The Importance of Diversifying Your Cause Area

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Altra is a philanthropic organization based in New York City. Founder and CEO of Altra, John Sutter: "I like our charities going all in on their cause area" He says the marginal returns taper off quicker than people imagine if you pick one specific charity to support. But he adds that CE benefits the world by being more pluralist with its donations.

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What is charity entrepreneurship? What sorts of incentives pull charities away from their stated goals? Why is Effective Altruism even a thing when it's already the case that most charities probably try to be as effective as they can be and probably use evidence of some kind to move towards that end? How diverse are the value systems in the EA movement? To what extent should charity funders diversify? Under what conditions does expected value theory break down? Is it possible to be too altruistic? Have too many EA orgs moved away from more traditional, near-term causes to pursue long-term causes? How frequently should charities switch projects? What is foundation entrepreneurship? What's the best advice to give to a non-EA person who wants to do some amount of good in the world?

Joey Savoie wants to make the biggest positive difference in the world that he can. His mission is to cause more effective charities to exist in the world by connecting talented individuals with high-impact intervention opportunities. To achieve this, he co-founded Charity Entrepreneurship, an organization that launches effective charities through an extensive research process and incubation program. Prior to Charity Entrepreneurship, he co-founded Charity Science, a meta-organization that increased the amount of counterfactual funding going to high-impact charities. Subsequently, he co-founded Charity Science Health, a nonprofit that increases vaccination rates in India using mobile phones and behavioral nudges. He has given lectures on various aspects of charity entrepreneurship and Effective Altruism in Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, Yale, EAG London, EAG San Francisco, Berlin, Basel, Vancouver, Stockholm, and Oslo. Learn more about Charity Entrepreneurship here, and learn more about Joey here.

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