Effective altruism is a community using evidence and careful reasoning to try and find the best ways to tackle the world's biggest, most neglected problems.
Some ways of helping do hundreds of times more good
The same $30,000 buys about one year of healthy life in a rich country's health service, or around 300 through the most cost-effective charities.
Focus on big, neglected problems
There are so many problems that it's hard to know where to start. We look for the largest and most neglected, where an extra person or euro goes furthest. Today that includes global health, animal welfare, AI and pandemics, and future generations.
Think like a scientist
Working out how to do the most good is hard. So we act on the best evidence and reasoning we can find, stay wary of overconfidence, and change course when we learn more.
Widen your circle of compassion
Ending slavery and votes for women sounded crazy once. Now they look obvious. Caring about those others overlook, from the world's poorest people to farmed animals, future generations and even invertebrates, can still go against the grain.
Work it out together
Nobody can figure this out alone. EA is a community where people test each other's ideas, share what they learn and help each other act on it, from a first career conversation to starting a charity.
“There was some action that I could personally take that, with relative certainty, would save lives. How incredible is that?”
Céline Kamsteeg
Then
Corporate consultant
Now
Co-founder of Lafiya Nigeria, funded by GiveWell and the Gates Foundation
“The huge network I’ve gotten in contact with through EA has been amazing.”
Jesse Hoogland
Then
Physicist
Now
Co-founder of Resolution, an AI safety non-profit backed by a $160M grant from Coefficient Giving
“I was in my fifties before I sat down to deliberately work out how and where I potentially could do the most good… I wish I would have learned about impact earlier in my career.”
Nicoll Peracha
Then
Doctors Without Borders and ProVeg
Now
Founder of The Mission Motor
“EA at its best is like the Quakers in the 18th century: very weird, but also very right about some of the most fundamental issues of our time.”
Rutger Bregman Writer, author of Humankind and Moral Ambition
“EA convinced me, in the 2010s, that pandemics and AI were very big deals, that could pose major risks and change the world. 5 years ago, it got me to spend my career ensuring we could read AI minds.”
Neel Nanda Leads mechanistic interpretability at Google DeepMind
“If asked ‘which 2018 community now looks most prescient based on how the intervening 5 years unfolded?’, I think it’s hard to come up with better nominations than EA.”
Patrick Collison CEO of Stripe
“When it comes to smart and many of the very smartest young people, the influence of Effective Altruism on their thought is radically underreported and underrepresented.”
Tyler Cowen Economist, George Mason University
On first hearing the case for effective altruism, “the arguments were just so compelling.”
Liv Boeree Poker world champion and co-founder of Raising for Effective Giving
Photos of Rutger Bregman by Maartje ter Horst (CC BY 4.0), Tyler Cowen (CC BY-SA 3.0), Liv Boeree by Web Summit (CC BY 2.0) and Patrick Collison by JD Lasica (CC BY 2.0), via Wikimedia Commons.
Where to start
Want to start diving in?
Try our quick, free course on the world's most pressing problems. Six short units, start anytime, go at your own pace. Think Duolingo for doing good.
The world's most pressing problems · about 100 minutes
Your problem set
Why numbers matter14 min
Global health and poverty13 min
Animals and the moral circle16 min
Our final century?15 min
Advanced AI17 min
Choosing, and what you can do25 min
Ready for more?
The EA Fellowship
A selective, five-week programme for people ready to go deeper. Expect about 3.5 hours a week of reading and small-group discussion. It's a real commitment and places are limited, so we ask you to apply. The next round starts in early 2027.
