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Stefan Shaw

Louise Kihlberg

The news of the latest earthquake affecting Turkey and Syria is devastating. In this post, we discuss how effective donations to disaster relief are and what to keep in mind if you want to donate to support the recovery efforts in Turkey and Syria.

Turkey and Syria earthquake: Effective donation advice

The news that is currently reaching us from Syria and Turkey is devastating. The number of victims is revised upwards almost every hour. As of this writing, there are already over 

. The images are even worse, such as the photos of rescuers recovering bleeding and distressed infants from the rubble. And perhaps worst of all, imagining people still lying beneath the ruins calling for help while their loved ones try to reach them with their bare hands.

With the pictures and the news, human suffering reaches us unfiltered. What is happening there is beyond imagination.

Many people worldwide want to help and are looking for ways to support the rescue work through donations.

Experience shows that acute disasters accompanied by heartbreaking images trigger a desire to help in many people. In countries around the world, this can lead to enormous amounts of donations.

However, a very high volume of donations triggered by an acute disaster can sometimes lead to individual organisations receiving more money 

The horrific earthquake in Haiti in 2010 is an example of this. The overwhelming global support response meant that billions of aid funds had to be spent in Haiti, even when there were no longer any meaningful uses for the money. These organisations are often legally obliged to use the donations for the purpose defined by the donor — 

even if it no longer brings the recipients value.

At the same time as events such as those currently occurring in Turkey and Syria, other “silent” catastrophes are taking place worldwide. Unlike earthquakes, they do not suddenly appear — they have always been there. They rarely feature in international reporting because the newsworthy angle is missing and there is a lack of powerful images that capture attention.

One of these silent catastrophes is the young children dying daily from preventable diseases. 

More than 1,300 children die every day from malaria alone

, which can be prevented by providing simple interventions like mosquito nets. These deaths are like an earthquake occurring every day. And because this suffering goes largely unnoticed by the world, donations in fields like this are low — even though 

the life of a child can be saved here with just a few thousand dollars

, and many more children can be saved from pain and suffering.

But you can also look at it differently: Precisely because the high infant mortality rate from malaria is not the subject of ongoing reporting and the amount of donations is low, an individual can achieve a great deal here with their donation.

This is why Giving What We Can continue to recommend their 

, even in light of current disasters. The brutal and heartbreaking truth is that we do not have enough resources to help everyone. We believe individuals are likely to do more good by donating to these ongoing “silent” catastrophes.

What to consider when deciding to donate to the crisis in Turkey and Syria

Understandably, we strongly desire to contribute to acute crises, even when it is not where the money could make the most significant difference.

If you choose to donate to the situation in Turkey and Syria, here are some general tips to ensure your money goes the furthest.

Support an organisation with skills and experience.

Before donating your money to a charity, you should research to ensure they are running a well-coordinated effort with a professional approach and experience. If you can’t find an independent third-party evaluation, consider donating to a charity with better evidence supporting its work.

Act with consideration instead of making a quick decision. Rather than donating to the organisations that reach you quickly through outreach, take the time to find organisations with a high level of competence and the most significant potential to make a difference with your contributions.

Make sure your contribution will be used where it is most needed — even if it is not for this specific crisis.

Crises that receive a lot of attention can lead to an abundance of charitable giving, which can mean that money is not the limiting factor in how much help can be given (instead there might be other operational factors). If you don’t earmark your gift for a specific disaster, the organisation can choose where your money can make the most significant difference. Experience shows that money is sometimes left unused (as in Haiti in 2010).

Ensure that your gift will be used effectively by reviewing how the organisation reports its efforts and results.

Added 15 Feb 2022: Our friends at EA Turkey have compiled a 

 that may be well placed to help during the current disaster. These organisations have not been looked into for their effectiveness but we are sharing this list as potential organisations to look into if you did want to support the recovery efforts.

Thank you to Stefan Shaw and Louise Kihlberg for authoring this post.

Stefan Shaw is the Founder and Head of Philanthropy at Effektiv Spenden.

Louise Kihlberg works with communications for Ge Effektivt in Sweden.

