Effective altruism for jews
Donate to effective charities
We can do an incredible amount of good with a charitable donations–saving a life for as little a s few hundred dollars. How do we determine which charities are best?
Maxmize your charitable impact
Where we donate matters
We learned in the article on the importance of effectiveness that some charities are remarkably more effective than others. If you want to do the most good, how do you find those charities that are best? While you can do research on your own, luckily there are several charity evaluation organizations that focus specifically on identifying the best charities. We recommend you donate to these groups directly or to the charities they have identified as the most impactful.
One option is to use the EA Funds platform. EA funds employs a team of experts to guide your donation to the best projects and organizations they can find. EA funds is described in more detail below. Other options described in more detail below are to use an impact-focused charity evaluator. For instance:
- GiveWell evaluates global poverty charities.
- Animal Charity Evaluators evaluates charities focused on animal welfare.
You may also wish to consider pledging to give and joining the Giving What We Can or 1FortheWorld communities, taking a pledge to give a percentage of your income to effective charities. Each of these are discussed in more detail below.
high impact funds
EA funds
Effective Altruism Funds are expert-led philanthropic ‘funds’ that aim to maximize the effectiveness of your charitable donations. EA funds use expert-led teams of subject-matter experts, who look for the highest-impact opportunities to do good. Read more about EA funds here. EA funds include:
- The Global Health and Development Fund that aims to improve the health or economic empowerment of people around the world as effectively as possible.
- The Animal Welfare Fund that aims to effectively improve the well-being of nonhuman animals.
- The Long-Term Future Fund that aims to positively influence the long-term trajectory of civilization by making grants that address global catastrophic risks, especially potential risks from advanced artificial intelligence and pandemics.
- The Effective Altruism Infrastructure Fund that aims to increase the impact of projects that use the principles of effective altruism, by increasing their access to talent, capital, and knowledge.
Charity evaluator
GiveWell
GiveWell searches for charities that save or improve lives very effectively, with a high bar for evidence. They recommend a small number of charities that they believe do an incredible amount of good. Unlike charity evaluators that focus solely on financials, assessing administrative or fundraising costs, GiveWell conducts in-depth research aiming to determine how much good a given program accomplishes (in terms of lives saved, lives improved, etc.) per dollar spent.
Rather than try to rate as many charities as possible, they focus on the few charities that stand out most (by their criteria) in order to find and confidently recommend high-impact giving opportunities. They believe that there is exceptionally strong evidence for their top charities, and that $3,000–$5,000 in donations to some of those charities can save a life.
Animal welfare
Animal charity evaluators
ACE’s mission is to find and promote the most effective ways to help animals. To date ACE have considered over 350 animal charities for evaluation, awarded 46 grants from our Animal Advocacy Research Fund, and influenced over $26 million in donations to recommended charities and Movement Grants.
Do you have a lot to donate?
Large donors' organizations
More specialized pledging and effective giving organizations for both large donors (giving over $1m annually) and startup founders also exist, both of which have additional support and personalized consultation for donors making decisions about larger donations.
Make a pledge
Pledge to give
Giving What We Can is a community of thousands of people who have pledged to donate a portion of their income—often at least 10%—to the most effective charities, including some who are motivated to give by Judaism. Dedicating 10% of one’s income to charity has strong resonance with the traditional Jewish practice of ma’sar kesafim.
One for the World is a community of people who pledge to donate 1% or more of their income to the world’s most cost-effective charities, every month, for life. They update their portfolio every year, so your donations are always as impactful as possible, and make it easy to make your donations automatic.
Talk to us about effective donations
Support from EA for Jews
Within our community, we have people who have given a great deal of thought to where to donate. If you would like to be put in contact with other community members to discuss donation options. Please reach out to us here!
Take Action
In addition to donating to effective charities, you can also make an impact by using your career for good and getting involved with EA for Jews and the larger EA community!