Effective Altruism

The Funds address key issues, such as health and development problems that affect millions of humans, the suffering of billions of animals, and risks from emerging technologies such as advanced artificial intelligence and bioengineering. Some of these causes have shovel-ready interventions that already have a solid evidence base behind them, and ju... st need additional money directed to where it is needed most. Others may require more speculative interventions that are less well-tested, or further research that gives us more information about which kinds of interventions will be most promising. These more speculative ventures are at higher risk of having little or no impact. When Fund management teams recommend these types of grants, they're making a bet that, while some (maybe even many) of them will have little or no impact, the best could have a very large impact. Because it's very difficult to know in advance which approaches will have this kind of outsize impact, grantmakers may take bets . This approach is sometimes known as hits-based giving. Grantmakers make judgements about risk vs. reward in line with our overall grantmaking approach. Why have risk profiles? We want donors to feel comfortable with the level of risk that they're taking on. That's why all of the Funds have a risk profile, which gives a broad sense of how much risk the Fund management team will likely take on. These risk profiles are intentionally broad, intending to give a general sense of how the Fund managers are likely to make decisions. The are assessments based on both the nature of the particular field that the Funds are working in, as well as the grantmaking styles of the individual Fund managers. They are also non-binding, and sometimes Fund managers may choose to make grants that are outside their Fund's stated risk profile. Note that some Funds will have wider risk profiles, making some 'safe bets', and some high-risk/high-reward ones. You should familiarise yourself with the aims of each Fund, and decide whether donating to it ...Read More