At Open Philanthropy, we spend a lot of time thinking about how to do the most good through our grantmaking. Many of us are also passionate about charitable giving in our personal lives. This post shares how some of our staff members are donating this year and what motivates their choices. We were inspired to start this annual tradition by GiveWell, which originally incubated Open Philanthropy.
The entries below show the diversity of giving approaches among our staff — from simple frameworks to detailed strategies, across various causes and parts of the world. We hope these perspectives show that there are many ways to give thoughtfully and effectively.
Britney Budiman
Content Editor
I’m donating to GiveWell’s All Grants Fund!
I think of GiveWell as the Apple of the charity world. Sure, its options may not be tailored to your specifications, and maybe you could find a niche alternative with more digging. But just like Apple, GiveWell delivers a thoroughly vetted, evidence-backed, and widely trusted product — entirely hassle-free. There’s a reason both organizations have such ardent fans: they consistently deliver quality work.
Dee Kathuria
Recruiting Consultant
My giving strategy is oriented around “getting it out the door.” I don’t want to spend too much time trying to maximize my impact given my lack of expertise with charity research, in case doing so delays my giving or leaves me feeling less enthusiastic. Instead, I largely rely on others’ analysis and simplify my decisions by splitting my giving into three “buckets”:
Metal bucket (>60%): This is my largest “bucket,” and includes 2-3 charities that I think are likely to make a sizable impact in the near future. Funds here will go toward charities on The Life You Can Save’s “Best Charities” list; some I’ve supported in multiple years include the Against Malaria Foundation, GiveDirectly, and Hellen Keller International.
Rubber bucket (20-30%): This is my flexible, stretchy bucket. I use it to fund work in areas that I’m less certain about, but could have tremendous impact. (You could say that I’m stretching my circle of moral consideration.) This is usually an animal welfare charity; this year, there were so many good choices available that I decided to fund Animal Charity Evaluators and let them decide for me.
Coffee cup (~10%): This is my “anytime, anywhere” bucket; I don’t need clear evidence or other reasons to give this money away. It goes toward a mix of different things: causes that move me personally, causes in my local community, gifts for friends, and direct support for people I meet who need help.
Alexander Berger
CEO
This year, my wife and I gave the majority of our “charity budget” to GiveWell, along with smaller allocations to Horizon, to follow Lewis’ advice on farm animal welfare, and to a couple of political giving opportunities we thought could be high-impact.
We restricted our GiveWell support so that 75% goes to the All Grants Fund and 25% goes to unrestricted/operations expenses. It costs GiveWell under 10% of money moved to operate and make its recommendations, but we thought it made sense to aim for more than our “fair share” of operating expenses given our trust in its work and the fungibility of marginal unrestricted donations arising from its “excess assets” policy. Our hope is that doing so will (at worst) save GiveWell a bit of time on fundraising.
Naina Bajekal
Director of Communications
Spending lots of time in India as a child and seeing my family’s work in hospitals there gave me a window into how health interventions can transform lives. This is partly what inspired me to pledge at least 10% of my income to effective charities (via Giving What We Can) back in 2014, and is why most of my giving is focused on global health. The largest portion goes to GiveWell’s Top Charities Fund, which supports its highest-priority funding opportunities. I trust GiveWell’s rigorous analysis to identify where individual donations can have the greatest impact in improving and saving lives.
I’m also supporting several other organizations doing targeted, evidence-based work in this space: Fortify Health, which works to prevent iron deficiency anemia in India through flour fortification; the Lead Exposure Elimination Project (LEEP), which advocates for lead paint regulation in countries heavily burdened by lead poisoning; GiveDirectly, which empowers people living in poverty through direct cash transfers; and Doctors Without Borders, which provides emergency medical care in crisis situations worldwide.
Lastly, I’m supporting Documented, an independent nonprofit newsroom that reports with and for New York’s immigrant communities. As a former journalist, I believe strong, community-focused reporting is essential for creating positive change, and the newsroom’s co-executive director is a friend whose work I deeply admire. I also maintain ties to my old neighborhood in London by supporting Made in Hackney, a vegan community cookery school that offers meals and classes to households who need support.
Chris Webster
Information Security Associate, Biosecurity and Pandemic Preparedness
Through Giving What We Can, I’ve taken a pledge to give 10% of my income away until I retire.
This year, I’ve given much of that 10% to the Shrimp Welfare Project, which seeks to alleviate the suffering of factory-farmed shrimp. Shrimp are treated horrifically on farms, and the Shrimp Welfare Project has found some very cost-effective ways to prevent this suffering. It’s an underrated and impactful charity, and I’m proud to support it.
Will Sorflaten
Recruiter
I’m currently giving 10% of my income (as a Giving What We Can pledger) to The Humane League UK (THL UK) — I’ve supported the org since it was founded in 2016. I discovered its work through Animal Charity Evaluators (ACE), which is a significant factor in determining where I donate each year.
