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There's a power law in startup success, and people who seriously study charity (such as GiveWell or Peter Singer) say there's a similar phenomenon in philanthro

There's a power law in startup success, and people who seriously study charity (such as GiveWell or Peter Singer) say there's a similar phenomenon in philanthropy: the best charities are often more than 100x as effective, per dollar, than average. One popular example: the Seeing Eye foundation spends more than $50,000 to train one Guide Dog[0], GiveWell estimates that the Against Malaria Foundation can save more than 10 lives with the same amount of money. So it's extremely unlikely that donating more will outweigh the impact of donating to the right charities. [0]: http://www.guidedog.org/content.aspx?id=564#trainingcost http://www.guidedog.org/content.aspx?id=564#trainingcost

cjbprime 12y ago
> One popular example: the Seeing Eye foundation spends more than $50,000 to train one Guide Dog An even better counterpoint than AMF to this charity is that the money used to train the guide dog would cure blindness in around 1500 people in the developing world by funding their surgeries for trachoma/cataracts. (As told by Peter Singer.)
napoleond 12y ago
> So it's extremely unlikely that donating more will outweigh the impact of donating to the right charities. Sure, but that's orthogonal to the point I was trying to make, which in the context of your comment could be summarized as "I see no reason to believe that charities which benefit from the involvement of the ultra-wealthy are guaranteed to be less effective than those which do not".