Awesome Effective Altruism

A curated list of resources on how to do the most good.

Inspired by awesome lists.

Feel free to improve this list.

Contents

• What is effective altruism?
• The Basics
• Essential reading
• Charity evaluators
• Popular causes
• Join the discussion
• EA Organizations
• See also

What is effective altruism? ¹

Effective altruism is about answering one simple question: how can we use our resources to help others the most?

Rather than just doing what feels right, we use evidence and careful analysis to find the very best causes to work on.

Working on a cause is likely to be high impact to the extent that it is:

• Great in scale (it affects many people’s lives, by a great amount)
• Highly neglected (few other people are working on addressing the problem), and
• Highly solvable (additional resources will do a great deal to address it).

The Basics

• Introduction to Effective Altruism
• Effective Altruism Handbook
• Effective Altruism: How Can We Best Help Others?

Essential reading

• 80,000 Hours Career Guide
• Hits-based Giving
• Money: The Unit of Caring

Charity evaluators

• GiveWell - evaluates and promotes outstanding human health interventions
• Animal Charity Evaluators - researching highly effective charities that help animals

Popular causes

Funds

Increasingly, donors are choosing to give money to “funds” – organisations which regrant money to the current-best charitable organizations.

• EA Funds - a way to donate more effectively through philanthropic managed funds
• Let’s Fund - a curated crowdfunding site focusing on high-impact neglected charities.
• Raising for Effective Giving

Popular charities

Global development	Animal welfare	Far future & existential risk	Community-building
Against Malaria Foundation (AMF)a	Animal Equalityb	OpenAI	Centre for Effective Altruism
GiveDirectlya	The Humane Leagueb	Future of Humanity Institute	LEAN (Local Effective Altruism Network)
Schistosomiasis Control Initiative (SCI)a	The Good Food Instituteb	MIRI
Evidence Actiona	Mercy for Animals	Center for the Study of Existential Risk
Malaria Consortium	Sentience Institute	Future of Life Institute
Helen Keller International	Compassion in World Farming USA	Global Catastrophic Risk Institute
Sightsavers	Faunalytics	ALLFED
The End Fund	Animal Ethics	Berkeley Existential Risk Initiative
	Humane Slaughter Association	Center for Human-Compatible AI

a: recommended by GiveWell
b: recommended by Animal Charity Evaluators

Global health

• The Drowning Child and the Expanding Circle

Animal welfare

• Why Farmed Animals?
• The Importance of Wild Animal Suffering

Existential risk

• Existential Risk: Diplomacy and Governance
• There’s No Fire Alarm for Artificial General Intelligence
• Morality, Foresight, and Human Flourishing: An Introduction to Existential Risks

Outreach and community-building

TODO

Join the discussion

• Find a local EA chapter near you!
• Go to an EA conference

EA Organizations

• 80,000 Hours – advice on finding a fun, impactful career
  • To find work you love, don’t follow your passion 🎥
• Centre for Effective Altruism - helping to grow and maintain the effective altruism movement
• Effective Altruism Foundation/Stiftung für Effektiven Altruismus - developing, promoting, and implementing effective altruism
• Foundational Research Institute – examining how humanity can best reduce suffering

See also

• Priority Wiki - a cause prioritization website that anyone can edit
• EA Blogs - an EA blog aggregator
• LessWrong - community blog for rationalists
• Slate Star Codex - a blog about many things, including rationality and effective altruism

[1] Excerpted from the Effective Altruism Handbook, © Centre for Effective Altruism 2018.