简体中文
EnglishHow Giving What We Can Defines Effective Giving and Evaluates Charities
Updated
Giving What We Can treats effective giving as a resource-allocation problem: the goal is to direct money to organizations where an additional dollar produces the most measurable improvement in human or animal welfare, or the greatest reduction in catastrophic risk. The site organizes this around three cause areas — Global Health, Animal Welfare, and Existential Risk — and publishes its research team's top charity recommendations, currently labeled for 2026. The approach suits donors who want evidence-based guidance rather than emotional or proximity-based giving; it is less suited to donors who already have a specific local organization in mind.
The core idea: impact per dollar, not just good intentions
Effective giving, as the site frames it, starts from the observation that charities differ enormously in cost-effectiveness. A donation to one intervention may save a life for a few thousand dollars; the same amount given elsewhere may produce far less. The site's framing — "Ordinary people can do extraordinary good" and "100x your impact" — signals that the central question is not whether to give but where the marginal dollar does the most.
This implies two operating principles:
- Evidence first. Recommendations rest on the research team's evaluation rather than on brand recognition or overhead ratios.
- Cause-area prioritization. Donors are asked to think about which problem area matters most (global health, animal welfare, or existential risk) before choosing a specific charity.
How the site structures its charity evaluation
The site does not present a single ranked list. Instead it separates cause areas from charity recommendations, so a donor first picks a problem area and then sees the research team's top picks within it.
| Layer | What the site provides | What the donor decides |
|---|---|---|
| Cause areas | Global Health (save and improve lives), Animal Welfare (reduce animal suffering), Existential Risk (protect future generations) | Which problem area to prioritize |
| Best Charities | "Our research team's top recommendations for 2026" | Which specific organization to fund |
| Giving tools | Major gifts, fundraisers, tax deductibility, bequests | How to structure the donation |
The "Best Charities" label is explicitly attributed to the research team and carries a year stamp (2026), which tells you the recommendations are periodically revised rather than permanent. The site also offers a "Research & Approach" section explaining "how we evaluate charities," so the methodology is presented as something a donor can inspect rather than take on faith.
What the site offers beyond charity lists
Evaluation is only one part of the model. The site pairs recommendations with commitment mechanisms and community infrastructure:
- Pledges. A 10% Pledge (give 10% of income), a Trial Pledge (start with 1% for a year), and a student pledge (give 1% while studying). These are graduated commitments, so a donor can start small and scale up.
- Community. A member directory ("See who's pledged"), member motivations, and stories from people who decided to give more effectively.
- Learning resources. "Effective Giving 101," in-depth guides, a blog, and FAQs.
- Context tools. "How Rich Am I?" compares your income globally, and "Birth Lottery" illustrates how birthplace shapes life outcomes — both aimed at calibrating a donor's sense of relative capacity to give.
- Giving mechanics. Tax deductibility guidance, bequests, fundraisers, and support for major gifts.
The site reports scale signals — 11,377 people pledged, $396 million donated, $603 million moved — which function as social proof that the pledge model has traction.
How to use the site to make a giving decision
- Pick a cause area from Global Health, Animal Welfare, or Existential Risk, based on which outcome you weight most.
- Open Best Charities and read the research team's current top recommendations for that area.
- Check the methodology in Research & Approach if you want to understand why a charity was selected before committing.
- Choose a commitment level — Trial Pledge (1% for a year) if you are testing the model, 10% Pledge if you are ready to commit a meaningful share of income.
- Handle the mechanics — use the tax deductibility guidance if relevant, or set up a fundraiser or bequest for larger or legacy gifts.
Expected result: a shortlist of recommended organizations within your chosen cause area, plus a pledge level you can sustain. Common sticking point: the site gives cause-area categories and top recommendations, but the excerpt does not enumerate individual charities or per-charity cost-effectiveness figures — you need to open the Best Charities page for the actual names and the Research & Approach page for the criteria.
What this means in practice
A donor who wants to give $1,000 has a different decision problem than one giving $100,000, and the site's structure reflects that: the pledge tiers and giving tools (major gifts, bequests, fundraisers) let the same evaluation framework scale across commitment sizes. The key discipline the site enforces is sequencing — choose the problem area first, then the charity, then the giving vehicle — rather than starting from a charity you already like and justifying it afterward.