Effective altruism is built on the simple but unsettling idea that living a fully ethical life involves doing the most good one can. In this course you will examine this idea's philosophical underpinnings; meet remarkable people who have restructured their lives in accordance with it; and think about how effective altruism can be put into practice in your own life.
The Story and Work of GiveWell
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From the course by Princeton University
Effective Altruism
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From the lesson
What is the Best Cause?
How do you get the most value for your charitable dollars? How can you compare different causes to each other, and how do you compare different charities to each other? The guest in this week is Elie Hassenfeld from GiveWell, an organization that tries to find the answers to these questions.
Meet the Instructors
Peter SingerIra W. Decamp Professor of Bioethics
University Center for Human Values
I want to welcome Elie Hassenfeld,
co-founder of GiveWell to the MOOC on Effective Altruism.
Thanks very much for being with us Elie.
>> My pleasure. Thank you for having me.
>> Great so, I'd like you to begin by telling us,
why it is that you and Holden Karnofsky decided to found GiveWell.
What were you doing at the time and,
and why did you feel that you wanted to go into this area?
>> Holden and I both had joined a hedge fund out of college and
after being there for a couple of years, we were in the situation
where we were earning more money than we needed to pay our bills.
And so we started talking about whether and
how we could give to charity at the end of, at the end of the year.
And as we started having these conversations other coworkers of ours
became interested in what we were doing.
And we ended up having periodic regular meetings where we were trying to
figure out which charities were accomplishing the most good.
Or would accomplish the most good with the money that,
that we would ultimately give to them.
The, the first thing that we did is we went online and tried to find information.
>> The same way that we would go online and
try to figure out which laptop to buy or which cell phone to buy, we wanted to
get that same type of information about what charity was doing the most good.
I was interested in water charities at the time.
And so, I was looking for information that pulled me for
every $20 I gave, how many wells would the water charity dig?
How long would those wells last?
How, would the water remain clean over time?
And we went online looking for
information, instead we found the answers to questions like,
how much money does this charity spend on overhead versus it's programs?
Or how much does it spend on fund raising?
But nothing that directly, answered the question,
how much good does this charity accomplish with the money that it's given?
And so, we, we found in this, in this group that we weren't able to get
answers to the questions that we had from existing sources.
We started calling charities directly, and when we asked them our questions,
they responded similarly with either information about their overhead or
marketing materials, but nothing that focused on impact.
And so while we were working on this we, we expected to stay in our jobs and
give, just give to charity at the end of the year.
But we quickly realized that the information wasn't available and
that we were extremely interested in the research that we were doing.
So I remember being up very late on weekend nights
reading academic papers about digging wells in Africa.
And it was the, the combination of, of these factors that the information wasn't
available and that we were very passionate and excited about the research.
That lead us to create GiveWell, which,
which was essentially trying to be the resource that we were looking for
as donors to try and accomplish the most good that we could with our donations.
>> But you couldn't actually create this,
get this sort information while still working at the hedge fund.
So you have to leave and become full-time workers on this, on this issue.
Is that right?
>> It, it, it's right.
It was taking us hours to call charities and
ask them information to research academic papers and understand the results.
None of which was a part time job.
So, we, what we decided to do was raise money from our, what,
what became our former co-workers.
To offer grants to charities.
Where, by offering this incentive of potential funding,
we hoped they would share additional information with us.
And then we could also cast the net much wider.
And instead of just focusing on the small number of organizations that we
were able to look at very superficially as part of a part time project.
We could be much more systematic, look at many more organizations.
And hopefully with the incentive of some funding,
encourage them to share significantly more information with us.
>> Right, so that was the moment you began with.
And then you, you set up this organization you're now
focused really exclusively on global poverty issues, right?
So tell, tell me how that happened.
I mean how did you decide that this was the cause the you wanted to focus on?
Rather than well, could be poverty in the United States, or
it could be a wide range of other kinds of causes.
How did you narrow it down to that?
>> When we first started we, we had not narrowed it down.
In our first year we focused both on organizations working domestically in
the United States on poverty issues, and also in your organizations working abroad.
And there were two major things we learned in our first year that
led us to the focus that we currently have.
