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Peter Hurford

The Community That Stays Together, Gives Together

, is a group that is united by taking a pledge to donate 10% of one's income to seriously affect extreme poverty in the developing world. However, donating is still widely considered an individual affair, despite criticism(1).

So why would people want to join together and make their giving public? Because it turns out there is value in joining together and creating a community around a common cause. In this essay, I will explore the benefits that members of a community get from associating with a group, specifically focusing on Giving What We Can.

Writing in his book Politics, Aristotle noted that people are social animals. Since then, much evidence from social psychology has been marshaled to back him up. People have a tendency to form groups with common causes(2), and frequently adopt the group as part of their personal identity(3) even to the point of thinking like the group(4) and assuming the group thinks like them(5). The power of a group is considered so strong that joining has typically been categorized as a fundamental human need(3,6).

But people don't stop there. Those who associate with a group will also act to benefit their own group at an individual cost to themselves(7), typically developing an "in-group / out-group" bias in their thinking(8,9,10) and sometimes going as far as seeing groups with opposing missions as a direct threat(11). Many people even derive their self-identity from the values of their group, placing large amounts of value and emotional significance on group membership(12).

By forming a community, people can group together to accomplish goals that no individual could do on their own, and having a strong group identity is fundamental to doing a joint job well(13). Communities are what built Wikipedia and Linux, and each tries to create identity and norms. By joining Giving What We Can, members endorse the values of the organization and put on a public face to spread their message to others in a coordinated way that they wouldn't be able to alone.

Countless examples exist of people coming together with a common objective of doing something hard, yet rewarding, and groups are an excellent place to do that - to keep everyone on task and motivated. Perhaps the most famous example is 

, founded in 1935 to create a group to support each other in staying sober. However, while AA hasn't yet been demonstrated effective or ineffective due to methodological flaws(14), another similar group demonstrates the ability of groups to curb behavior - Weight Watchers(15), a comprehensive diet plan that includes group support.

When people associate with a group, members of that group become the reference point for social comparison, and people continue to adopt in-group attitudes and beliefs as their own(16,17), especially when information comes from group members perceived to have expertise18 and especially when the group in question has positive values(19). Thus, getting someone to join a group with a strong identity of "my kind of people act this way" is one of the more effective ways to inspire behavioral change, and typically the justification for this change will come later(20,21).

Peer pressure can be dangerous - by falling into the wrong group identities, high school kids end up abusing drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, and stand an increased chance of dropping out(22). However, peer pressure can also be beneficial - by falling into the right group identities, high school kids will be less likely to cheat(23).

Many members of Giving What We Can were already committed to giving large portions of their income to charity before joining. However, just by being in the group, one is more likely to keep giving, and stay giving longer than one otherwise would without access to such a community.

In a group with a defined level of contribution, members will feel a social pressure to exert this level of effort(24). I think, given the benefits of donating to effective non-profits to those in extreme poverty, it's uncontroversial to describe membership in Giving What We Can as "peer pressure for the common good". Assuming members want to stay committed to this cause, joining Giving What We Can is a great way to make use of this peer pressure effect to stay a giver.

Lastly, joining together in a group like Giving What We Can allows people to present a unified voice of advocacy and also gives them the encouragement needed to stay motivated. But Giving What We Can also allows people to share information and come to better decisions. Membership involves a commitment to find the best opportunity for helping alleviate extreme poverty and 

However, extreme poverty is complex, and lots of new information and research comes out every day. It takes a lot to stay on top of it, and it would be difficult to expect any one person to do all of it on their own. Luckily, they don't have to. People can share research and other relevant information with a community and distribute the work, thus ensuring everyone stays on top of the latest trends.

Having a community publicly surround the cause of effective giving provides many benefits to those receiving the donation. However, a community can help those within the community as well:

It can provide a public face for better understanding and advocacy,

It can provide peer support to keep people motivated and engaged, and

It can provide a place to network and share information

Hopefully, Giving What We Can and related "effective altruist" organizations will grow and more people interested in helping those in extreme poverty will join up, making us all stronger together.

