Centre for Effective Altruism

The Centre for Effective Altruism is not currently seeking new donations, but we will update this page when it is.

What problem is the Centre for Effective Altruism working on?

Everyone wants to do good, but many ways of doing good are ineffective. The effective altruism community is focused on finding ways of doing good that actually work.

Effective altruism is both an intellectual project, using evidence and reason to figure out how to benefit others as much as possible, and a practical project — taking action based on this research, and building a radically better world.

What does the Centre for Effective Altruism do?

The Centre for Effective Altruism (CEA) is dedicated to nurturing a community of people who are thinking carefully about the world’s biggest problems and taking impactful action to solve them. CEA believes that this community can help to build a radically better world: so far it has helped to save over 150,000 lives, reduced the suffering of millions of farmed animals, and begun to address some of the biggest risks to humanity’s future.

CEA does this by:

• Helping people consider their ideas, values, and options for and about helping.
• Connecting people to advisors and experts in relevant domains.
• Facilitating high-quality discussion spaces.

Based on survey data, CEA believes that this helps people find an effective way to contribute that is a good fit for their skills and inclinations.

Specifically, CEA:

Runs EA Global conferences and supporting community-organised EAGx conferences.

Funds and advises local effective altruism groups.

Builds and moderates the EA Forum, an online hub for discussing the ideas of effective altruism.

Supports community members through its community health team.

Produces the Effective Altruism Newsletter, which goes out to more than 50,000 subscribers.

Runs effectivealtruism.org, which hosts a collection of useful resources.

What evidence is there of CEA’s effectiveness?

CEA has received significant grants from Open Philanthropy, which found that CEA’s work was one of the most important factors causing people to do useful work aimed at reducing existential risk and improving the long-term future.

CEA meets our criteria to be listed on our donation platform because one of our trusted evaluators, Longview Philanthropy, has made grants to CEA based on Longview’s assessment that CEA is highly cost-effective. (Our trusted evaluators are charitable giving experts who focus on impact — their research into the best charities means your donations can do even more good. Learn more about charity evaluators we trust and why.)

Note that we, CEA, and Longview are all part of Effective Ventures — see our transparency page.

Why donate through the Giving What We Can donation platform?

Your donations through our portal are tax deductible in the UK, US, and the Netherlands. Giving What We Can does not take any fees from donors using our platform or from charities listed on our platform. We are independently funded to promote our mission of making giving effectively and significantly a cultural norm. Read more on our transparency page.