What Is Effective Altruism Funds?

Effective Altruism Funds is a grantmaking platform that pools donations from individual donors into expert-managed funds, then directs that money to projects selected for their social impact. It is aimed at donors who want their giving allocated by people who research and compare causes, rather than choosing recipients themselves. According to the site, it has 52,000 donors and has awarded over $100M across 1,544 grants.

How the platform works

You donate to one of four themed funds. Fund managers — the site says they work at organizations in the effective altruism space — decide which grantees receive the money. The stated approach is to back "effective projects" and to direct each donation "where it helps most."

The site also accepts funding applications from people and organizations, so the platform runs in two directions: donors give in, and projects apply for grants.

The four funds

Each fund has its own focus, so the choice of fund is effectively the choice of cause area. If you already know which cause you want to support, you can pick the matching fund; if you don't, the platform's premise is that fund managers make that allocation for you.

How grants are evaluated

The site lists seven criteria in its grantmaking approach: expected value, marginal impact, counterfactual impact, track record, information value, and direct and indirect effects, plus scope and limitations.

The clearest illustration is expected value. The site's own example: a 1% chance of $100,000 and a 50% chance of $2,000 both have an expected value of $1,000, so over time they would yield the same average return. This is how the platform compares high-risk, high-payoff projects against safer bets — it multiplies potential benefit by the chance of success rather than judging projects on certainty alone.

The other criteria address questions like whether a grant changes what would have happened anyway (counterfactual impact) and whether the fund's money is the marginal dollar that unlocks the work.

Featured grants

The site highlights recent grants as examples of what the funds support:

• The Center for Responsible Seafood — $117,000, 2024 Q4, Animal Welfare. Research and a pilot program on humane chill-killing at Indian shrimp farms, intended to inform global certification standards.
• Hear This Idea — $6,196.87, 2024 Q3, EA Infrastructure. Ongoing support for a podcast about ideas for solving important problems.
• Malaria Consortium — $1,690,095.48, 2022 Q4, Global Health and Development. Support of a seasonal malaria chemoprevention program.

A grants database is available on the site for browsing the full record.

Applying for funding

If you are seeking money rather than giving it, the site states:

• Grants range between $1,000 and $500,000.
• Applications take less than 1 hour.
• It funds people, projects, non-profits, and institutions.

The application route is the same platform, so a project in one of the four cause areas can apply directly.

Donating

The site offers two donation routes and recommends them by location:

• Every.org — recommended for donors outside the UK or Netherlands.
• Giving What We Can — recommended for donors in the UK or Netherlands.

Both are linked from the main donation call to action. The site does not publish pricing or fee information in the material reviewed here, so check the donation platform itself for processing details before giving.

When this platform fits

Effective Altruism Funds suits you if you want to give to a cause area but would rather have allocation decisions made by dedicated fund managers applying explicit impact criteria. It is less suited if you want to choose individual recipients yourself or want to see a specific project funded by your own donation — in that case, giving directly to a charity is the more direct route. If you are applying for a grant, the relevant question is whether your project fits one of the four fund descriptions and falls within the $1,000–$500,000 range.