Charity recommendations
My favorite charity evaluator, GiveWell, has announced its recommended charities for the year.
Last year's picks, Against Malaria Foundation (AMF) and the Schistosomiasis Control Initiative (SCI), are still highly recommended. AMF primarily distributes insecticide-treated bednets in the developing world to prevent malaria. SCI provides medication for tropical diseases, mostly parasitic infections, to children in Africa.
The newcomer this year is Give Directly, which makes unconditional cash grants to poor people in Kenya. It seems to have two advantages: in a field where it's often hard to tell what charities are doing with your donation, it's clear that Give Directly is giving out the cash. Also, if you value charity recipients' ability to choose what will most help themselves and their families, Give Directly is especially well suited to that.
The downside to Give Directly is that it's not clear what benefit comes of the cash transfers. There's evidence that people eat more food for a while after receiving the money, but any long-term effects are unclear. It sounds like GiveWell is planning to write more about why they chose this intervention, so I'll be interested to see what they have to say.
I think that donating to GiveWell's recommended charities has a benefit beyond the work they will do with your donation this year. It rewards organizations that can demonstrate their work is effective, which gives other charities an incentive to demonstrate and improve their effectiveness. I believe in data, and I believe that being more evidence-based will improve the work done by any charity.
Job openings
Giving What We Can, 80,000 Hours, The Life You Can Save, and Effective Animal Activism are all hiring. Details here. GiveWell is also hiring researchers.
Sunday, December 2, 2012
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
False sense of poverty
I'm a social worker in a jail. Today one of the inmates showed an untrained but intricate drawing to my colleague.
"This is amazing," she said. "Do you ever go to galleries to look at art?"
"I never had no money for that kind of stuff," he told her.
Later she vented her frustration: "There are so many free galleries he could have been going to! There are passes from the public library. If only he had known! But poor people just don't find out about these things."
I love museums, and I almost never pay to go inside them. I love books, and I can have almost any book for free through the library request system. There are more free events in this city than I could possibly attend.
These are some of the things that make my life rich. Even on a small budget, you needn't have an impoverished life.
"This is amazing," she said. "Do you ever go to galleries to look at art?"
"I never had no money for that kind of stuff," he told her.
Later she vented her frustration: "There are so many free galleries he could have been going to! There are passes from the public library. If only he had known! But poor people just don't find out about these things."
I love museums, and I almost never pay to go inside them. I love books, and I can have almost any book for free through the library request system. There are more free events in this city than I could possibly attend.
These are some of the things that make my life rich. Even on a small budget, you needn't have an impoverished life.
Friday, November 16, 2012
Ways to learn
Last time, I argued that those of us in rich countries can help more by earning money to give than by traveling to poor countries. But what about the understanding you can get from first-hand experience?
Travel is always a learning experience. It's a good way to see things about your own society that you never noticed until you saw a system that worked differently. It's a way to meet people whose lives have been very different from your own.
But most of my learning from living in other countries (Denmark and Ecuador) came from talking to people who had lived there all their lives. Conversations with my host families and teachers there were more illuminating than what I was able to observe walking around the streets. If you're in a place for a few weeks or months, you spend a lot of time getting your bearings. Unless you're going to spend years in a place, most of your learning will be mediated through people who have lived there a long time. And you don't need to leave your home country to meet people from around the world.
Several times when I've been between jobs, I've volunteered for a few weeks at a refugee services organization. I didn't accomplish anything earth-shattering, but I got to know people from places I had only read about: Nepal, Cuba, Ethiopia, Haiti, Somalia.
Instead of statistics, they became real people to me. I admired their bravery, their humor, their work ethic, and their loyalty to their families. When you listen to other people's life stories you get things through their filter, but when you hear enough stories you can piece together a complex picture.
Sometimes I hear “armchair philanthropists” criticized for not getting out there and seeing the situations they are trying to change. But you don't need to go to a refugee camp to hear someone's experience of what it's like there. If you want to meet people from hard-hit places, there are certainly immigrants living in your town.
For that matter, there are hard-hit people who are from your town. As a social worker I meet people who have been through appalling deprivation just miles from my house. But the elements I see missing in my client's lives are usually related to parenting rather than material resources.
