Rethink Charity donations received

This is an online portal with information on donations that were announced publicly (or have been shared with permission) that were of interest to Vipul Naik. The git repository with the code for this portal, as well as all the underlying data, is available on GitHub. All payment amounts are in current United States dollars (USD). The repository of donations is being seeded with an initial collation by Issa Rice as well as continued contributions from him (see his commits and the contract work page listing all financially compensated contributions to the site) but all responsibility for errors and inaccuracies belongs to Vipul Naik. Current data is preliminary and has not been completely vetted and normalized; if sharing a link to this site or any page on this site, please include the caveat that the data is preliminary (if you want to share without including caveats, please check with Vipul Naik). We expect to have completed the first round of development by the end of July 2024. See the about page for more details. Also of interest: pageview data on analytics.vipulnaik.com, tutorial in README, request for feedback to EA Forum.

Table of contents

Basic donee information

ItemValue
Country
Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/groups/dotimpact/
Websitehttp://dotimpact.im/
Donate pagehttp://dotimpact.causevox.com/
Donation case pagehttp://dotimpact.causevox.com/
Org Watch pagehttps://orgwatch.issarice.com/?organization=Rethink+Charity
Key peoplePeter Hurford|Tom Ash
Launch date2014-01-05

Donee donation statistics

Cause areaCountMedianMeanMinimum10th percentile 20th percentile 30th percentile 40th percentile 50th percentile 60th percentile 70th percentile 80th percentile 90th percentile Maximum
Overall 40 386 2,279 0 13 36 79 164 386 500 1,643 5,000 5,377 15,000
Effective altruism 36 239 2,230 0 13 36 74 90 239 500 1,643 4,000 7,792 15,000
4 500 2,725 400 400 400 500 500 500 5,000 5,000 5,000 5,000 5,000

Donation amounts by donor and year for donee Rethink Charity

Donor Total 2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014
Peter Hurford (filter this donee) 39,076.00 164.00 119.00 11,508.00 20,677.00 6,000.00 608.00
Haseeb Qureshi (filter this donee) 17,950.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 12,650.00 5,300.00 0.00
Effective Altruism Funds: Effective Altruism Infrastructure Fund (filter this donee) 15,000.00 15,000.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
Patrick Brinich-Langlois (filter this donee) 10,000.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 10,000.00 0.00 0.00
Pierre Zakarauskas (filter this donee) 3,022.59 0.00 0.00 0.00 3,022.59 0.00 0.00
Samuel Hilton (filter this donee) 2,957.80 0.00 0.00 0.00 2,957.80 0.00 0.00
Lovkush Agarwal (filter this donee) 1,643.22 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 1,643.22 0.00
Aaron Gertler (filter this donee) 900.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 900.00 0.00 0.00
Catherine Low (filter this donee) 385.96 0.00 0.00 0.00 385.96 0.00 0.00
Aahan Rashid (filter this donee) 238.63 0.00 0.00 0.00 238.63 0.00 0.00
EA Giving Group (filter this donee) 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
Total 91,174.20 15,164.00 119.00 11,508.00 50,831.98 12,943.22 608.00

Full list of documents in reverse chronological order (8 documents)