Covert Virtue: The Signal That Doesn't Bark

2: Deutsch, Morton and Harold B. Gerard. 1955. "

A Study of Normative and Informational Social Influences Upon Individual Judgement.

" Journal of Abnormal Social Psychology 51: 629-36.

3: Ashforth, B., Harrison, S. and Corley, K. 2008. "

Identification in Organizations: An Examination of Four Fundamental Questions.

Culture and Conformity: A Meta-Analysis of Studies Using Asch's Line Judgment Task.

" Psychological Bulletin 119 (1): 111-137.

5: O'Brien, Ed and Phoebe C. Ellsworth. "

More Than Skin Deep: Visceral States Are Not Projected Onto Dissimilar Others.

" Journal of Psychological Science 23 (4): 391-396.

The Role of Distinctiveness in Social Identity and Group Behavior

", In M. A. Hogg and D. Abrams (Eds.), Group Motivation: Social Psychological Perspectives: 1-15. London: Harvester Wheatsheaf.

7: Fowler, James H. and Cindy D. Kam. 2007. "

Beyond the Self: Social Identity, Altruism, and Political Participation.

" The Journal of Politics 69 (3): 813-827.

The Role of Social Groups in Political Thinking.

" British Journal of Political Science 18 (1): 51-76.

9: McCallion, Michael J. 2007. "In-Groups and Out-Groups." In George Ritzer (ed.), 

11: Muzafer, Sherif, O. J. Harvey, B. Jack White, William R. Hood, and Carolyn W. Sherif. 1954. 

Intergroup Conflict and Cooperation: The Robbers Cave Experiment

Understanding Party Identification: A Social Identity Approach.

13: Peteraf, Margaret and Mark Shanley. 1997. "

Getting to Know You: A Theory of Strategic Group Identity.

"Strategic Management Journal 18: 165-186.

14: Ferri, M., L. Amato, and M. Davoli. 2009. "

Alcoholics Anonymous and Other 12-Step Programmes for Alcohol Dependence.

15: Heshka, Stanley, James W. Anderson, Richard L. Atkinson, Frank L. Greenway, James O. Hill, Stephen D. Phinney, Ronette L. Kolotkin, Karen Miller-Kovach, and F. Xavier Pi-Sunyer. 2003. "

Weight Loss With Self-help Compared With a Structured Commercial Program: A Randomized Trial.

" Journal of the American Medical Association 289 (14): 1792-1798.

Social psychology of intergroup relations

17: Turner JC. 1982. "Towards a cognitive redeﬁnition of the social group." In 

, ed. H Tajfel, pp. 15-40. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

18: Kameda, Tatsuya, Yohsuke Ohtsubo, and Masanori Takezawa. 1997. "

Centrality in Sociocognitive Networks and Social Influence: An Illustration in a Group Decision-Making Context.

" Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 73: 296-309.

19: Pool, Gregory J., Wendy Wood, and Kira Leck. 1998. "

The self-esteem motive in social inﬂuence: agreement with valued majorities and disagreement with derogated minorities.

" Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 75: 967-75.

20: Haslam, S. Alexander, Penelope J. Oakes, Craig McGarty, John C. Turner, and Rina S. Onorato. 1995."

Contextual changes in the prototypicality of extreme and moderate outgroup members.

" European Journal of Social Psychology 25: 509-30.

21: Mcgarty, Craig, S. Alexander Haslam, Karen J. Hutchinson, John C. Turner. 1994. "

The Effects of Salient Group Memberships on Persuasion.

22: Gaviria, Alejandro and Steven Raphael. 2011. "

School-Based Peer Effects and Juvenile Behavior

". The Review of Economics and Statistics 83 (2): 257-268.

23: Voelkl Finn, Kristin and Michael R. Frone. 2004. "

Academic Performance and Cheating: Moderating Role of School Identification and Self-Efficacy.