Learning about people's experiences doesn't always mean I can help. Learning about what life is like in a Quito orphanage, Kenyan refugee camp, or South Boston doesn't enable me to fix any of it. Civil war and broken families are not problems that I can make much of a dent in. So I focus my donations on lower-hanging fruit.
But I still think there's value in learning from other people's experiences. Sitting down to talk with people from the other side of the tracks or the other side of the world can help us be more aware, more compassionate people.
In your town, there are refugees and immigrants who want to learn more English. There are kids at homeless shelters who want someone to read to them. There are people who want help writing a resume so they can apply for jobs. If you want to see a different side of life, try working with them for a while. No plane tickets needed.
Travel is always a learning experience. It's a good way to see things about your own society that you never noticed until you saw a system that worked differently. It's a way to meet people whose lives have been very different from your own.
But most of my learning from living in other countries (Denmark and Ecuador) came from talking to people who had lived there all their lives. Conversations with my host families and teachers there were more illuminating than what I was able to observe walking around the streets. If you're in a place for a few weeks or months, you spend a lot of time getting your bearings. Unless you're going to spend years in a place, most of your learning will be mediated through people who have lived there a long time. And you don't need to leave your home country to meet people from around the world.
Several times when I've been between jobs, I've volunteered for a few weeks at a refugee services organization. I didn't accomplish anything earth-shattering, but I got to know people from places I had only read about: Nepal, Cuba, Ethiopia, Haiti, Somalia.
Instead of statistics, they became real people to me. I admired their bravery, their humor, their work ethic, and their loyalty to their families. When you listen to other people's life stories you get things through their filter, but when you hear enough stories you can piece together a complex picture.
Sometimes I hear “armchair philanthropists” criticized for not getting out there and seeing the situations they are trying to change. But you don't need to go to a refugee camp to hear someone's experience of what it's like there. If you want to meet people from hard-hit places, there are certainly immigrants living in your town.
For that matter, there are hard-hit people who are from your town. As a social worker I meet people who have been through appalling deprivation just miles from my house. But the elements I see missing in my client's lives are usually related to parenting rather than material resources.
Learning about people's experiences doesn't always mean I can help. Learning about what life is like in a Quito orphanage, Kenyan refugee camp, or South Boston doesn't enable me to fix any of it. Civil war and broken families are not problems that I can make much of a dent in. So I focus my donations on lower-hanging fruit.
But I still think there's value in learning from other people's experiences. Sitting down to talk with people from the other side of the tracks or the other side of the world can help us be more aware, more compassionate people.
In your town, there are refugees and immigrants who want to learn more English. There are kids at homeless shelters who want someone to read to them. There are people who want help writing a resume so they can apply for jobs. If you want to see a different side of life, try working with them for a while. No plane tickets needed.
Monday, November 12, 2012
Getting your hands dirty
I was talking to a friend about ways to help the world, and he said something that surprised me: “I sometimes feel guilty about doing little more than donating money to charities without actually getting my hands dirty.”
Actually, I don't think he should feel guilty at all.
If I moved to a poor country to do good deeds, pretty much anything I would do there would be better done by a local person. I would need to learn the local language(s), learn how to function in a new culture, and learn skills that would be useful there.
If you're a nurse, and you think Africa needs more nurses, the answer is not to go to Africa and work as a nurse. Nurses in Kenya earn around $3,000 a year. If you're an American nurse earning $65,000 a year, you could fund thirteen Kenyan nurses and still keep above the US median income. Plus those nurses would be familiar with local culture and language rather than being known as “that nice foreigner who speaks such terrible Swahili.”
The idea that you should help in person is perpetuated by programs like the Peace Corps. (I came within an inch of going to Kazakhstan for two years with them, and in retrospect I think I did a lot more good by staying home and earning money to give.) I do think Peace Corps and similar programs have a positive impact, but it's mostly in the form of cultural exchange and understanding rather than actual development work.
Now, things are different if you have very specific skills. If you're an expert in, say, microfinance or running small rural health clinics, you might be very valuable working in the field. But the rest of us can probably help more by staying home and doing what we do best. Most jobs will provide us with enough money to live comfortably and still fund good work elsewhere.
Of course, there's value to cultural exchange and hands-on experience, too. Are we doomed to be armchair philanthropists who are clueless about the real needs of people we're trying to help? Hardly. More on that next time.