Jon Lumer

Jon Lumer, a former attorney who started Western Pine Realty in Vancouver Canada shared his story with effective giving with us and we wanted to share it. Jon and his wife signed the Giving What We Can Pledge in July of 2020. They've now donated over $50,000 to effective charities and advocate for effective giving through the business.

Member Story: Western Pine Realty


On August 29, 2016, I heard Will MacAskill on the Making Sense podcast. The notion that a person could in fact save another person's life with what seemed like a relatively small amount of money was a revelation. The idea that this created some sort of obligation to do 

 was also immediately persuasive. I read Doing Good Better shortly thereafter and this conviction was reinforced.


I sent $1,000 to the Against Malaria Foundation at the end of November that year. Certainly this was the biggest donation I had ever made in my life at the time. Feeling confident that the money would actually do something made all the difference.


In 2015 I had stopped practicing criminal defense law in Montreal, moved across Canada with my wife, and began working in residential real estate sales in Vancouver, British Columbia by the middle of 2016. It wasn't easy getting off the ground, but I could see that the people around me were often making astounding incomes. We were living a nice life off much less. If we made a lot more, would we need it all? Could we justify keeping it or did others need it more? The answer was fairly obvious after reading Will's book.


We tried to become regular givers. It felt empowering when we made a big donation. But the giving could be sporadic. My income, entirely made from sales commissions, was (and is) unpredictable. How much did we need to save for lean times? How should we systematize the giving? Nevertheless, a seed had been planted and we kept giving and increasing our donations. I also felt like an evangelist for effective giving now. I wanted friends to know about GiveWell and effective altruism. I wanted my clients to know.


In July of 2020 my wife and I signed the Giving What We Can pledge. We were ready to commit to giving at least 10% of our income to effective charities for the rest of our lives. We also started our own real estate brokerage shortly thereafter.


By the middle of 2021, we had decided to make all of our donations via the corporation. More and more, I liked the idea of our brand being tied to the effective altruism movement. This would keep us more accountable and hopefully would help spread a message as well.


I decided that even though we couldn't fully anticipate our costs throughout the year and where we would be at the end of the year, it made sense to make our donations as soon as commissions were received. I have found it much easier to give if I do it before I start to even think the money is mine.


We started to give clients the choice of who would receive the money connected with their transactions from a predetermined list of GiveWell's top charities and eventually a couple from Life You Can Save.


We celebrated these donations by giving out sweaters with one of our logos on them and taking photos. We shared these on social media.


By the end of 2022, we had given away $50,000 (Canadian) through the corporation to effective charities over 18 months. For us, this is major. We plan to keep up with this giving and hope we can increase the dollar figure and proportion of giving year over year. We also wanted to put an emphasis on transparency, so we made all of the receipts available to our clients as well.



We have offered clients a free copy of Doing Good Better with every transaction and a few have taken us up on it. One client took us up on an offer to match any additional donation they made to one of the charities up to an amount of $1,000. I'd say we have received a lot of positive feedback.


But the truth is we are not sure of any impact beyond the money that has been donated and we are happy enough with that. This kind of giving feels like a big part of lives now and it makes work feel more meaningful. It makes everything more meaningful.

" series, which profiles a selection of the Giving What We Can community. The Giving What We Can community is comprised of people from all walks of life, with different perspectives and motivations for giving – all united by their desire to make a significant commitment to use their income to effectively help others. 

-Read more 

 to help inspire others to give more, and more effectively.

For more information about Giving What We Can, we recommend you check out our 

Luke Furness

Member Profile: Luke Furness

We recently spoke with Luke Furness, an Australian lawyer who started his effective giving journey after picking up a book during COVID lockdowns. He also was the previous CEO of Out for Australia, a national LGBTI+ student mentoring non-profit, and currently volunteers at his local community kitchen. 

Tell us about yourself. What keeps you busy and what makes you tick?

Day-to-day, I'm a lawyer at a major Australian law firm. I love dancing (hip hop please), bird watching, having friends round for dinner, and reading books (particularly moral philosophy).

