How to Be an Effective Altruist

Maximizing Your Potential Impact on the World

Pursue a career where you have the potential to make a big impact. Some effective altruists choose jobs that provide the highest wage because a high income allows one to donate more money to effective charities and, therefore, to have a greater impact. Some good options to consider include: Investment banking, computer programming, hedge fund management, or engineering. High wage jobs like these will mean that you have lots of money to donate and that you will be able to make a bigger impact with your donations. Government jobs where you might rise into a decision making position, such as a position with the World Bank, UNICEF, etc. Although you may not make as much money working for a government organization, by moving up in the ranks, you will be able to make decisions about how money is allocated and thereby you could find yourself in a position to multiply by 5 or 10 times the cost-effectiveness of a budget in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Prioritization research is an emerging field that may be well suited to someone with research experience. Prioritization researchers conduct research on organizations, interventions, and policies to figure out which ones are the most effective and beneficial.

Avoid lower impact career options. Steer clear of careers that seem like you will be able to help people, but realistically your total impact on the world will be small. Although traditional altruists may gravitate towards helping professions, effective altruists question whether these careers allow one to make the greatest possible impact in the lives of others.

Consider the impact that your income may have over your lifetime. Even if a job seems like it will allow you to help others, compare your potential impact in a low wage helping career versus a high wage career. For example, if you earn $50,000 per year you may only be able to donate $5,000 per year over the course of your career, which would amount to $150,000 in 30 years. However, if you earned $150,000 per year, you might be able to donate half of that income or $75,000 per year, which would make your lifetime contribution $2,250,000. That amount of money, if donated to the most effective charities, could have a much more significant impact on the lives of many people. Check www.80000hours.org for more effective altruism career advice.

Live modestly. Although some effective altruists seek jobs that provide the highest wage that they can make, they do not do so in order to enjoy a lavish lifestyle. Effective altruists live modestly despite earning a high wage, so that others may benefit. It is up to you to decide what a modest lifestyle will be like for you, but many of the effective altruists that Singer discusses live on a small fraction of what they make. One of the most influential effective altruists that Singer describes is Matt Wage, an outstanding philosophy student who turned down an opportunity to study for a doctorate at Oxford University in order to take a job on Wall Street. He has been donating more than $100,000 a year to effective charities ever since. As another example, Singer describes a couple whose annual income was $40,000, yet they donated 1/3 of their income at first, and then, when their income rose, increased their donations until they were donating half of their income to charities. To keep their cost of living down, the couple used public transportation and rented part of a house rather than living alone.

Consider taking a pledge to give what you can to charity. For some people, going forward with intentions to live modestly and donate large amounts of money to charity may require some external motivation. To make your intentions into a commitment, you can visit GivingWhatWeCan.org and take their pledge. By taking this pledge, you will be expressing your intent to contribute at least 10% of your income to effective charities. If you prefer suggested by Singer in his book The Life You Can Save. With Singer’s pledge the suggested percentage starts off lower than at GivingWhatWeCan, but rises as your income rises. You can take this pledge at http://www.thelifeyoucansave.org/Take-the-Pledge, Singer discusses the psychological toll of earning money only to give it away. He explains that for some people, making their commitment public helps them to keep going.

Donating Effectively

Research charities to determine how many lives you can save or improve with your donations. One of the central considerations for determining whether or not to give to a charity is to consider the impact that your donation will have. You should look for charities that will maximize your donation and provide the most benefit for the largest number of people. For example, Singer presents the ethical dilemma of whether to donate $1,000,000 to a charity that will provide a life-saving surgery for a pair of conjoined twins, or donating the money to a charity that would provide measles vaccines to thousands of children. The most good would come from donating the money to the charity that would provide measles vaccinations because more lives would be prolonged and improved as a result. Singer also acknowledges that it is important to consider the impact that a donation would have on the lives of people, which sometimes requires going beyond the numbers. For example, if you had to choose between donating $100,000 to a museum or to a charity that cures poor people of blindness, there is a clear choice without even consulting the numbers. You could save 1,000 people from a life of blindness with $100,000, but even if the number were much lower, the impact of saving someone from a lifetime of blindness is far more beneficial than providing a nicer museum experience for thousands of people.

