There are numerous ways in which one can have a powerful positive impact in people’s lives. It’s not all about financial donations. Effective altruism can be broadly categorized into paid work, unpaid work, and donations. Each of these can be further classed into direct and indirect.
Paid Work
There are many careers in which someone can have a large irreplaceable impact. It may not require you to choose a new career or be in the nonprofit sector. For instance, if you have an upper management position in a chemical company, or work with someone who does, you may be able to steer the company towards improved environmental stewardship. If you source goods for a retailer, you could select manufacturers that utilize low capital high labor plants in developing countries and have good working conditions. And, of course, any well-paying job can enable you to make sizable donations to effective nonprofits.
Paid Work
There are many careers in which someone can have a large irreplaceable impact. It may not require you to choose a new career or be in the nonprofit sector. For instance, if you have an upper management position in a chemical company, or work with someone who does, you may be able to steer the company towards improved environmental stewardship. If you source goods for a retailer, you could select manufacturers that utilize low capital high labor plants in developing countries and have good working conditions. And, of course, any well-paying job can enable you to make sizable donations to effective nonprofits.
Many of the products and services that businesses produce or sell provide a direct benefit to the world, or improve society by providing jobs or economic growth. For instance, if you contribute to the development of a frozen entrée product that is healthier, tastier, cheaper, and more earth- and animal-friendly, you are making a valuable contribution to society, provided that the company wouldn’t have been able to produce as good a product if someone else was working in your position. Economic growth improves the world, although by expanding your business, you may simply be taking market share away from competitors without overall improving the world’s economy.
Nevertheless, opportunities for businesses to improve the world abound. For instance, a bank in a low income country that opens up a branch in an under-served village to provide ethical financial services to individuals and small business is doing something good for the people. If you contributed to the bank undergoing this initiative, then you certainly have performed effective altruism.
When people think of jobs that help others, they typically think of a job in health care or in a nonprofit organization. It’s important to recognize that effective altruism requires an irreplaceable impact. In most of these classic “helping” careers, the organization’s mission would carry on almost as well if they never hired you because their second choice for hire would have been nearly as good as you. Or better, because competence is not the only criteria for selecting employees. High performers in these professions will be irreplaceably improving the world, but not the average worker. Often the ones that have the highest impact are those that help others to have a higher impact or make a contribution to advancing their field. For instance, a therapist who encourages her colleagues to abandon outdated practices for more evidence-backed “best practices” would be performing effective altruism.
Effective altruism can be performed by anyone in a highly paid profession. Taking advantage of the large income by making large donations to effective charities, you can make a major irreplaceable difference, even if your job doesn’t directly provide a social benefit.
Many of the products and services that businesses produce or sell provide a direct benefit to the world, or improve society by providing jobs or economic growth. For instance, if you contribute to the development of a frozen entrée product that is healthier, tastier, cheaper, and more earth- and animal-friendly, you are making a valuable contribution to society, provided that the company wouldn’t have been able to produce as good a product if someone else was working in your position. Economic growth improves the world, although by expanding your business, you may simply be taking market share away from competitors without overall improving the world’s economy.
Nevertheless, opportunities for businesses to improve the world abound. For instance, a bank in a low income country that opens up a branch in an under-served village to provide ethical financial services to individuals and small business is doing something good for the people. If you contributed to the bank undergoing this initiative, then you certainly have performed effective altruism.
When people think of jobs that help others, they typically think of a job in health care or in a nonprofit organization. It’s important to recognize that effective altruism requires an irreplaceable impact. In most of these classic “helping” careers, the organization’s mission would carry on almost as well if they never hired you because their second choice for hire would have been nearly as good as you. Or better, because competence is not the only criteria for selecting employees. High performers in these professions will be irreplaceably improving the world, but not the average worker. Often the ones that have the highest impact are those that help others to have a higher impact or make a contribution to advancing their field. For instance, a therapist who encourages her colleagues to abandon outdated practices for more evidence-backed “best practices” would be performing effective altruism.
Effective altruism can be performed by anyone in a highly paid profession. Taking advantage of the large income by making large donations to effective charities, you can make a major irreplaceable difference, even if your job doesn’t directly provide a social benefit.