The first is that the track record and
the robustness of the case for impact for organizations working internationally
is much stronger than that case for organizations working domestically.
For example the, we know that when one gives out
nets to protect against the mosquitoes that transmit malaria, this program works.
It's been evaluated many times in extremely rigorous stories, and
it protects and prevents Malaria and saves lives.
On the other hand, we know significantly less about the social program that would
reduce homelessness or improve children's outcomes through education.
And so that was one of the reason, that was one of, one reason we,
we moved towards global poverty.
The other is the simple fact that the needs are much greater abroad than they
are in the U.S..
And so a dollar can go significantly further there than it can here.
And so where a few thousand dollars, by our best estimate,
can save the life of a child in Africa,
it costs five times that amount to put one child through one year of schooling.
And so that difference that one could save a life for
$3,000 versus put a child through school for a year with $15,000, lead us to
focus more on the, the global poverty as, as our core, our core issue area.
>> That is a, a dramatic difference certainly between putting a child through
school for $15,000 and saving a life for $3,000.
Can you tell me a bit more about the methodology
that you use to enable you to reach that $3,000 figure.
And, and also how you compare the different things at different
organizations would do within the field of global poverty.
>> So what, what we try to do is understand
everything about the organizations activities and impact.
All the ways that the program could, could attempt to succeed, but end up failing.
And therefore, the way in which,
our best guess about how much money is actually able to accomplish.
So for example in the case of Against Malaria Foundation
which is one of our recommended charities and it funds malaria nets in Africa.
We, we want to look at how much it costs it to buy a single net, but
also how much it costs to ship the nets abroad, how often nets are stolen.
We believe and hope it's quite rare, but it happens.
How frequently nets are used properly and then how many nets need to be distributed
for those, for, for lives to actually be saved.
And we are consistently reassessing what we've learned before to see
whether any changes in either the contexts within which the organizations work.
Or research that's being done about Malaria could change the effectiveness or
the cost effectiveness of the program.
So, for example, if a,
if a new Malaria net is developed that can last twice as long as a net that came
out before that would improve the cost effectiveness of the program.
And we take that into account in the estimates that we make,
all of which we publish on our website.
So anyone can go through and evaluate the judgement calls and
the assumptions that we have to make to reach these types of estimates.
There's obviously no formulated way to compare between what all charities do.
And we recognize this and are not trying to put everything into
one number that tells you, this charity is the best.
We know that's not possible.
What we do try to do is when we see organizations that are implementing
very different things, try to put their impacts in terms that are most comparable.
So in the case of the Malaria charity,
the impact we see as most salient is the fact that it saves lives.
Another top charity of ours gives out pills to treat parasitic infections.
And so it improves lives.
It does not save them, but it improves the quality of life.
And so in that case what we are left with is, the donor's left with,
is ultimately a values judgement, a philosophical judgement.
About the, the how, how many lives and to what extent one
would improve relative to how many lives and, and one would want to save.
And so we try to, to reach that, we,
we try to share that information with our donors.
So that donors with different values are able to make that, that decision for
themselves.
One final point that's worth mentioning about these cost effectiveness estimates.
Is that we try to do everything we can to
model what the impact is for the dollars the donor gives, the donors give.
But they, they, they're subject to a great deal of uncertainty.
Even though, and so what that means is that reasonable donors could disagree
about mm, the, the inputs that we use, the calculations that we make.
And that's one of the reasons that we, we want to make all of this information
available to any donor who wants to access it.
It's, it's because there's no, there's no clear
estimate that malaria nets accomplish x for this amount of money.
And instead, you know, we, we recognize that these estimates are,
are subject to some uncertainty.
And that reasonable people could disagree about the conclusion.
>> So the information is all there on your website,
if people want to actually find out exactly how you reach those figures.
Or what the assumptions are that you're made to reach those figures, and
see whether they agree with them or not.
>> That's right.
Transparency is is a core part of GiveWell's approach.
So, we want anyone who wants to to be able to come to our website,
see our recommendations,
and the also understand the entire process that led to those recommendations.
And all the facts details and calculations that stand behind them.
And that goes for something as simple.
Full as what the charity does to as detailed and complex as
the estimate of their cost to life savings for one of the charities we recommend.
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