Actually, I don't think he should feel guilty at all.
If I moved to a poor country to do good deeds, pretty much anything I would do there would be better done by a local person. I would need to learn the local language(s), learn how to function in a new culture, and learn skills that would be useful there.
If you're a nurse, and you think Africa needs more nurses, the answer is not to go to Africa and work as a nurse. Nurses in Kenya earn around $3,000 a year. If you're an American nurse earning $65,000 a year, you could fund thirteen Kenyan nurses and still keep above the US median income. Plus those nurses would be familiar with local culture and language rather than being known as “that nice foreigner who speaks such terrible Swahili.”
The idea that you should help in person is perpetuated by programs like the Peace Corps. (I came within an inch of going to Kazakhstan for two years with them, and in retrospect I think I did a lot more good by staying home and earning money to give.) I do think Peace Corps and similar programs have a positive impact, but it's mostly in the form of cultural exchange and understanding rather than actual development work.
Now, things are different if you have very specific skills. If you're an expert in, say, microfinance or running small rural health clinics, you might be very valuable working in the field. But the rest of us can probably help more by staying home and doing what we do best. Most jobs will provide us with enough money to live comfortably and still fund good work elsewhere.
Of course, there's value to cultural exchange and hands-on experience, too. Are we doomed to be armchair philanthropists who are clueless about the real needs of people we're trying to help? Hardly. More on that next time.
Thursday, October 11, 2012
The lives of children
As a social worker, I hear a lot of stories. Yesterday I sat with a man who told me about the death of his young daughter fifteen years ago. "She died in my hands. I still have flashbacks from those days in the hospital." He stared at his hands, cupping them as though he still held her. Fifteen years later, the pain was still very real.
I, like many others, tend to use children as examples of the life we can save. I think children represent hope and potential, and we instinctively want to protect them. But there's also a more logical reason: children's lives are easier to protect.
Some of the best health intervention charities (like Against Malaria Foundation and Schistosomiasis Control Initiative) focus on children. Malaria can make anyone sick, but it's most likely to kill children under 5. Children are also more vulnerable to parasitic infections. Luckily, these things are easy to prevent or treat - much easier than cancer or heart disease, which mostly affect adults. And because the first five years are the most dangerous, a child who makes it to his fifth birthday is likely to live to see 60, even in poor countries.
When someone dies, I think the worst cost is borne by the survivors. When a child dies at age three, she loses the potential of her life, but her pain is over. But for her parents, the loss lasts the rest of their lives. In most cases, I think the loss of an old person doesn't hurt us as much as the loss of a child. It is the loss of the future that hurts so much, the loss of someone who was supposed to outlive you.
When I think about saving children's lives, I mostly think about their parents. I think about people like that father, staring at his empty hands.
His child is gone, but there are others we can save. And it's not just their lives that are spared, but the lives of everyone who loves them.
Photo credit: Ravages / Foter / CC BY-NC-SA
I, like many others, tend to use children as examples of the life we can save. I think children represent hope and potential, and we instinctively want to protect them. But there's also a more logical reason: children's lives are easier to protect.
Some of the best health intervention charities (like Against Malaria Foundation and Schistosomiasis Control Initiative) focus on children. Malaria can make anyone sick, but it's most likely to kill children under 5. Children are also more vulnerable to parasitic infections. Luckily, these things are easy to prevent or treat - much easier than cancer or heart disease, which mostly affect adults. And because the first five years are the most dangerous, a child who makes it to his fifth birthday is likely to live to see 60, even in poor countries.
When someone dies, I think the worst cost is borne by the survivors. When a child dies at age three, she loses the potential of her life, but her pain is over. But for her parents, the loss lasts the rest of their lives. In most cases, I think the loss of an old person doesn't hurt us as much as the loss of a child. It is the loss of the future that hurts so much, the loss of someone who was supposed to outlive you.
When I think about saving children's lives, I mostly think about their parents. I think about people like that father, staring at his empty hands.
His child is gone, but there are others we can save. And it's not just their lives that are spared, but the lives of everyone who loves them.