Unpaid Work
In theory, anything that can be done through paid work, can be done through unpaid work. An obvious example of high impact volunteering would be a specialist offering her services for free, such as a lawyer working pro bono for a nonprofit, or a surgeon providing free cleft repairs on a medical mission. However, there are many opportunities for a “concerned citizen” to make an impact as well. When people write to their elected official about an issue, causing a positive change in policy, they are making a difference.
Other types of advocacy are available to everyone, such as writing a letter to the editor in a newspaper, or lobbying your local school board to adopt an anti-bullying program. To maximize impact, it is important to examine a range of social issues, concentrate on the ones with the highest expected value for advocacy, and to be thoroughly knowledgeable about the subjects you take action on.
Another way in which an amateur can have a high impact is by developing useful knowledge and skills unrelated to your profession. For example, you could teach yourself web design and build websites for free or offer free translation in a language you learned.
A difficulty with entering a profession with the intention of having high impact is that it can be difficult to predict if you will be able to make a difference once working in the field. However, there are ways to estimate if you can make an impact in a given field:
1) Shortage of talent:
Some industries have a talent shortage because they are not considered an attractive field to work in. Maybe the wages are low, or the working conditions poor. These fields offer more potential for impact because the “next best candidate” could be considerably worse than you or there is much dysfunction in the field. For example, the field of carbon sequestration technology is very small yet potentially very high impact. A competent new grad in a related scientific discipline would have a good chance to make a difference entering that industry.
2) Personal Qualities:
Some individuals possess qualities that allow them to excel in a particular field, even a crowded one. For instance, an urban planner with very strong design and logistics aptitudes could become an outlier in his field.
3) Importance Of Field:
Given average qualifications and talent in a field, you have more potential for impact in the field if it is intrinsically important. For instance, someone involved in national health care reform advocacy has more potential to improve the world than someone working at a local food bank.
Donations
The beauty of helping others through financial support is its flexibility. Practicing EA directly through your career can be unpredictable. For instance, you may join a high impact nonprofit to find that in a couple of years, other NGOs have developed more effective programs in the same cause area. Or your personal preferences in what you see as the most important causes could change. However, when you help others using your finances, you have perfect flexibility to change course on a dime. As new data or intervention effectiveness becomes available or your values change, you can reallocate donations accordingly.
A major advantage of helping others through donations is that it is generally irreplaceable. You can be confident that you are adding to the effort in a cause. It is important to consider the room for more funding in a charity, however. Not all charitable programs are infinitely scalable. For instance, a major funder may decide to hold off on giving to a charity if it thinks the charity has received enough funding from other sources.
Donations
The beauty of helping others through financial support is its flexibility. Practicing EA directly through your career can be unpredictable. For instance, you may join a high impact nonprofit to find that in a couple of years, other NGOs have developed more effective programs in the same cause area. Or your personal preferences in what you see as the most important causes could change. However, when you help others using your finances, you have perfect flexibility to change course on a dime. As new data or intervention effectiveness becomes available or your values change, you can reallocate donations accordingly.
A major advantage of helping others through donations is that it is generally irreplaceable. You can be confident that you are adding to the effort in a cause. It is important to consider the room for more funding in a charity, however. Not all charitable programs are infinitely scalable. For instance, a major funder may decide to hold off on giving to a charity if it thinks the charity has received enough funding from other sources.
Direct vs Indirect
EA can be further divided into direct and indirect activities. With direct altruism, you are personally providing a service to others, such as medical care, education, or an income supplement. The private sector can also deliver direct altruism by providing good jobs, products or services that improve people’s lives such as affordable crop insurance or electricity for the poor.
Indirect altruism involves activities that benefit others indirectly. Promoting effective altruism, for instance, is a form of indirect altruism. Public policy, advocacy, research, and public health education are all forms of indirect altruism. Many altruistic people start out only being interested in direct work because it is emotionally fulfilling, but over time gravitate to indirect work because it has more potential for impact. For instance, a person who does wild animal rehabilitation may enter the meat reduction advocacy space after realizing that it has far more potential to help animals.