I drifted into law on autopilot because I got the grades in school, because I was good at debating, and because it seemed prestigious and secure. It turns out I really like it (the intellectual challenge, the strategy, and working with some super smart people), but I only discovered that much later.

I've kind of always been a joiner and wanted to do "extracurriculars". I had leadership roles in quite a few university societies and so was keen to contribute in my working life too. I also kind of stumbled into Out for Australia, an Australian nonprofit, too. I found them before LGBTI inclusion initiatives had really taken off and was keen to see more of them in my own home town of Brisbane, Australia. I was attracted to the idea of supporting LGBTI students transition into the workplace because I wasn't out when I first started at my law firm. I started as the Queensland director and then got the chance to apply for the CEO position which was my first leadership position in a non-profit and something I'm really proud of.

Tell us about your effective giving journey.

It all started in COVID when it felt like the world was falling apart and I did a lot of thinking about what there was to live for. I stumbled into a bookstore on the Sunshine Coast and picked up a book on a whim - Hugh Mackay's 

. The bookshop owner said "you'll enjoy that," and I did. It was the first book that showed me that a good life is a life lived for others and I've been looking at ways to make an impact ever since. The book taught me a few things:

First, that happiness is a fleeting emotion. While happiness is a great thing, having your own, personal happiness as a life goal seems difficult and unfulfilling. Second, that living a good life must mean a life lived for others, even if you don't know them or even particularly like them. Third, that most people discover that way too late in life and spend too much time barking up a succession of wrong trees. Why not start right now?

I think I was sold by the logic of effective altruism. It seemed right that if I can give up a little to prevent a lot of suffering, then I probably should. I also thought that it was a bit of a cop out to expect the billionaires to do all the giving. There are many of us living comfortable, middle-class lives in western countries, but that have some resources to spare.

I was very apprehensive at first about donating even 1%. I remember (embarrassingly) feeling like I was a sucker for giving away "so much" to people I'd never meet when I didn't know anyone who did the same. Now, I give 10% and barely notice, which proves just how lucky I am and how I should have been doing this for years.

Why did you take the Giving What We Can pledge?

To keep myself committed. I liked the idea for a life-long commitment, particularly as I got married this year too!

What are the issues in the world that you care most deeply about?

Ending extreme poverty. It just seems such an obvious proposition that there are still people in extreme need of financial assistance to have a chance at a quality life.  There are a lot of causes that we don't know whether they help or not, but I was convinced by the research from organisations like GiveWell that there are effective ways to get the money and supplies to those that need it.

Which organisations do you give to (and why)?

Effective Altruism Australia. I just let them do the split. I figure if I agree with the logic of effective altruism, I can leave it to the experts to work out the best way to use my money.

At the start, yes. Not anymore. It actually gives me great contentment now to know that I'm giving back.

Do you have any examples of times where you decided to not spend money on something your peers would have?

I live far more modestly than I once did. I remember being in Florence when I was 19 and buying a pair of EUR 360 shoes! That's embarrassing to me now. My last pair of shoes came from K Mart.

Do you try to effect change in any other way?

I've volunteered across several LGBTI+ organisations and was the CEO of Out for Australia, a national LGBTI+ student mentoring non-profit. I also volunteer at my local community kitchen. Despite a strong belief in effective altruism's internationalism, I still find myself drawn to poverty alleviation in my own city.

What suggestions do you have for other people considering the pledge?

Just start by giving a really small amount. It could be the 1% trial pledge or even something less. Then increase it over time like I did. Once inspiration strikes, set up a recurring transfer. Once that's set up, it's "set and forget" and if you're lucky like me, you won't even notice it's gone.

Have any books or documentaries or articles or studies significantly changed the way you see giving?

Have you found anything to be helpful in talking to people about effective giving?

Just talk about what you're doing and how it gives you joy. Don't couch it as things that they should be doing. Be empathetic to responses like "I can't give that much because..." People don't like being told what to do.

Are there any other concrete ways that Giving What We Can has helped you?

