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.
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Affiliated organizations (current or former; restricted to potential donees or others relevant to donation decisions) | Foundational Research Institute |
| Facebook username | https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100007139566626 |
| LinkedIn username | ozy-brennan-1b86b3b2 |
| Website | https://thingofthings.wordpress.com/ |
| Donations URL | https://thingofthings.wordpress.com/2016/12/22/donations-post-2016/ |
| GitHub username | ozybrennan |
| Data entry method on Donations List Website | Manual (no scripts used) |
| Org Watch page | https://orgwatch.issarice.com/?person=Ozy+Brennan |
| Cause area | Count | Median | Mean | Minimum | 10th percentile | 20th percentile | 30th percentile | 40th percentile | 50th percentile | 60th percentile | 70th percentile | 80th percentile | 90th percentile | Maximum |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 5 | 0 | 426 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 100 | 100 | 2,032 | 2,032 |
| Scientific research | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Global health and development | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Animal welfare | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Education | 1 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 |
| Charity evaluator | 1 | 2,032 | 2,032 | 2,032 | 2,032 | 2,032 | 2,032 | 2,032 | 2,032 | 2,032 | 2,032 | 2,032 | 2,032 | 2,032 |
If you hover over a cell for a given cause area and year, you will get a tooltip with the number of donees and the number of donations.
Note: Cause area classification used here may not match that used by donor for all cases.
| Cause area | Number of donations | Number of donees | Total | 2016 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Charity evaluator (filter this donor) | 1 | 1 | 2,032.00 | 2,032.00 |
| Education (filter this donor) | 1 | 1 | 100.00 | 100.00 |
| Animal welfare (filter this donor) | 1 | 1 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Global health and development (filter this donor) | 1 | 1 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Scientific research (filter this donor) | 1 | 1 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Total | 5 | 5 | 2,132.00 | 2,132.00 |
Skipping spending graph as there is at most one year’s worth of donations.
If you hover over a cell for a given subcause area and year, you will get a tooltip with the number of donees and the number of donations.
For the meaning of “classified” and “unclassified”, see the page clarifying this.
| Subcause area | Number of donations | Number of donees | Total | 2016 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Charity evaluator | 1 | 1 | 2,032.00 | 2,032.00 |
| Education | 1 | 1 | 100.00 | 100.00 |
| Animal welfare | 1 | 1 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Global health and development | 1 | 1 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Scientific research/anti-aging | 1 | 1 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Classified total | 5 | 5 | 2,132.00 | 2,132.00 |
| Unclassified total | 0 | 0 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Total | 5 | 5 | 2,132.00 | 2,132.00 |
Skipping spending graph as there is at most one year’s worth of donations.
| Donee | Cause area | Metadata | Total | 2016 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| GiveWell (filter this donor) | Charity evaluation/global health/poverty | FB Tw WP Site TW | 2,032.00 | 2,032.00 |
| Tostan (filter this donor) | Female empowerment/community empowerment/human rights | Tw WP Site TW | 100.00 | 100.00 |
| Longevity Research Institute (filter this donor) | 0.00 | 0.00 | ||
| Evidence Action (filter this donor) | 0.00 | 0.00 | ||
| Effective Altruism Funds: Animal Welfare Fund (filter this donor) | 0.00 | 0.00 | ||
| Total | -- | -- | 2,132.00 | 2,132.00 |
Skipping spending graph as there is at most one year’s worth of donations.
Sorry, we couldn't find any influencer information.
Sorry, we couldn't find any disclosures information.
Sorry, we couldn't find any country information.