Title (URL linked)Publication dateAuthorPublisherAffected donorsAffected doneesAffected influencersDocument scopeCause areaNotes
RC Forward 2018 Year in Review (GW, IR)2019-05-31Siobhan Brenton Effective Altruism Forum Rethink Charity Donee periodic updateEffective altruism/fundraisingRethink Charity provides an update on RC Forward. The four areas covered are: Our Year in Numbers, Early Difficulties, Responding to Feedback, and Plans Moving Forward. The "Our Year In Numbers" section gives the gross total raised by each nonprofit, and includes credit card fees. It also mentions money moved from the RC Funds
Local Effective Altruism Network's New Focus for 2019 (GW, IR)2019-03-30Michal Trzesimiech Effective Altruism Forum Rethink Charity Centre for Effective Altruism Donee periodic updateEffective altruism/movement growthThe blog post announces a new strategy being followed bny the Local Effective Altruism Network (LEAN), a subsidiary of Rethink Charity. It announes that LEAN is stepping back from its role of directly helping local groups get off the ground, with CEA taking on more of that role with the introduction of EA Community-Building Grants. The two areas where LEAN intends to continue working are: (1) Empirical research including the Effective Altruism Survey and Local Groups Survey, (2) Safe and essential technology, such as the EA Hub https://eahub.org which is being relaunched, and technology for local groups. The latter may be eventually transitioned to CEA or private groups. The post also mentions a $50,000 grant from the Centre for Effective Altruism to help LEAN with these goals
EA orgs are trying to fundraise ~$10m - $16m (GW, IR)2019-01-06Hauke Hillebrandt Effective Altruism Forum Centre for Effective Altruism Effective Altruism Foundation Machine Intelligence Research Institute Forethought Foundation for Global Priorities Research Sentience Institute Alliance to Feed the Earth in Disasters Global Catastrophic Risk Institute Rethink Priorities EA Hotel 80,000 Hours Rethink Charity Miscellaneous commentaryThe blog post links to and discusses the spreadsheet https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/10zU6gp_H_zuvlZ2Vri-epSK0_urbcmdS-5th3mXQGXM/edit which tabulates various organizations and their fundraising targets, along with quotes and links to fundraising posts. The blog post itself has three points, the last of which is that the EA community is relatively more funding-constrained again
Four Organizations EAs Should Fully Fund for 20182017-12-12Peter Hurford Effective Altruism ForumPeter Hurford Charity Science Health Rethink Charity Sentience Institute Wild-Animal Suffering Research Donation suggestion listPeter Hurford makes the case to donate to four organizations that he plans to donate to in 2018, based on the promise of their programs as well as their room for more funding
Rethink Charity Forward: Giving Platform for Canadian Donors (GW, IR)2017-12-09Baxter Bullock Effective Altruism Forum Rethink Charity LaunchEffective altruism/fundraisingRethink Charity announces the launch of RC Forward, to help Canadian donors make tax-deductible contributions to a wide range of charities in domains ranging from global health and development to animal welfare. This is a successor to Charity Science Outreach (CSO). The parent nonprofit for CSO, Charity Science, has moved to focus on Charity Science Health and related programs and is therefore handing over the donation processing piece to RC Forward, which is started by two former Charity Science employees
2017 LEAN Impact Assessment: Quantitative Findings2017-12-08Richenda Herzig Effective Altruism Forum Rethink Charity Donee periodic updateEffective altruism/movement growthFirst document in the 2017 Lean Impact Assessment Series, an evaluation of Local Effective Altruism Network (LEAN), a project of Rethink Charity. The document covers results from the 2017 Local Group Survey, conducted in collaboration with Effective Altruism Foundation (EAF) and the Centre for Effective Altruism (CEA)
.impact is now Rethink Charity2017-05-30Tee Barnett Rethink Charity Rethink Charity Status changeEffective altruism/movement growthThe blog post announces the merging of .impact and Students for High Impact Charity (SHIC) under a new brand called Rethink Charity. Prioritized projects of Rethink Charity include Local Effective Altruism Network (LEAN), peer-to-peer campaigns, and SHIC. Other projects include the EA Hub and EA Survey
Introducing CEA’s Guiding Principles2017-03-07William MacAskill Centre for Effective AltruismEffective Altruism Foundation Rethink Charity Centre for Effective Altruism 80,000 Hours Animal Charity Evaluators Charity Science Effective Altruism Foundation Foundational Research Institute Future of Life Institute Raising for Effective Giving The Life You Can Save Miscellaneous commentaryEffective altruismWillam MacAskill outlines CEA's understanding of the guiding principles of effective altruism: commitment to others, scientific mindset, openness, integrity, and collaborative spirit. The post also lists other organizations that voice their support for these definitions and guiding principles, including: .impact, 80,000 Hours, Animal Charity Evaluators, Charity Science, Effective Altruism Foundation, Foundational Research Institute, Future of Life Institute, Raising for Effective Giving, and The Life You Can Save. The following individuals are also listed as voicing their support for the definition and guiding principles: Elie Hassenfeld of GiveWell and the Open Philanthropy Project, Holden Karnofsky of GiveWell and the Open Philanthropy Project, Toby Ord of the Future of Humanity Institute, Nate Soares of the Machine Intelligence Research Institute, and Peter Singer. William MacAskill worked on the document with Julia Wise, and also expresses gratitude to Rob Bensinger and Hilary Mayhew for their comments and wording suggestions. The post also briefly mentions an advisory panel set up by Julia Wise, and links to https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/mdMyPRSSzYgk7X45K/advisory-panel-at-cea (GW, IR) for more detail

Full list of donations in reverse chronological order (40 donations)

Graph of top 10 donors (for donations with known year of donation) by amount, showing the timeframe of donations

