Our Goal

Maximize the Impact of Your Dollar

We aim to build support in Georgia's legal community for maximizing the positive human impact of every donated dollar. We hope to help lawyers and law firms thoughtfully direct their donations to charities that will accomplish the most with the money. In other words, we want to focus not only on the donor but on the donee.

That's important because some charities hundreds of times more effective than others.

To use an example from Peter Singer's famous TED Talk on effective altruism, it costs about $40,000 to acquire a seeing-eye dog, train the dog, match the dog with a blind person in the United States, and train the person to work with the dog. Of course providing people with seeing-eye dogs is a good thing. But how else could $40,000 be donated? In many developing countries people are blinded by river blindness, a disease transmitted by blackflies. River blindness can be cured for a surprisingly low cost – about $50.

So do the math. With $40,000, you can either provide one blind person with a seeing-eye dog, or cure about eight hundred people of blindness.

How am I supposed to do this?

Choosing a good charity is not hard. Busy people can do it on a time-efficient basis. :)

Here is a step-by-step guide:

1) Check GiveWell's current list of Top Charities. At any given time, there are usually 3-8 listed. There are charities that appear over and over again, such as the Against Malaria Foundation, but the list changes based on GiveWell's analysis of the acuteness of the need, the efficiency with which the charity addresses that need, the ability of that organization to efficiently put additional money to use, and other factors.

2) Read as much or as little as you like about them, then pick one. They're all great. Even if you chose at random you would accomplish great things.

or . . .

3) Donate, as most of us have, to the Top Charities Fund administered by GiveWell. Let GiveWell decide which of the top charities to send your funds to.

Examples?

Against Malaria Foundation ("AMF") has appeared among GiveWell's Top Charities every year since 2009. AMF acquires insecticide-treated nets and, working with local partners and governments, distributes them in areas of the developing world where mosquito-born malaria is common. The nets cost $4-6 each and hang over people's beds at night. AMF prioritizes delivering the nets to children and pregnant women, who are the most vulnerable. AMF's solution is simple, practical, and tested. As of the time we wrote this, GiveWell estimates that one life is saved that would otherwise be lost for every $5,500 donated to AMF.

The Vitamin A Supplementation Program ("VAS") operated by Hellen Keller International has also ranked among the Top Charities for many years. Vitamin A deficiency is common in parts of the developing world and causes stunted growth, anemia, and blindness in children. It costs about $2 to provide a year's worth of vitamin A supplements to a single child. VAS has been doing this successfully and effectively for years. As of the time we wrote this, GiveWell estimates that one life is saved that would otherwise be lost for every $5,000 donated to VAS.

Effective Giving in Georgia's Legal Community

Our Goal

Maximize the Impact of Your Dollar

Peter Singer's TED Talk

How am I supposed to do this?

Examples?

More questions?

Our Goal

Maximize the Impact of Your Dollar

Peter Singer's TED Talk

How am I supposed to do this?

Examples?

More questions?

This website uses cookies.