an individual donor to impact problems like factory farming and global poverty.

Indeed, it has been uplifting to see how far strategic donations can go. For example, $1000 USD can 

cover a full year of expenses for a household living in extreme poverty

. My donations the past few years have brought me meaning, reduced my eco-anxiety and my sense of futility around factory farming, and meaningfully made the world kinder.

Moral Saints, disillusion, and career anxiety

Despite believing my donations were impactful, three factors converged in the past year to make me adjust my giving:

An existential crisis from re-evaluating my decision not to have kids.

I had originally decided not to have kids in large part because of the effect on my career and my personal impact. Surrogacy as a gay person costs $100k+, raising a kid in the U.S. now costs on average 

, and raising kids would mean I would have less time for my career.

However, last year, I decided to challenge my assumptions around money and impact. After giving myself permission to do so, I felt intense baby fever.

While navigating my confusion, I encountered Susan Wolf's essay 

, in which she argues that a life primarily optimized for impact leaves little room for the experiences that make life worth living. For example, she questions lines of thinking like: “time and money spent going to the theatre could have gone towards anti-malaria bed nets.” Was this me with not having kids?

I eventually concluded that I should not let impact be the reason I deny myself kids. Rather, I should build the life I want, then let impact follow. I deserve to pursue my dreams for my own inherent dignity. Likewise, excessive self-denial is a recipe for burnout.

 Feeling disillusioned about the state of the world.

The U.S. 2024 election shook my worldview: 2016 was not a fluke, and the majority of voting Americans want a world contrary to my values.

Overshoot: How the World Surrendered to Climate Breakdown

: the Paris Agreement plan is to exceed 1.5°C, then use future technology like carbon removal to get us back down to a safer number, even though that technology does not exist!

While I know that stopping even a tenth of a degree of global warming dramatically impacts our future, the election and trajectory of climate change challenged my sense of agency.

In my personal life, I discovered some people important to me remain much more homophobic than I had thought. Their rejection made me recalibrate how much people change.

Artificial intelligence and the risk of automation spooked me: maybe my career as a software engineer was more at risk than I thought? Regardless of AI, having to relocate to the U.S. unexpectedly made me internalize that any job is impermanent.

While I am now less worried about AI—and I trust in my resilience—I value financial security more than before.

These factors converged to shift my experience of giving from joy to obligation. Earlier, donations felt like an incredible opportunity to improve the world at little cost to me. Later, donations started to feel like a barrier to my own dreams and security, within the context of a world that often refuses to sacrifice.

I felt deeply conflicted when donations started feeling less joyful:

"Now is the most critical decade to address climate change!"

"This is values drift: the very thing I was worried about!"

I finally felt clarity when shifting from "each starfish matters" to "help the starfish I can." Each starfish does matter! But I should also honor that I am human and have limits. I can make a meaningful difference without assuming the full burden of the world.

This reframe of "help the starfish I can" led me to:

Identify my dream career: pro-bono software engineering projects for nonprofits, based on how much I've loved the past four years of volunteering.

Even though donating 10% slows down my financial goals, it’s worth it for the good it does. Regular giving also provides me an antidote to disillusionment; even though much is indeed out of my control, my contributions matter to the individuals  they reach.

While I still plan to live a relatively frugal life, I’m increasing my expenses by around 25% to pursue a part-time master's degree and to move closer to work and friends. I'm also saving for partial 

 with the goal to have more freedom to pursue the things that feel important — whether that's working full time on pro-bono projects, working part-time so I can volunteer more, or being able to spend more time with my kids, if I decide to have them. Meanwhile, I'm using my new free time for two new volunteer projects.

With these changes, donations have shifted back from feeling like an obligation to bringing me joy. Giving myself permission—as a 28-year-old—to balance my own life goals with making a difference in the world gives me more confidence I can sustain both for decades to come.

Eric Arellano is a software engineer at IBM Quantum focused on ending factory farming and mitigating climate change through effective giving and volunteering. Eric first became interested in impact when, at 13 years old, their youth pastor challenged them not to wait to be adults to improve the world. This led Eric to found a nonprofit that raised $30,000 for clean water wells in Ghana. Eric's happy place is farmed animal sanctuaries, showing that a kinder world is possible.

GWWC Team

Giving What We Can announces its plans for 2025 and beyond. 

Blog

April news: Big risks, small bites. AI, World Malaria Day, & more

Recalibrating for sustainable giving

Announcing our 2025 strategy

GWWC is retiring 10 initiatives

March News: Some powerful stories to cut through the noise

What's the antidote to hypernationalism?

February newsletter: US aid freeze – how to help & where to donate

Adapting the Pledge to Your Goals & Values

Trump's WHO Withdrawal - Head in the Sand, or Time to Act?

January newsletter: Some incredible projects we funded together