Graph of donations and their timeframes
DonorAmount (current USD)Amount rank (out of 40)Donation dateCause areaURLInfluencerNotes
Effective Altruism Funds: Effective Altruism Infrastructure Fund15,000.0012019-08-23Effective altruism/movement growthhttps://app.effectivealtruism.org/funds/ea-community/payouts/3pxoLG7aRWtETC1lECC6LKLuke Ding Alex Foster Denise Melchin Matt Wage Donation process: Part of the July 2019 EA Meta Fund grants round. The grant page says: "7 of the 9 grantees in this round applied through this process." It is not clear whether Rethink Charity is one of the 7 that applied

Intended use of funds (category): Direct project expenses

Intended use of funds: Grant to design and run an updated version ofthe EA Survey in 2019. The grant page says: "Rethink has been collaborating with CEA and other meta organizations to gather input on the 2019 survey. Like last year, Rethink will release anonymized data and summary survey output." There is an accompanying $5,000 grant to CEA, which will use the funding to pay Rethink for "bespoke analysis of the results."

Donor reason for selecting the donee: The grant page says: "[I]it is valuable to generate more empirical data to inform movement-building strategy. In particular, we are aware that some high-impact organizations consistently collaborate with the researchers who analyze the survey, in order to inform their organizational and community-building strategies. [...] Maintaining a sufficiently large survey and in-depth analysis seems like one of the better methods to generate data and insights [about the broad effective altruism movement]."

Donor reason for donating at this time (rather than earlier or later): Timing determined by timing of grant round. Also, the grant page says: "We think part of the benefit of the survey is ensuring data that is collected on a regular basis to allow for consistent year-on-year comparisons. Funding at this stage will allow the survey and analysis to be carried out this year in line with the annual publishing cycle."
Intended funding timeframe in months: 12

Other notes: Percentage of total donor spend in the corresponding batch of donations: 3.22%.
Peter Hurford164.00252019-01-09Effective altruism/movement growthhttp://peterhurford.com/other/donations.html-- Donation covers tech fees.
Peter Hurford31.00342018-06-01Effective altruism/movement growthhttp://peterhurford.com/other/donations.html--
Peter Hurford74.00302018-04-11Effective altruism/movement growthhttp://peterhurford.com/other/donations.html--
Peter Hurford14.00352018-02-28Effective altruism/movement growthhttp://peterhurford.com/other/donations.html-- Web hosting.
Haseeb Qureshi----2018Effective altruism/movement growthhttps://haseebq.com/2018-donations/-- Donation process: The announcement post says that the donor is donating 33% of his pre-tax income, as usual, but has decided to not disclose exact amounts as he does not want his compensation to be known. The amount is allocated between multiple donees based on the donor's assessment

Intended use of funds (category): Direct project expenses

Intended use of funds: Donation for the Local Effective Altruism Network (LEAN), a "small group at Rethink Charity that focuses on seeding and supporting local EA groups."

Donor reason for selecting the donee: The announcement post says: "I feel that lately these kinds of efforts have been neglected within the effective altruism community in favor of direct work. I think this is unwise—I know for myself and many others within the EA community, we would not have found and maintained our focus on EA were it not for local groups early on. It’s never wise to take your talent pipeline for granted. LEAN has a great approach of supporting local EA groups, and I trust they’ll do a lot to keep the ideas and norms behind effective altruism alive and healthy."

Donor reason for donating that amount (rather than a bigger or smaller amount): The total amount the donor is giving away is 33% of pre-tax income. The allocation of 20% to Rethink Charity for LEAN is likely determined by the needs of other recipients; it is also similar to the 25% allocated to Rethink Charity in 2015 and 2016
Percentage of total donor spend in the corresponding batch of donations: 20.00%

Donor reason for donating at this time (rather than earlier or later): End-of-year round of donations of 33% of income in the year; this is part of the donor's earning-to-give strategy

