Effective Altruism Australia

What problem is Effective Altruism Australia working on?

Australia is a wealthy country, where 60% of people donate to charity. This puts Australians in an excellent position to improve the lives of others. However, most of that money is spent domestically, and only a small fraction on the world's most effective charities.

Effective Altruism Australia (EAA) helps Australians discover ways of making their time and money go further, and provides them with a community of like-minded people trying to do the same.

What does Effective Altruism Australia do?

EAA makes it easier for Australians to donate to the world's most effective charities by partnering with those charities and regranting to them. It maintains best-practice transparency and integrity processes so Australians can donate to those charities with confidence.

EAA currently serves two core functions: it’s both a giving multiplier and community-building hub.

• As a giving multiplier, EAA allows Australians to make tax-deductible donations to all GiveWell Top Charities. Donors may select their own charities or give to EAA, who then works with GiveWell to identify where their donations will have the most impact. In 2021–2022, EAA regranted over $5 million AUD to its partner charities. You can learn more about its impact in its payout reports.
• As a community-building hub, EAA has received grants to build the effective altruism community in Australia. Despite its relatively small population (ranked #55 globally), Australia has the fourth-largest population of effective altruists in the world. The community is a large source of EAA’s long-term donors, and building this community helps donors feel more connected, increase their personal impact, and ultimately do more good.

Why is Effective Altruism Australia one of our top-rated charities?

EAA meets our criteria to be a top-rated charity based on the recommendation of one of our trusted evaluators, Founders Pledge. Founders Pledge has conducted a report on giving multipliers as a high-impact cause area, and found that EAA was highly cost-effective (though the complete analysis has not been published). Founders Pledge also provided two grants to EAA: one for $50,000 USD and one for €78,000.

There are several potential conflicts of interest we would like to highlight here, which we also share on our transparency page:

• Sjir Hoeijmakers, Director of Research at Giving What We Can, formerly worked as a Senior Researcher at Founders Pledge. In that time, he contributed to the research on giving multipliers and the evaluation of EAA.
• Three staff members at Giving What We Can (Luke Freeman, Michael Townsend, and Grace Adams) are employed by EAA. Notably, their work is funded by a grant from the Effective Ventures Foundation. Donations from this page are restricted to EAA's core operations (such as maintaining its website, donation platform, and core operational funding) and will not directly contribute to Giving What We Can staff salaries.
• Luke Freeman (Executive Director at Giving What We Can) was formerly a board member at EAA.

We decided to continue with giving top-rated status to EAA, in line with our inclusion criteria. This is consistent with our approach of deferring to our trusted evaluators: charitable giving experts who focus on impact. Learn more about charity evaluators we trust and why.

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.