THL UK is consistently one of ACE’s top-rated charities; I like the org’s hits-based approaches and the impact it’s already had in a relatively short amount of time on a relatively low budget. As one specific example, some of my funding is supporting THL UK’s campaign to challenge the legality of fast-growing breeds of chicken. If successful, it would have a seismic impact on how farmed chickens live and be really cost-effective. And even if this specific attempt is not successful, it might spur momentum for future legal cases or pressure corporations to make changes on their own, which could reduce suffering for billions of animals.
Lewis Bollard
Program Director, Farm Animal Welfare
I’m splitting my donations this year across roughly 20 organizations. This is almost certainly not impact-maximizing (don’t try this at home, kids). Instead, I focus on maximizing impact through the philanthropy I direct, and use personal donations to signal my moral support for orgs.
Almost all of those groups will be in the farm animal welfare space globally. My biggest donation among those will likely be to the EA Animal Welfare Fund, which I view as one of the best animal welfare opportunities for individual donors.
But I’ll also be donating to three groups partly or fully outside the space that I feel personally passionate about: the Humane Society of the US, GiveWell, and my son’s preschool. All three are full of incredible people doing great work that I want to support.
Martin Gould
Senior Program Associate, Farm Animal Welfare
This year, my family is donating to Anima International, the Shrimp Welfare Project, WISDOM Good Works, and Effective Altruism Australia. We want to see farm and other animals treated better, and contribute to growing the community of people focused on doing good.
Anima International runs campaigns to improve farm animal welfare in Europe. I’m impressed by its campaign strategy, its knack for experimenting with new interventions, and the training and support it gives to newer nonprofits.
The Shrimp Welfare Project works with industry to improve shrimp welfare, particularly at the time of slaughter. There are billions of shrimp farmed each year, and the org has a track record of getting producers and retailers to change their welfare policies.
WISDOM Good Works supports the use of fertility-control technology for mice and rats. Its work reduces the use of rodent poisons, which cause acute suffering.
Effective Altruism Australia supports Australians to have more impact via their donations and careers. I am on the board of EA Australia and so know the organization’s staff, volunteers, and plans well; I’m excited to see its further growth.
Jeremy Klemin
Content Editor
I’m still figuring out my final donation amount for the year, but I know I’ll split my giving between global health and farm animal welfare causes. The largest portion, 25%, is going to GiveWell’s Top Charities Fund. I’m consistently impressed with GiveWell’s level of rigor and transparency, and trust that my donation will have a meaningful impact.
I’m giving an additional 20% to Helen Keller International, even though there’s some overlap with my donation to GiveWell’s Top Charities Fund. GiveWell estimates that HKI’s vitamin A supplementation work can save a life for roughly $5,000, which is hard to beat! I’m also impressed by HKI’s work to combat river blindness, which is how I initially learned about them.
The next 25% will go to The Humane League, which does fantastic work on behalf of farmed animals — especially its cage-free corporate implementation work. Another 20% is going to the EA Animal Welfare Fund. I originally learned about effective giving because of animal welfare initiatives; the cause will occupy a significant portion of my donations for years to come.
For the remaining ~10%, I’m donating to the Cerebral Palsy Research Network (CPRN). Cerebral palsy isn’t a cause with much traction in effective giving circles, but family members of mine have benefited greatly from the free resources and sense of community that CPRN provides. I consider this a “local” cause of mine — one day, I’ll make a case for its neglectedness!
Melanie Basnak
Senior Program Associate, Effective Altruism (Global Health & Wellbeing)
I’ve been donating for several years, but I plan to significantly increase my giving this year now that I’ve pledged to donate at least 10% of my income to highly effective charities.
In my current role at Open Philanthropy, I support the effective giving ecosystem and several organizations focused on directing talent toward promising opportunities, including the incubation of high-impact charities. Even though I believe these are all valuable efforts, I worry about mixing my professional work with my personal donations, so I’ve decided not to support them. That being said, I strongly recommend them to other donors (you can read more about two standout charities in this post).
With that in mind, I’m likely to make the following donations:
- 45% to GiveWell’s All Grants Fund. I like the idea of contributing to all of GiveWell’s portfolio, including both its top charities and some riskier grants supporting organizations to build their evidence bases and scale up their programs.
- 45% to early-stage high-impact charities. Similar to my reasoning above for supporting the All Grants Fund over the Top Charities Fund, I like the idea of supporting promising early-stage organizations as they scale. In this category, I’m likely to donate to the Lead Exposure Elimination Project and Family Empowerment Media, two AIM-incubated charities that are doing really impactful work.
- 10% to GiveDirectly. Even though I agree with GiveWell’s and Open Philanthropy’s bars suggesting the top health charities are more cost-effective than GiveDirectly, I believe it plays a really important role in the charity ecosystem. In particular, I like how transparent it is, how much rigorous evidence it has contributed to the development space, and the fact that its beneficiaries have full agency to decide how to use the money they receive.