| Title (URL linked) | Publication date | Author | Publisher | Affected donors | Affected donees | Affected influencers | Document scope | Cause area | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GiveWell Top Charities Explained: Against Malaria Foundation | 2019-01-10 | Ozy Brennan | Against Malaria Foundation | GiveWell | Evaluator review of donee | Global health/malaria | The blog post gives an overview of GiveWell top charity Against Malaria Foundation, and of insecticide-treated bednet distribution programs in general. It argues that misuse for fishing, and undermining of local markets, are not major concerns, but insecticide resistance could be. The post concludes with reasons for donating to AMF: "(a) You care a lot about the deaths of children under five. (b) You think the deaths of fetuses matter as much as the deaths of children under five. (c) You want a program that is robustly good on a bunch of different axes: it makes people less sick and less likely to die and increases their income. (d) You want a program that definitely works and has very few negative side effects, even if it might be less cost-effective than other programs. (e) You grew up in a place with mosquitoes and have sworn eternal vengeance on the tiny blood-sucking monstrosities." | ||
| GiveWell Top Charities Explained: GiveDirectly | 2019-01-08 | Ozy Brennan | GiveDirectly | GiveWell | Evaluator review of donee | Cash transfers | The blog post gives an overview of GiveWell top charity GiveDirectly, mostly drawing upon research collated by GiveWell as well as GiveDirectly's own website. It first discusses the general case for cash, making the argument that people are often better equipped to know how to spend money for themselves than outsiders are. However, it notes that there are cases where it may be easier for informed outsiders to identify some better opportunities, specifically related to preventative health care (that people generally tend to undervalue). This effect is even greater for populations that are lower in literacy and access to information. The blog post concludes with reasons you might donate to GiveDirectly: "(a) You need a lot of warmfuzzies in order to motivate yourself to donate. (b) You think encouraging cash benchmarking is really important, and giving GiveDirectly more money will help that. (c) You want to encourage charities to do more RCTs on their programs by rewarding the charity that does that most enthusiastically. (d) You care about increasing people’s happiness and don’t care about saving the lives of small children, and prefer a certainty of a somewhat good outcome to a small chance of a very good outcome. (e) You believe, in principle, that we should let people make their own decisions about their lives. (f) You want an intervention that definitely has at least a small positive effect. (g) You have just looked at GDLive and are no longer responsible for your actions." | ||
| GiveWell Top Charities Explained: Helen Keller International | 2019-01-07 | Ozy Brennan | Helen Keller International | GiveWell | Evaluator review of donee | Global health/nutrition/Vitamin A supplementation | Linkposted in the Effective Altruism Forum at https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/eWhWTyasEeMPMtrid/givewell-top-charities-explained-helen-keller-international (GW, IR) The blog post gives an overview of GiveWell top charity Helen Kellr International, mostly drawing upon research collated by GiveWell around the general benefits of Vitamin A supplementation. In particular, the results of the Cochrane Collaboration and DEVTA, and the discrepancy between them, is discussed. It concludes with reasons to donate to Helen Keller International: "(a) You want to save the lives of children under 6. (b) You want to donate to something that definitely won’t cause significant harm, even if it might not have an effect. (c) You’re optimistic about GiveWell’s further investigations finding that Helen Keller International is as effective as we thought, not less effective. (d) You think Helen Keller International’s technical assistance is more likely to be effective than GiveWell thinks it is. (e) You’re not too concerned about low rates of vitamin A deficiency or about the uncertainties associated with child mortality rates. | ||
| Givewell Top Charities Explained: Malaria Consortium | 2019-01-04 | Ozy Brennan | Malaria Consortium | GiveWell | Evaluator review of donee | Global health/malaria | Linkposted in the Effective Altruism Forum at https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/yjyWjguauwD7oRARz/givewell-top-charities-explained-malaria-consortium (GW, IR) The blog post gives an overview of GiveWell top charity Malaria Consortium, mostly drawing upon research collated by GiveWell (including research done by others, such as the Cochrane Collaboration). The post notes the low cost-per-life-saved-equivalent estimate of $2,292, better than that for Against Malaria Foundation, and discusses concerns about drug resistance. It ends with the following reasons people might be interested in donating to the Malaria Consortium: "(a) You care a lot about saving the lives of children under six. (b) You want to donate to a program that definitely works and is cost-effective, even if it might have other negative impacts. (c) You’re optimistic about making significant progress in eradicating malaria in the next few decades, or about malaria not developing drug resistance." | ||
| Donation Post: 2018 | 2019-01-03 | Ozy Brennan | Ozy Brennan | Longevity Research Institute Evidence Action Effective Altruism Funds | Periodic donation list documentation | Global health and development|Scientific research|Animal welfare | The blog post describes Ozy Brennan's donations for 2018, along with an explanation of the selection of each donee. The high-level explanation: "This year I am splitting my donations between the Animal Welfare Fund (animals), Evidence Action (global poverty), and the Longevity Research Institute (anti-aging). I’m taking basically the same approach with all three places I’m donating this year. I am not donating to particular programs that I think are high impact, such as malaria nets or cellular agriculture. Instead, I’m delegating my donation decisions to particular people or organizations. In two cases, I’m betting on a specific person that I have reason to believe is more informed, has better judgment, and is generally capable of making better decisions than me. In a third case, Evidence Action, I’m betting on an organization’s process and epistemics: while I know little about their current charities, I’m impressed by their transparency and commitment to admitting when things they’re trying may not work." | ||