" The Journal of Educational Research 97 (3): 115-122.

24: Encinosa, William E., Martin Gaynor, and James B. Rebitzer. 1997. "

The Sociology of the Groups and the Economics of Incentives: Theory and Evidence on Compensation Systems.

Damian C. Clarke

The Copenhagen Challenge Paper for Education - What does it mean for fighting poverty?

The May 2012 Copenhagen Consensus (CC) set itself the challenge of providing an answer to the following question: "If you had $75 billion for worthwhile causes, where should you start?'' Whilst this is a remarkably broad question, CC aimed to produce a concrete ranking of options which could 'achieve good in the world' in the most cost effective way possible. Here, I will discuss the principal findings from the Copenhagen Challenge Paper for education, and discuss what this may mean for those interested in maximising their impact on human development with a budget under $75 billion .

At the risk of giving away the punch-line before the set-up, I will jump to what is, arguably, the most important sentence of the report: "The answer is almost certainly no.'' This is the paper's answer to the question of whether educational programmes can out-perform the best available investments in child health. Whilst this response may seem critical of educational-based investments, it is better interpreted as a positive sign for the effectiveness of investing in early-life health.

Even when placed head to head with the most effective programmes which education has to offer, health appears to come out ahead. This finding emerges from the Copenhagen Consensus' close analysis of three education projects all of which have been shown to produce benefits well in excess of their costs. Together these projects present a "compelling package of complementary [education] investments," consisting of:

cash transfers to families conditional on kids attending school,

the provision of updated information for parents about how much school can do to enhance their kids' future prospects, and

Both the costs and benefits of these programmes are quite varied. Perhaps the simplest programme, providing children and their parents with more information regarding the true benefits of education, has been shown to increase children's willingness to attend school, increasing completed schooling by approximately a quarter of a year, with the costs restricted to the dissemination of knowledge in schools (Jensen, 2010). At the other end of the scale, conditional cash transfers involve considerable cost: both in terms of monetary transfers and the monitoring of conditions (the well-known Mexican programme PROGRESA for example, cost the Mexican government $US 2.2 billion in 2004) (1) but they have been shown to lead to large increases in years of schooling, progression to higher schooling levels, and also smaller effects on health (in the short term), along with effects on household welfare due to increases in income have been demonstrated. Finally, school based health programmes, such as in-school de-worming initiatives, have been linked to lower absenteeism, and also create important spill-over effects in terms of reduced disease transmission. These in-school health-based treatments are often particularly low-cost, generally costing less than one dollar per student per year.

Despite reasonably compelling evidence for the positive effect of these programmes, dollar for dollar (or shilling for shilling, or peso for peso), they just couldn't match health-based interventions assessed using a similar cost-benefit approach. The most cost-effective programmes in health - nutritional supplements, anti-parasitics, antibiotics and vaccinations at early ages - seem unlikely to be surpassed, for the time being at least.

The Copenhagen Consensus agrees those who think that the path to development is educated and engaged citizens. It is almost certainly true that more education leads to higher wages, greater survival rates at key moments of life (such as during childbirth), and more educated future generations. But for those who want to invest in education who are primarily driven by concern for cost-effectiveness, the conclusion is that it is best not to invest in education directly. Rather you can have a bigger impact by providing the health that permits children to take full advantage of an education to improve their well-being.

Rob Wiblin

Toby Ord on morality and helping others

Earlier this year our Founder and President 

, which features hour-long discussions with experts in the development community. It is operated by the 

, whose research is also often worth reading. Dr Ord draws on his research as a philosopher at the University of Oxford to talk about consequentialism and other moral theories, and their implications for our responsibilities to those in need around the world. Secondly, Dr Ord explains his personal decision to donate a substantial proportion of his income to the developing world, and shares the factors that guide his choice of recipients

While the key ideas covered will be familiar to Giving What We Can members, I learned a number of interesting new details and responses to critics from listening to it. It is also a good general introduction to our philosophy - and one you can enjoy while commuting, cleaning or jogging - so be sure to pass it around to your friends as well.

