Ecosystem @ Molecule + VitaDAO with product, design and dev background exploring decentralized science and longevity.


Keeping track of my donations

My giving philosophy: “My case for donating to small, new efforts”

I think the average donor has very little impact when they donate to big, established efforts in traditional philanthropy, such as Greenpeace or efforts such as Against malaria in effective altruism. I think the biggest impact comes from the equivalent of angel investing, but for funding novel philanthropic initiatives that could potentially be extremely impactful in relevant cause areas, but are underexplored and underfunded.

On reflection for myself, donating in the first few months of the project’s existence to projects such as Ocean Cleanup, NewScience or Taimaka was probably much more impactful than donating to big, established efforts. I would also recommend novel, potentially impactful initiatives to other donors and foundations for funding. Once a billionaire or big foundation is funding a project, it probably doesn’t require your donations anymore.

In the book Effective Altruism: Philosophical Issues (Engaging Philosophy), Mark Budolfson and Dean Spears make this case elogquently in their paper “The Hidden Zero Problem: Effective Altruism and Barriers to Marginal Impact”. I highly recommend reading the book.

I do think that efforts such as the EA funds or ACX Grants are a decent passive way to have a similar impact, as they support these small, novel projects.

   

Chronology of what I thought was worth supporting (with a range of small amounts)

2023

2022

   

2021: see all and donate easily through every.org or endaoment: for direct crypto donations

   

2020

   

2018-2019

2017 and before