I think that there is a warm glow you get from knowing that there are whole organisations out there dedicated to helping people find the answers to living a good life and giving out things, like the pledge certificate, for free. It's cause for great optimism.

For this interview with spoke with Luke Furness, an Australian lawyer who started his effective giving journey after picking up a book during COVID lockdowns. He also was a previous CEO of Out for Australia, a national LGBTI+ student mentoring non-profit and volunteers at his local community kitchen. 

Alana Horowitz Friedman

Aren’t the best charities those with the lowest overhead costs?

I used to be heavily sceptical about charitable giving. I wanted to help others, but worried that my charitable donations might be doing little more than alleviating my own guilt. After all, how could I know that my money was actually 

The pile of address labels, stickers, and greeting cards arriving in the mail from charities I didn’t even donate to certainly didn’t inspire confidence; why were charities spending precious funds on unsolicited address labels while simultaneously putting out “urgent funding appeals” left and right?

Because I wasn’t sure how to evaluate the impact of a charity’s programs, I instead would focus on a charity’s spending habits: in other words, I would use Charity Navigator or a similar website to look up the percentage of funds spent directly on the charity’s programs vs. on administrative costs/CEO pay. I told myself that the charities spending the most on their programs must be better than those spending more on overhead.

I was certainly not alone in my method for choosing charities. Many donors use this ratio (emphasised by several charity evaluation websites) to determine where to give. And it makes sense on a surface level, especially since it’s fairly common to lump charities into one general “doing good“ bucket, without stopping to consider the differences between them. If you believe all charitable programs are doing roughly equal amounts of good, then those that funnel 

 money to their “doing good” programs surely must be better than those that funnel 

Right? Wrong. While I’m still sceptical of what I’ll term “the address label brand” of charity outreach, 

I no longer believe that the ratio of a charity’s administrative costs to program costs is a good way to determine whether my donations will make a difference.

That said, before getting into the nitty-gritty, I want to be clear on one important point: shaking what is often called “the overhead myth” doesn’t mean I’ve lost the impulse to question where my donation is going. In fact, now that I know there’s more to evaluating a charity than examining its spending habits, I’ve actually become

far pickier about where I donate. As a result, I’m more confident that 

the causes and charities I choose to support

What is the overhead myth and why does it matter?

In brief, “the overhead myth” is the mistaken (but widely held) belief that charities with lower overhead costs are more effective.

It matters because most of us donate to help people, society, or the world in some way. Finding a more accurate way to determine which charities best help us achieve those goals is certainly useful.

So if you — or people you know — have been using the 

ratio as a measure of a charity’s efficacy, here are a few reasons to reconsider that approach.

Why aren’t overhead costs a good measure of a charity’s impact?

First and foremost, “overhead costs” don’t tell us anything about the 

 of a charity’s programs. To determine whether our donations will be impactful, we need to know what will happen as a result of donating, and then choose the option that helps the beneficiaries the most. While overhead costs should certainly be kept 

there are several issues with relying on the overhead ratio to determine a charity’s impact:

Overhead costs don’t consider differences in program efficacy

Not all charitable programs are equally effective. Perhaps the most obvious issue with choosing charities based on their overhead costs is that we’re neglecting to factor in 

Will MacAskill, a co-founder of Giving What We Can, offers a silly (but eye-opening) example in Chapter 7 of his book 

. He asks the reader to imagine that he has created “a charity that distributes doughnuts to hungry policy officers.” In MacAskill’s example, the majority of donor funds are spent directly on the program itself — buying and distributing doughnuts — and only 0.1 percent is spent on overhead. He then asks the reader, “Would I really have created an amazing charity? Surely…what we should ultimately care about is the 

charities have. When you give a hundred dollars to a charity…how are people’s lives improved as a result?” (MacAskill 108).

You may think that it’s fairly obvious whether or not a charity’s programs are worthwhile, and that you’d be able to tell just by reading a bit about what the charity does. After all, after hearing the description of MacAskill’s doughnut charity, you’d likely know there were better places to funnel your hard-earned resources!