The Moral Imperative Towards Cost Effectiveness►

Giving What We Can

We are Recruiting!

If you've ever thought about working for Giving What We Can, now's your chance! We're looking for full-time staff and interns to help us grow GWWC and continue researching the most important issues in fighting global poverty.

We're hoping to hire a Head of Communications and/or a Head of Fundraising and External Relations. We're also looking for anyone with an interest in working or interning for us and valuable skills. To find out more, 

The first stage of the recruitment process is specially designed to be really quick- you'll fill in a little bit of basic information and then answer one question in 200 words or less. Everyone we've tested the question on thought it was pretty fun - although it does take a bit of serious thinking.

Our sister organisations are also recruiting. 80,000 Hours is looking for a Head of Career Research and Advice. Effective Animal Activism is looking for an Executive Director. The Life You Can Save is looking for a Director of Outreach. For more information on these other roles 

recruitment@centreforeffectivealtruism.org

Please note that the recruitment deadline has now passed.

Michelle Hutchinson

Happy Birthday Giving What We Can!

As of today, Giving What We Can has been going for three years. In that time, we've seen some amazing changes. As well as wishing the organisation a happy birthday, I wanted to very briefly use this opportunity to take stock of just how far we've come in three years.

What started off as a small group of friends banding together to put their ideas of helping others into practice is now a major international organisation. Our members have dramatically grown in number - we now have more than 250, who have together pledged nearly $100 million to the most cost-effective charities! Our community has also spread throughout the world, with chapters on three continents, and versions of the site in German, Spanish, French and Portuguese.

This past year has been one of big changes. Having been entirely volunteer-run for our first two years, we got to the point where that was no longer viable, and over the summer took on staff for the first time (of which I'm very excited to be one!). That increase in person-power allowed us to launch a new website, including this blog, which aims to keep everyone up-to-date with Giving What We Can's research and progress in a way that we weren't previously able to. It also allowed for an increase in our research, with our research into health being updated, and an expansion into other areas, such as climate change and political change. The website aims to be a comprehensive resource for anyone who would like to help people in poverty as effectively as possible. By working together, we can encourage each other and others to continue to fight against poverty, as well as discover the best ways of doing so.

If you're member who has been with us since the beginning, I hope you're proud of everything your organisation has accomplished. If you've recently joined, I hope you're excited about the commitment you've just made, and about joining this thriving community. If you're one our volunteers, I'd like to express my heartfelt gratitude to you for all your hard work, without which the achievements of the last few years wouldn't have been possible. If you're using the website as a resource to learn more about poverty and how to alleviate it, I hope you find everything you need, and let us know if you don't. And if you're new to the website - welcome!

William MacAskill

Researching What We Should

As you may have noticed, change is afoot in GWWC.

In the past, we feel that our research has been lacking in a few ways, including: a) We haven't made it clear, publicly, what our methodology has been for assessing charities; b) We haven't made it clear, publicly, what role GWWC has, relative to other charity evaluators; c) The website has not been updated regularly, so there's been a disconnect between our research - what we've known - and what's been broadcast publicly; d) We have spent fewer man-hours on research than was desirable. To a large extent, this has been because, until very recently, GWWC was run on an entirely voluntary basis. Now that we have full-time staff, we hope to be able to rectify these issues over time.

As a first step, this blog post and the next will explain our methodology in a little more detail.

The crucial question for any charity evaluator is: what metric to use? GWWC is solely focused on finding the most 

 charities: that is, the charities that have the highest ratio of good produced per dollar given to the charity. Along with 

, we are the only charity evaluators that are solely concerned with cost-effectiveness so understood. (1)

Explanation of what 'producing good' consists of.

The grain of truth in that question is that different people's conceptions of the good vary. Some people think that scientific knowledge is of value in itself; other people think that scientific knowledge is only valuable insofar as it improves the lives of others.