Avoid emotion-based donations. Many charities use emotional appeals to get people to donate money to them. Using emotional appeals to get donations is often effective, but the money that goes to these charities does not always provide tangible benefits. Set your emotions aside before you donate money to a charity and examine the impact that your donation would have on one charity compared to another charity. For example, Singer notes that you may have a strong emotional response to a charity that is requesting donations to help train guide dogs for the blind. However, before donating to such a cause, consider the dollars and cents of your donation. It costs about $40,000 to train a guide dog in the United States, but it only costs $20-$100 to prevent someone from going blind as a result of trachoma. So while $40,000 would improve the life of one person if it went to the guide dog charity, the same $40,000 could prevent between 400 and 2,000 people from going blind if given to the trachoma charity.

Use effective charity evaluation websites. An important part of being an effective altruist is making sure that your money goes to the charities that do the most good. To figure out whether or not a charity uses its money well, use all of the tools at your disposal. Singer recommends several websites, but he endorses GiveWell.org as one of the best ways to research and evaluate charities. GiveWell looks at the way that charities spend their donations so that you can see how much of your donation will go to those in need as well as what your donation will provide. GiveWell identifies interventions that have been proven to be effective in solving a particular problem, such as providing insecticide treated bed nets to help prevent malaria. Then, GiveWell investigates charities that focus on providing these effective interventions, such as the Against Malaria Foundation. If you are not sure where to start, the LifeYouCanSave.org and GivingWhatWeCan.org offer effective charity recommendations. Some of their recommendations include the Against Malaria Foundation, Give Directly, Schistosomiasis Control Initiative, and Project Healthy Children. If you want to support charities that help animals, you can also check out Animal Charity Evaluators to find out about the most effective animal welfare charities. Try the impact calculator on TheLifeYouCanSave.org. This calculator will show you how ten of the most effective charities will use your donation.

Steer clear of charity evaluation websites that provide limited data. Not all charity evaluation websites are equal in what they provide. For example, Charity Navigator is not an effective way to evaluate charities because it does not provide enough information about how charities use the money they receive. Although, Singer notes that the website may be helpful in warning potential donors away from charities that use only a small percentage of their donations to benefit their cause, for most charities, the information provided by this website does not help potential donors to determine whether or not a charity uses its money effectively. For example, Singer explains that if given the choice of a charity that dedicates 92% of its revenue to programs and another charity that dedicates 72% of its revenue to programs, then one might be inclined to go with the charity that dedicates 92% of its revenue to programs. However, this decision would not take into account which programs are more effective. The charity that dedicates 72% of its revenue to programs may, because it employs more highly-qualified staff, be making a bigger impact, but it would be impossible to know without more data.

Identifying Other Ways to Make a Difference

Spread the word about your favorite charities. After you start supporting effective charities, you should start encouraging others to do so as well. Spreading the word about charities that are having a large impact on people’s lives will lead to more donations for those charities and more lives saved as a result. Use social media to tell your friends about effective charities. Post articles, share information about effective charities, and encourage others to donate through your social media posts. Talk to your friends about effective charities and share data with them about how these effective charities are helping people.

Consider a vegan diet. Singer explains that some effective altruists have adopted a vegan diet as part of their efforts to reduce the harm caused by factory farming. Vegans avoid foods that contain animal products such as meat, milk, and eggs. Adopting a vegan diet has the added benefit of reducing your personal contribution to global warming, because raising animals contributes more to climate change than the entire transport sector.

Donate a part of yourself. Consider donating blood, bone marrow, or even a kidney to prolong the lives of others. Some effective altruists see donating blood, tissue, and organs as an important aspect of doing the most good that they can. Donating blood is the easiest way to help others and it is minimally invasive. Watch for blood drives in your area to contribute. Donating bone marrow is slightly more invasive. It used to require anesthesia and donors experienced some bruising and pain in the days that followed the procedure. But now most donors give stem cells, and this is more like donating blood, and is painless. Donating a kidney is a much bigger decision, but we can live with only one kidney and, on average, a kidney donation will add 10 years to someone’s life.