Jake Mendel
Program Associate, Technical AI Safety
As a member of Giving What We Can, I’ve given 10% of my income to the Against Malaria Foundation in past years. This year, I’m grappling with the idea that I could have more impact by funding AI safety work instead, for the same reasons I chose to work in that area myself. (I haven’t yet chosen where to give within AI safety, but my colleagues have a few suggestions.) I’m wary of dedicating all my work and giving to one area, but I think the expected impact could be worth it.
I also plan to steadily increase my giving over the next few years: now that I’m used to giving away 10%, I aim to give 11% this year and to increase my giving by a percentage point each year for at least a few years to come.
Eli Rose
Program Officer, Global Catastrophic Risks Capacity Building
I’m a Giving What We Can pledger, so every year I give at least 10% of my income.
This year, I gave to Wild Animal Initiative: I think field-building initiatives like WAI’s tend to be highly leveraged, and wild animal welfare is a morally important field. I also made a few small gifts to provide counterfactual productivity support to people I think are doing important work on AI safety. Finally, I donated to a political candidate who I thought held sensible views on animal welfare and AI safety.
Javier Prieto
Program Associate, Forecasting
I fulfill my 10% Giving What We Can pledge by supporting GiveWell via Ayuda Efectiva (which enables a tax deduction for Spanish residents like myself). I know and trust the founder of Ayuda Efectiva, and I prefer to support global health and wellbeing-focused causes in my personal giving (since I work on global catastrophic risks through my job).
This year, I also donated $5000 to Lightcone’s annual fundraiser. The organization hosts important events designed to foster conversations and collaboration; I think it achieves these goals well, and may be serving as an “impact multiplier” for many people who get involved. I’ve personally gotten a lot of value from Lightcone’s projects (LessWrong, Lighthaven, and the Alignment Forum), and I wanted to give back. Also, I think Open Phil might have recommended continuing to fund it this year, but that hadn’t been decided before Good Ventures decided to exit the space.
I also give $14/month to fully offset my carbon footprint. I haven’t vetted this website closely, but I’m fairly confident it actually does provide offsets, though its cost-effectiveness could be overstated. And finally, I volunteer a few hours per month with a local organization that seeks to integrate refugees via 1-on-1 mentoring and social activities.
Aaron Gertler
Communications Officer
I’ve signed the Giving What We Can pledge and donate at least 10% of my income, sometimes “bunched” for tax reasons. Historically, most of my donations have gone to GiveWell, but I’m trying to branch out this year to other Open Phil grantees, particularly those suggested by my colleagues or those whose work speaks to me on a personal level. (There are many great orgs we don’t support, but sticking with OP grantees gives me a reasonable search space.)
This year, my giving will be shared between:
- Lead Exposure Elimination Project: LEEP is one of the first grantees from the lead exposure fund we manage. I love the simplicity of its approach, and all the details and insights the founders have shared across podcasts and forum posts.
- Tarbell: AI is one of the most important stories in the world today, and some aspects of that story (safety, policy) are underrepresented in the media. I’ve been impressed by work I’ve seen on those topics from Tarbell fellows.
- EA university group support via the Centre for Effective Altruism: I started an EA group at my university in 2014, and those were some of the most impactful hours I’ve ever spent (despite our sub-$1000 budget). I’d like to support more students to start and manage groups, and ensure those groups have more resources than I did.
- Speculative Technologies and the Center for Building in North America: I’m excited by our forthcoming LMIC growth program, because growth is the tide that lifts all boats (reducing poverty, improving health, the works). But that program isn’t making grants yet, so for now I support two of OP’s more growth-oriented grantees — their work could accelerate science or help people afford to live and work in highly productive areas.
On top of my 10% pledge, I make additional donations each year to support public goods I find valuable, without impact as a primary consideration. These include the Internet Archive, Our World in Data, Lesswrong via Lightcone Infrastructure, and a dozen or so online creators via Patreon.
Nisha Austin
Program Operations Manager, Biosecurity and Pandemic Preparedness
I give a percentage of my income to a few orgs within the effective giving sphere. Giving to the most effective causes seems like a no-brainer, so I support GiveWell via the Top Charities Fund. Poverty is a huge global challenge, so I support J-PAL (which does research on ways to address it) and Population Services International (which helps break cycles of poverty by providing access to birth control and family planning to communities that need them). Finally, I support GiveDirectly because I believe in the idea behind universal basic income — give people cash directly and trust them to know what they need most.
I also give a fixed amount to a few other organizations that play a role in making information truthful, available, and fair. These include Mozilla (keeping the internet secure and free), Wikipedia (making knowledge accessible to anyone), and NPR (fact-based, thoughtful reporting). I also give to my local newspaper, the Marblehead Current, because I believe that local news, especially in a print format, is essential to maintaining strong communities.
Finally, I’ve been a board member in our town government for the past few years, including serving on the Cultural Council until earlier this year. Our town is run by numerous boards, and I believe in the importance of civic engagement.