However, the sum total of human wellbeing is a component of any plausible moral view, and, on most moral views, increasing human wellbeing is the main way to do good in the world. For these reasons, it's this aspect that we focus on. If this is not a component of your moral view, then our research will not be of use to you (but then, if you aren't concerned by increasing human wellbeing, it's unlikely that giving to global poverty alleviation is your top priority). In future posts, we'll explain how to measure increases in human wellbeing.

Good question. A mistake to avoid is to think of producing good as to mean 

 good. To illustrate, consider two charities that one could give to. Charity A will save 10 lives with every $10 000 given to it; Charity B will save 5 lives with every $10 000 given to it. However, if you don't give $10 000 to Charity A, it will fill up its room for more funding from other donors (who wouldn't have given at all otherwise). Whereas if you don't give the $10 000 to Charity B, it will not fill up its room for more funding from additional donors. In this case, you should donate to Charity B rather than Charity A: though you directly cause 10 lives to be saved by donating to Charity A, you don't really do any additional good, because those lives would have been saved anyway. In contrast, you do make a difference (of 5 lives saved) by donating to Charity B.

Making this more precise: what producing good means is as follows. First, you consider two possibilities: (i) where you give $n to Charity X; (ii) where you burn the money. Now think: how good is the world in which (i) you give the money? And how good is the world (ii) in which you burn the money? The amount of good you produce by giving $n to charity X is the difference in the goodness of the world in which you do give, minus the goodness of the world in which you burn the money.(2)

Importantly, the above method means that all consequences are considered. So 'good produced' does not just mean "impact provable in a few years"; long-run consequences are just as relevant to cost-effectiveness as short-run consequences. Nor does 'good produced' mean 'the effect on the direct beneficiaries of an action'; effects on third parties are just as relevant as effects on direct beneficiaries.

But surely you can never know what organisation does the most good per dollar?

That's exactly right - we'll never know what the best charity is. However, that doesn't prevent charity recommendations from being possible. It just means that we need to think in terms of expected good. To see this concept in action, consider two donation opportunities. Donating $10 000 to charity A will certainly save one life. Donating $10 000 to charity B will probably (80% likelihood) save two lives; but has some chance (20%) of producing no benefit.

In general, to work out the expected value of an action X, you look at each possible outcome that could result from X; for each possible outcome, you multiply the probability of that outcome occurring by the goodness of that outcome, if it does occur; and you then take the sum of this product across all possible outcomes. So the expected value of donating $10 000 to charity A is 1 life x 100% = 1; whereas the expected value of donating $10 000 to charity B is 2 lives x 80% = 1.6.

The concept of expected value becomes especially important in situations of great uncertainty, such as charity evaluation. Further posts will discuss in more detail how to correctly apply this concept.

In principle, we're open to evidence from any source, and if certain sources prove to be particularly reliable or unreliable, we will alter which sources we rely on. In the past, we've used the latest peer-reviewed research from health and development economics, information from larger cost-effectiveness-focused academic projects such as the Disease Control Priorities in Developing Countries (2nd edition) and the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab, and on research from other charity evaluators, in particular from GiveWell. Like a growing number of organisations, we place particular weight on randomised controlled trials where they are available.

In the near future we will also begin publishing draft reports on topics and passing them around in order to to solicit additional information from experts and the public.

Sometimes, we have to rely more on 'back-of-the-envelope' calculations, and first-order research. This is especially true for some of the more conceptual, but potentially game-changing considerations.

Blog

The Community That Stays Together, Gives Together

The Copenhagen Challenge Paper for Education - What does it mean for fighting poverty?

Toby Ord on morality and helping others

We are Recruiting!

Happy Birthday Giving What We Can!

Researching What We Should

New Malaria Vaccine Trial Provides Variable Results

How Can We Model Vaccine Development?

Malaria in the News

Estimating the Effectiveness of DCP2 - Post 2