Your first paragraph is something I think about from time to time, but as you point out, we're not to the point where it's a problem. Right now we're in a comp

Your first paragraph is something I think about from time to time, but as you point out, we're not to the point where it's a problem. Right now we're in a competitive market where we select for emotional impact and marketing prowess. EA, for me, is about moving to a market where we select for effectiveness. We should, once we have the resources as a movement, include funding for experimenting with new organizations. FWIW, it's worth noting that Givewell.org (the EA organization I pay the most attention to) includes "room for more funding" as a major decision point in its recommendations. Funding is a constraint for most organizations, but they recognize that dropping a hundred million dollars on a small organization isn't always the best thing, even if that organization does the best work. > The example they give - volunteering at a soup kitchen - is one such example. Say giving to the homeless is effective, but volunteering at a soup kitchen is not. Someone still needs to volunteer at the soup kitchen, even if it's not many people. 80000hours.org talks about this some, mostly in the consideration of working in direct service vs. earning to give. Part of this is what you're passionate about -- if high paying professions would make you miserable, working in direct service might be for you. Part of it is opportunity. Not everyone is cut out to be a lawyer/doctor/engineer. I do disagree with "someone still needs to volunteer". Someone needs to volunteer or get paid to work at the soup kitchen. If the choice is between having a doctor spend their time volunteering, or having that doctor donate an extra $100k/year, and $40k of that paying someone to replace the missing volunteer time, the soup kitchen is still up $60k, and will probably get better results from having someone experienced doing the work. In the way we traditionally evaluated charities, this would be a worse outcome, because the overhead just went way up. One of EA's main things is to stop worrying about overhead. When I buy a car, I want the best car per dollar, not the car from whoever pays the CEO the least. When I buy good, I want the most good I can get for my dollar. I disagree with other EAs in a ton of areas, but what makes us EAs is that one principle.