| Seeing Like A State, Flashlights, and Giving This Year | 2016-12-01 | Elizabeth Van Nostrand | Personal blog | Elizabeth Van Nostrand Ozy Brennan | Tostan | Third-party case for donation | Education | Argues that donations to things that build capacity could be more valuable than donations to things with directly measured impact. Recommends Tostan for its capacity-building. The post influenced others to donate to Tostan: see https://thingofthings.wordpress.com/2016/12/22/donations-post-2016/ and https://acesounderglass.com/2017/01/05/tracking-donations/ | |
| Concerning MIRI’s Place in the EA Movement | 2016-02-17 | Ozy Brennan | Thing of Things | Machine Intelligence Research Institute | Miscellaneous commentary | AI safety | The post does not directly evaluate MIRI, but highlights the importance of object-level evaluation of the quality and value of the work done by MIRI. Also thanks MIRI, LessWrong, and Yudkowsky for contributions to the growth of the effective altruist movement. |
Graph of top 10 donees (for donations with known year of donation) by amount, showing the timeframe of donations
| Donee | Amount (current USD) | Amount rank (out of 5) | Donation date | Cause area | URL | Influencer | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Longevity Research Institute | -- | -- | Scientific research/anti-aging | https://thingofthings.wordpress.com/2019/01/03/donation-post-2018/ | -- | The reason for donating is described as follows: "It was founded by my friend Sarah Constantin, who is one of the smartest people I know; I have consistently been impressed by her carefulness and the breadth of her knowledge. I don’t have the understanding of medicine to know whether what they’re doing is sensible. Donating to the LRI is, fundamentally, a bet on Sarah." Ozy identifies the following characteristics for other people who may be interested in donating to LRI: "(a) Young people who want to selfishly invest in life extension research. (The research is unlikely to bear fruit in enough time to benefit older people.). (b) People who know Sarah Constantin and agree with my assessment of her character. (c) Risk-neutral effective altruists who want to support new projects". | |
| Evidence Action | -- | -- | Global health and development | https://thingofthings.wordpress.com/2019/01/03/donation-post-2018/ | -- | Ozy is excited about Evidence Action because of their goal of, and success with, implementing priority programs with rigorous monitoring and evaluation and opennness and transparency about what is and isn't working. In particular, their openness regarding the underperformance of No Lean Season impressed Ozy. Ozy identifies the following characteristics for others who may be interested in donating to Evidence Action: "(a) People who want to reward Evidence Action for admitting that No Lean Season may not work. (b) People who want to invest in improving charity epistemics. (c) People who want more global poverty charities implementing priority programs to exist.". | |
| Effective Altruism Funds: Animal Welfare Fund | -- | -- | Animal welfare | https://thingofthings.wordpress.com/2019/01/03/donation-post-2018/ | -- | Donation is to the Animal Welfare Fund (of the four Funds labeled Effective Altruism Funds). The donor, Ozy Brennan, had past experience interacting with Lewis Bollard, chair of the Animal Welfare Fund, at the time they were evaluating Wild-Animal Suffering Research (WASR), when Ozy used to work there. Ozy was impressed by Bollard's thoughtful approach during the grantmaking process, and continues to be impressed by the grants made by the Animal Welfare Fund, which are innovative, geographically diverse, and hard for small donors to find. Ozy identifies the following characteristics for other people who may be interested in donating to the Animal Welfare Fund: (a) People who prioritize animal welfare and do not think we should concentrate on persuading people to be vegan/vegetarian. (b) People who support "weird EA" animal causes. | |
| Tostan | 100.00 | 2 | Education | https://thingofthings.wordpress.com/2016/12/22/donations-post-2016/ | -- | References https://acesounderglass.com/2016/12/01/5167/; says: While I don’t have a firm opinion on the underlying issue, I think that not enough people do independent charity research, and in particular not enough global poverty effective altruists do independent charity research. While GiveWell is an amazing organization, it’s important not to have a single point of failure; a diversity of viewpoints means that we’re more likely to notice their mistakes and things they overlook. And since effective altruism has major talent gaps, it’s good for people to try to fill them. Therefore, I am giving to Tostan to encourage more people to do such research. I will probably give to other charities recommended by particularly impressive blog posts, until it seems like there is enough independent charity research. | |
| GiveWell | 2,032.00 | 1 | Charity evaluator | https://thingofthings.wordpress.com/2016/12/22/donations-post-2016/ | -- | I do not currently have any particular expertise in charity evaluation. I don’t predict that I will acquire such expertise in the near future, and I am concerned that if I save my money until I have acquired this expertise then all of the tastiest low-hanging fruit will have been plucked by the time I get around to donating. GiveWell seems to me to be highly competent as an organization and to agree with my values; therefore, I think they are a reasonable proxy for what a hypothetical version of me who knew more would donate to. |
Sorry, we couldn't find any similar donors.