Centre for Effective Altruism

The Centre for Effective Altruism is a collection of organisations which have come together to explore these core ideas; with each organisation pursuing different ways of putting the ideas into practice. We don’t pretend to have all the answers for how to make the most difference; but we have collated a body of research and experimentation with the aim of providing some of them.

The following organisations are currently part of the Centre for Effective Altruism:

• Giving What We Can seeks to find those charities which are the most effective in helping people who live in developing countries. Its research shows that some charities are 1000 times more effective at helping people than others. Its members form a community of people who regularly donate to the most effective charities, thus helping as many people in developing countries as they can.
• The Life You Can Save encourages people to make a public pledge to give at least 1% of their income to effective charities which help those in developing countries. By spreading this message, it hopes to mobilise more people in developed countries to do their part by coming together to end extreme poverty.
• 80,000 Hours provides an alternative to traditional, woolly careers advice. It carries out extensive research into which careers make the most difference, how they make a difference, and what makes people suited to each particular career over the long-term. It then provides tailored advice to people, to allow them to help the world as much as they can with the 80,000 productive hours they’ll spend over their lifetime.
• Effective Animal Activism tries to answer the question of how we can best improve animal welfare. Factory farming alone gives rise to huge amounts of animal suffering. EAA researches the best ways to prevent this – quantifying the impact of a range of organisations, from ones which encourage the reduction of meat consumption to ones which lobby governments to improve factory conditions.

The Centre for Effective Altruism is affiliated with the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University.