Other notes: Announced: 2019-01-17.
Peter Hurford13.00362017-11-29Effective altruism/movement growthhttp://peterhurford.com/other/donations.html-- For a domain name.
Peter Hurford1,000.00152017-10-31Effective altruism/movement growthhttp://peterhurford.com/other/donations.html-- Support to send Tee Barnett to EA London on behalf of Rethink Charity.
Peter Hurford1,150.00142017-09-01Effective altruism/movement growthhttp://peterhurford.com/other/donations.html-- Grant intended for Students for High Impact Charity, part of a $10,000 grant decision announced on 2016-09-27. See http://effective-altruism.com/ea/128/students_for_high_impact_charity_review_and_10k/ for more context. The first $4,000 of the grant amount was sent on 2017-01-13 and the next $5,030 was sent 2017-06-30.
Peter Hurford255.00222017-07-31Effective altruism/movement growthhttp://peterhurford.com/other/donations.html-- Covers $255 out of $306 of annual SurveyMonkey subscription cost. Remaining $51 covered by the Center for Effective Altruism.
Peter Hurford5,000.0072017-06-30Effective altruism/movement growthhttp://peterhurford.com/other/donations.html-- Grant intended for Students for High Impact Charity, part of a $10,000 grant decision announced on 2016-09-27. See http://effective-altruism.com/ea/128/students_for_high_impact_charity_review_and_10k/ for more context. The first $4,000 of the grant amount was sent on 2017-01-13.
Peter Hurford90.00262017-03-01Effective altruism/movement growthhttp://peterhurford.com/other/donations.html-- For meetup.com fees.
Peter Hurford4,000.00102017-01-13Effective altruism/movement growthhttp://peterhurford.com/other/donations.html-- Grant originally made to Students for High Impact Charity before it merged with .impact to form Rethink Charity. See http://effective-altruism.com/ea/128/students_for_high_impact_charity_review_and_10k/ for the explanation; the remaining amount would be granted later.
Peter Hurford13.00362016-11-28Effective altruism/community project coordinationhttp://peterhurford.com/other/donations.html-- Domain name purchase.
Peter Hurford90.00262016-08-28Effective altruism/community project coordinationhttp://peterhurford.com/other/donations.html--
Peter Hurford500.00172016-08-24Effective altruism/community project coordinationhttp://peterhurford.com/other/donations.html--
Peter Hurford192.00242016-08-07Effective altruism/community project coordinationhttp://peterhurford.com/other/donations.html--
Aaron Gertler400.00202016-06-26--https://aarongertler.net/donations-all-years/-- The donation was to .impact, which is now Rethink Charity. 40% of the donations that day; the other 60% went to Against Malaria Foundation. Percentage of total donor spend in the corresponding batch of donations: 40.00%.
Peter Hurford12,000.0032016-05-01Effective altruism/community project coordinationhttp://peterhurford.com/other/donations.html--
Peter Hurford7,792.0042016-04-20Effective altruism/community project coordinationhttp://peterhurford.com/other/donations.html--
Patrick Brinich-Langlois5,000.0072016-03-21--https://www.patbl.com/misc/other/donations/--
Peter Hurford90.00262016-03-01Effective altruism/community project coordinationhttp://peterhurford.com/other/donations.html--
Patrick Brinich-Langlois5,000.0072016-02-01--https://www.patbl.com/misc/other/donations/--
Aaron Gertler500.00172016-01-15--https://aarongertler.net/donations-all-years/-- The donation was to .impact, which is now Rethink Charity. 40% of donations made that day. Percentage of total donor spend in the corresponding batch of donations: 40.00%.
Samuel Hilton2,957.80122016Effective altruism/Community project coordinationhttps://github.com/peterhurford/ea-data/-- Currency info: donation given as 2,250.00 GBP (conversion done on 2017-08-05 via Fixer.io).
Aahan Rashid238.63232016Effective altruism/Community project coordinationhttps://github.com/peterhurford/ea-data/-- Currency info: donation given as 300.00 CAD (conversion done on 2017-08-05 via Fixer.io).
Pierre Zakarauskas3,022.59112016Effective altruism/Community project coordinationhttps://github.com/peterhurford/ea-data/-- Currency info: donation given as 3,800.00 CAD (conversion done on 2017-08-05 via Fixer.io).
Haseeb Qureshi12,650.0022016Effective altruism/movement growthhttps://haseebq.com/2016-donations-and-some-thoughts/-- Donation process: The announcement post says: "In 2016, my donations totaled $50,600. My finances this year were little more complicated, but that was my best estimate of 33% of my pre-tax income. (That income does not include RSUs; whenever I can liquidate them, I will also donate 33% of their value.) Below are the organizations I donated to and why."

Intended use of funds (category): Organizational general support

Intended use of funds: The announcement post says: ".impact [the name of Rethink Charity at the time] is a grassroots EA organization that maintains a lot of Effective Altruism’s infrastructure, including the EA Forum (which I highly recommend). One of their most exciting projects is LEAN (Local Effective Altruism Network), which helps to seed and support university EA organizations."

Donor reason for selecting the donee: The announcement post says: "One of their most exciting projects is LEAN (Local Effective Altruism Network), which helps to seed and support university EA organizations. [...] Young people have already shown that in many ways they are going to be the primary vector for change in this world. And as those young people come into power, I’d love to see more of them thinking rigorously about how to do good. In short, I think influencing more young people to think critically about effectiveness is one of our best levers for ensuring a positive future."