Photo credit: Ravages / Foter / CC BY-NC-SA
Sunday, September 9, 2012
Ugh fields and big problems
One of my favorite concepts from the Less Wrong blog is the "ugh field," coined by Jennifer Rodriguez-Müller. The idea: if you hate washing the dishes, not only do you leave the dishes unwashed, but you hate thinking about the mounting pile of dirty dishes. The more you dislike thinking about the dishes, you harder you try not to think about them at all. In other words, there's an ugh field around the dishes. (In psychology this would be called some kind of defense mechanism, probably denial or thought suppression. But I find "ugh field" so much more descriptive.)
This summer I wanted to learn to play the banjo. In the past, I've quickly lost momentum when trying to learn an instrument. My husband plays about six instruments, so I've used his method for painless musicianship:
- Keep the instrument in plain view where it's easy to pick up for a few minutes in between other activities.
- No scales, exercises, or anything you don't enjoy.
- Spend time fooling around with the instrument, playing whatever you want.
I realize that most of the best musicians do practice scales, etc., but that requires more discipline than I was willing to put into this project. Using Jeff's method means I don't have an ugh field around practice, so I've made decent progress with the banjo this summer.
When a task seems insurmountable, we're less likely to attempt it at all. I think all of us have an ugh field around the fact that there are more problems in the world than we can possibly solve. I don't think our minds can really comprehend that, even if we tried. And most so most people build a very strong ugh field around the topic.
I think it's worthwhile to chip off bits that are more manageable. I can't become a banjo expert this week, nor can I fix the Sahel food crisis. But I can decide that before I go to bed tonight, I'll put in twenty minutes. Maybe I'll read up on different charities, or maybe I'll write an email to a friend about a cause I think is important. If I keep the plan manageable, I'm more likely to actually do it.
I'll go to bed knowing I didn't do everything, but I did something. And that will make it easier to do something else tomorrow.
This summer I wanted to learn to play the banjo. In the past, I've quickly lost momentum when trying to learn an instrument. My husband plays about six instruments, so I've used his method for painless musicianship:
- Keep the instrument in plain view where it's easy to pick up for a few minutes in between other activities.
- No scales, exercises, or anything you don't enjoy.
- Spend time fooling around with the instrument, playing whatever you want.
I realize that most of the best musicians do practice scales, etc., but that requires more discipline than I was willing to put into this project. Using Jeff's method means I don't have an ugh field around practice, so I've made decent progress with the banjo this summer.
When a task seems insurmountable, we're less likely to attempt it at all. I think all of us have an ugh field around the fact that there are more problems in the world than we can possibly solve. I don't think our minds can really comprehend that, even if we tried. And most so most people build a very strong ugh field around the topic.
I think it's worthwhile to chip off bits that are more manageable. I can't become a banjo expert this week, nor can I fix the Sahel food crisis. But I can decide that before I go to bed tonight, I'll put in twenty minutes. Maybe I'll read up on different charities, or maybe I'll write an email to a friend about a cause I think is important. If I keep the plan manageable, I'm more likely to actually do it.
I'll go to bed knowing I didn't do everything, but I did something. And that will make it easier to do something else tomorrow.
Thursday, September 6, 2012
Upcoming events
The High Impact Network (THINK) is a new group that organizes meetups for people interested in effective altruism. They've got meetups happening this fall in dozens of cities - find out if there's one near you.
Giving What We Can is running groups in several cities this fall. Jeez, those Oxford people are on a roll.
I believe 80,000 Hours will also be running some groups this fall, but they don't have details up yet. The Life You Can Save is looking for leaders for new student groups.
Lastly, Jeff and I are having a dinner/discussion on effective giving September 14th at our house. If you'll be in Boston, let me know.
I've said this before, but I'm totally happy to talk/email/skype with you. Some key people did that for me when I was discovering this movement, and it really made a difference to me. Questions? Arguments? Go for it. juliawise07(at)gmail.com
Giving What We Can is running groups in several cities this fall. Jeez, those Oxford people are on a roll.
I believe 80,000 Hours will also be running some groups this fall, but they don't have details up yet. The Life You Can Save is looking for leaders for new student groups.
Lastly, Jeff and I are having a dinner/discussion on effective giving September 14th at our house. If you'll be in Boston, let me know.
I've said this before, but I'm totally happy to talk/email/skype with you. Some key people did that for me when I was discovering this movement, and it really made a difference to me. Questions? Arguments? Go for it. juliawise07(at)gmail.com
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