My Concerns about Effective Altruism

How a focus on easily measured success may miss the point

In 2015 I co-founded a nonprofit to combat food insecurity. Since then we’ve grown into a full 501c 3, we’ve fed a lot of food insecure people within our community, and we’ve figured out ways to sustainably build food pharmacies and food cooperatives. We have supported the health of thousands of members and we’ve saved them thousands of dollars.

Yet…one article by the effective altruism organization givewell has made me not only reconsider the entire mission of organization, but also whether we have really accomplished anything.

For those unfamiliar with effective altruism, it is a philosophical approach to philanthropy that emphasizes the critical examination of the impacts of charities. Effective altruism based organizations have created a full-on attack on many of our assumptions about doing good. They’ve shown us that many of our charities are ineffective, and they’ve pushed many people to redirect their giving towards the most effective NGOs in the developed world.

The basic idea of effective altruism is very easy. If you wanted to do the most good with $1,000,000 what would you do and how would you determine how good your donations were? Their methodology is conceptually straightforward, you should look to support charities that save the greatest number of lives for the money you’ve donated.