Donor reason for donating that amount (rather than a bigger or smaller amount): The total amount the donor is giving away is $50,600, which is 33% of pre-tax income. The allocation of 25% to Rethink Charity is likely determined by the needs of other recipients; it is also the same percentage as allocated in 2015
Percentage of total donor spend in the corresponding batch of donations: 25.00%

Donor reason for donating at this time (rather than earlier or later): End-of-year round of donations of 33% of income in the year; this is part of the donor's earning-to-give strategy

Donor retrospective of the donation: The donor would make a similar grant to the Local Effective Altruism Network in 2018 https://haseebq.com/2018-donations/

Other notes: Announced: 2017-01-29.
Catherine Low385.96212016Effective altruism/Community project coordinationhttps://github.com/peterhurford/ea-data/-- Currency info: donation given as 518.00 NZD (conversion done on 2017-08-05 via Fixer.io).
Peter Hurford5,377.0052015-12-23Effective altruism/community project coordinationhttp://peterhurford.com/other/donations.html--
Peter Hurford500.00172015-09-03Effective altruism/community project coordinationhttp://peterhurford.com/other/donations.html--
Peter Hurford47.00312015-09-03Effective altruism/community project coordinationhttp://peterhurford.com/other/donations.html--
Peter Hurford40.00322015-08-14Effective altruism/community project coordinationhttp://peterhurford.com/other/donations.html--
Peter Hurford36.00332015-04-20Effective altruism/community project coordinationhttp://peterhurford.com/other/donations.html--
Haseeb Qureshi5,300.0062015Effective altruism/movement growthhttps://haseebq.com/my-first-year-earning-to-give-a-retrospective/-- Donation process: The announcement post says: "In all I gave 33% of my pre-tax income, which since I started my job in June, amounts to $21,200 USD I donated to high-impact charities." The allocation of this $21,200 is based on analysis of the individual target charities

Intended use of funds (category): Organizational general support

Intended use of funds: At the time of the donation, the donee is known as .impact (it would later rename itself to Rethink Charity). The announcement post calls it "a grassroots EA organization with which I’ve grown more involved over the last year. .impact is best known for creating a ton of EA infrastructure, including the EA Forums and EA Hub. Their latest project is LEAN, which helps to seed and support EA chapters all around the world, helping to foster the movement at the grassroots level."

Donor reason for selecting the donee: The announcement post says: ".impact is best known for creating a ton of EA infrastructure, including the EA Forums and EA Hub. Their latest project is LEAN, which helps to seed and support EA chapters all around the world, helping to foster the movement at the grassroots level."

Donor reason for donating that amount (rather than a bigger or smaller amount): The announcement post says: "In all I gave 33% of my pre-tax income, which since I started my job in June, amounts to $21,200 USD I donated to high-impact charities." Rethink Charity gets 25% of this money; the amount it gets is likely constrained by the needs of other recipients
Percentage of total donor spend in the corresponding batch of donations: 25.00%

Donor reason for donating at this time (rather than earlier or later): End-of-year round of donations of 33% of income in the year; this is part of the donor's earning-to-give strategy

Donor retrospective of the donation: The donor would continue to make similar donations in later years: to Rethink Charity in 2016 https://haseebq.com/2016-donations-and-some-thoughts/and to the Local Effective Altruism Network in 2018 https://haseebq.com/2018-donations/

Other notes: Announced: 2015-12-31.
Lovkush Agarwal1,643.22132015Effective altruism/Community project coordinationhttps://github.com/peterhurford/ea-data/-- Currency info: donation given as 1,250.00 GBP (conversion done on 2017-08-05 via Fixer.io).
EA Giving Group----2015Effective altruism/movement growthhttps://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1H2hF3SaO0_QViYq2j1E7mwoz3sDjdf9pdtuBcrq7pRU/editNick Beckstead Actual date range: December 2014 to December 2015. Exact date, amount, or fraction not known, but it is the donee with the sixth highest amount donated out of eight donees in this period. Grant originally to the Local Effective Altruism Network (LEAN) which is now part of Rethink Charity.
Peter Hurford13.00362014-11-25Effective altruism/community project coordinationhttp://peterhurford.com/other/donations.html--
Peter Hurford516.00162014-09-30Effective altruism/community project coordinationhttp://peterhurford.com/other/donations.html--
Peter Hurford79.00292014-09-07Effective altruism/community project coordinationhttp://peterhurford.com/other/donations.html--