But program efficacy isn’t always so simple, or intuitive. There are countless examples of 

charities that sound amazing on paper but end up doing little to improve the lives of others

. That’s why it’s important to closely 

 behind the programs a charity is running, rather than just relying on the program’s description or marketing. Stark differences in program efficacy and other factors simply aren’t captured by looking at overhead spending, and can end up making one charity 

It may not be logical to separate “overhead” from “program costs,” since this distinction isn’t clear cut

We’re used to thinking about overhead and program costs as two very distinct spending buckets. But if we really stop to examine what overhead is, this separation begins to break down. In fact, without overhead spending, there wouldn’t be any program spending at all! Why?

 Because “overhead” is merely the people, resources, and tools needed to run an organisation

. To run its programs effectively, an organisation needs to hire talented people to keep it afloat (overhead!)  and fundraise to drive money to its programs (also overhead!) If an organisation doesn’t run effectively, it won’t be able to run its programs well. So why the insistence that charities should spend as little on overhead as possible?

Part of this may have to do with a misconception that the business rule of “spending money to make money” doesn’t apply in the nonprofit sector. Dan Palotta attempted to remedy this misconception in 

, and soon after, some well-known charity evaluators apparently 

attempted to correct their embrace and promotion of the overhead myth

. However, despite some moves within these organisations to focus more on impact, it seems like this change has yet to take hold. Charity Navigator, for example, still uses percentages of program, administration, and fundraising spending as part of

 a charity’s “financial health” rating

. The organisation acknowledges that “effective charities must recruit, develop, and retain talented people,” but they also state that “Givers support charities for their programs and services, not for their ability to raise money.”

While this is certainly true, it’s kind of like saying that farmers are useful for their ability to 

. Since their ability to grow crops directly affects their ability to provide food, this statement isn’t entirely logical. Unless a charity was only fundraising to cover the cost of fundraising staff (equivalent in our metaphor to a farmer 

 with no plans for distribution), donors and charity evaluators 

 acknowledge that more money raised often means more money funnelled to a charity’s programs/services!

Contrary to popular belief, low overhead may be correlated with 

Much has been written about the dangers of charities skimping on overhead to meet donor expectations. We already touched on the well-known 

, which goes into detail about some of these dangers. Jonathan Meer, 

, writes that too much donor focus on overhead “can lead charities to underinvest in crucial operating infrastructure, especially skilled workers, thereby diminishing their ability to deliver services.” This topic is also explored in an article entitled “

,” in which the authors open with the statement: “Organisations that build robust infrastructure—which includes sturdy information technology systems, financial systems, skills training, fundraising processes, and other essential overhead—are more likely to succeed than those that do not. This is not news, and nonprofits are no exception to the rule.” In fact, it turns out some nonprofit organisations 

even engage in misleading reporting/significant underreporting of their overhead costs

, likely because of stringent (and misguided) donor expectations.

 a good measure of a charity’s efficacy?

Even if examining the ratio of overhead to program spending did

help us make informed decisions about choosing charities (and I hope you agree by now that it doesn’t), this metric does very little to narrow down our giving options. The result of so many charities striving to meet overhead expectations (whether through underspending, misleading reporting, or both) is that an overwhelming number of organisations — differing widely in their efficacy — trumpet low administrative costs. Over 250 charities are listed by the website Charity Watch as “top-rated,” a categorization that necessitates (among other criteria) spending at least 75% of their budget on programs. Thus, even if we assumed that low overhead was a good way of determining where to donate, we would 

 need a framework for deciding between all the charities meeting this criteria.

Interestingly, the website CharityWatch acknowledges this, stating on their “Top-Rated Charities” page, “Because many factors determine a worthy charity, we at CharityWatch suggest that you use the ratings on this page not as the sole determining factor in your decision, but rather as an aid.” Unfortunately, the page does not mention what these other factors might be, nor provide information about the (arguably) most important factor for determining the efficacy of a charity — 

Cost-effectiveness: everything you thought overhead was and more

Blog

Turkey and Syria earthquake: Effective donation advice

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Member Profile: Luke Furness

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