Donor Briefing 03/2018

Lots of exciting developments in this pacey edition of the Briefing. Thanks for staying up-to-date with us.

Two-sentence RC breakdown – We’ve announced the addition of a new research project to RC – Rethink Priorities (RP), dedicated to doing neglected foundational research on potential causes in a highly empirical and transparent manner. LEAN wrapped up their impact assessment, SHIC received full funding for 2018, and the annual EA survey preparations have begun.

Your full RC Briefing

Read time: 4 minutes

Project Updates

Rethink Charity Overview

– RC is moving forward with our growth-oriented plans across all projects. More on what this means for each project below. We’re also hiring for the 2018 EA survey, and most of the heavy lifting on that will begin this week. See our most popular EA survey post of 2017.

Situational Awareness: RC projects are taking a distinctly empirical approach to movement building. Rethink Priorities just launched, LEAN recently concluded a detailed analysis on EA local groups, and plans are in motion to provide even more data and analysis to the 2018 EA survey than years prior.

Rethink Priorities (New!)

– We’ve unveiled Rethink Priorities (RP), a new project dedicated to doing neglected foundational research, focusing initially on lessons that can be taken from analyzing vaccinations as an intervention in the developing world and animal welfare corporate campaigns.

Go deeper: Here’s the announcement detailing the research principles and agenda.

The Local Effective Altruism Network (LEAN)

– LEAN just released the most comprehensive empirical investigation into EA local groups to date – currently the best available snapshot of EA movement building at the ground level.

– Over 20 users have created EA websites using the static site generator we launched in early 2018.

– The EA Hub redesign is under way, which will also include a new content tool that consolidates existing resources from the community.

Students for High-Impact Charity (SHIC)

– SHIC secured full Tier 2 funding for 2018 (thank you!).

– The workshop experiment has already reached 285 students across eight schools in the Greater Vancouver Area.

– Our subjective sense is that student engagement has been high during the workshops, with one or two students in each class very eager to learn more and who indicate that they are interested in pursuing a career with positive impact. Teachers have also been bullish about the program.

The fun stuff: See the latest promotional clip with class footage.

RC Forward

– RC Forward will be adding charities that widen the breadth of cause areas supported by the platform, including Innovations for Poverty Action, StrongMinds, The Coalition for Rainforest Nations, and the Clean Air Task Force.

What’s Next

– The EA Survey 2018 is making preparations and assembling a volunteer team. Volunteers and referrals can be directed to [email protected].

– RP is expected to publish further analysis of vaccines and animal welfare in March.

– LEAN will soon publish the methodology portion of the LEAN Impact Assessment and begin revamping the EA Hub. Get the full overview of what LEAN plans to change.

– SHIC is implementing new post-program survey data collection methods to boost response rates.

– RC Forward is holding off on hiring pending strategic revisions to the project. More on this soon.

Thanks again for taking the time. Your involvement is crucial to us.

Donor Briefing 12/2017 - 01/2018

We’re back with the latest in RC news following Giving Season. Enjoy the read.

Two-sentence RC breakdown – Soft-circling around our projects in the past couple of months is now materializing into funding that will roughly triple our capacities from 2017. Among the highlights piquing donor interest, RC Forward is likely to surpass our 2018 goal of moving $1m to effective charities by the end of Q1 this year.

Your full RC Briefing

Read time: 4 minutes

Project Updates

Rethink Charity

Following a particularly strong fundraising round and several assurances from major funders, Rethink Charity opened 2018 sufficiently resourced to expand our bandwidth across all projects. Our wishlist for funding reflects a responsive and calibrated approach to growth that allows us to exploit neglected or undervalued areas of impact.

We see ourselves as uniquely agile in this respect. RC Forward is an example of this in practice: a previously unavailable service catering to a high level of existing demand in Canada. The expansion and fine-grained testing of SHIC is our best effort at owning and understanding what we would call ‘future movement building’ as a promising niche.

SHIC

– The first SHIC workshop was conducted in Vancouver to an audience of roughly 40 secondary school students. Indicators on the ground were encouraging, with the school requesting more workshops for more groups of students in the near future. (Catch some of the raw footage here.)

– There have been seven more confirmed bookings with schools where we will be working with more than 350 students.

– SHIC unambiguously possesses more room for growth beyond our initial Tier 2 budget ask.

RC Forward

– $471,873.92 CAD has already been moved to effective charities, and unconfirmed estimates will likely put the total well beyond the 2018 projection of $1M USD.

– The platform added GiveWell,The Life You Can Save, Evidence Action, The Center for Applied Rationality, the Humane League, SENS Research Foundation, and Animal Equality International to the list of charities now eligible for tax benefits to Canadian donors.

LEAN

– The quantitative and qualitative LEAN Impact Assessment reports were published over the last couple of months.

– Part three of our four-part series will be released in mid-February. The third post will synthesize data from qualitative and quantitative reports in order to derive general conclusions.

What’s Next

We’re overwhelmed with gratitude at the substantial support RC has received from our donors. Our new ability to make strategic hires will free up the existing team, allowing for more specialization and better channelling of individual strengths.

Things to expect from our projects in the near future:

– The beta launch of a new independent project will be announced

– SHIC will continue running workshops and gathering data in Vancouver, potentially expanding out to Toronto and other major cities.

– RC Forward will continue adding new effective charities to the platform

Excited to multiply impact in the new year! Thanks to everyone who is helping!

Donor Briefing 11/2017

Thanks for taking the time to check our November briefing.

Two-sentence breakdown – RC is excited to announce the soft launch of Rethink Charity Forward, Canada’s first cause-neutral donation routing fund for high-impact charities around the world. Below we expand on our 2018 plans and budgets for the full repertoire of RC projects that have been appropriately wrapped for Giving Season.

Your full RC Briefing

Read time: 3 minutes

Project Updates

Rethink Charity

– Giving Season has been kind to Rethink Charity after an early fundraising boost from a series of #givingtuesday campaigns attempting to receive matching from Facebook and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. It was truly a pleasure to see more than 100 EAs coordinate to take advantage of the Facebook/BAMGF match for effective charities. See this FB group for results.

– The EA Survey 2017 Series published once again in November with information on how people get into EA, with help from special guest Ben Todd, CEO and co-founder of 80,000 Hours.

RC Forward

– We soft launched RC Forward, a donation routing service that allows Canadian donors to receive tax benefits for donations to effective charities in the US.

– Donors may choose between four separate cause area funds for unrestricted donations, as well as nine charities we’ve set up direct donation pages for, and more to come.

– By expanding the causes and charities supported, RC Forward could raise upwards of $1,000,000 for effective charities in 2018.

Students for High-Impact Charity (SHIC)

– SHIC finalized plans for the 2018 workshop experiment outlined in this post.

Local Effective Altruism Network (LEAN)

– LEAN is putting the finishing touches on the 2017 Impact Assessment on local groups, planning to publish quantitative findings in the first week of December, along with corresponding qualitative findings toward mid-month.

– Have a sneak peek of the rough and ready quantitative findings here.

What’s Next

All of our projects are currently seeking funding for the coming year and we hope you’ll diversify your Giving Season donation portfolio by adding these important movement building initiatives. We’re confident these projects carry more potential for impact than at any time in the past.

Key funding opportunities include RC Forward plans to facilitate $1M routed to effective charities, SHIC plans to bring workshops to local students in Vancouver, and LEAN plans to become a grant making entity for EA groups worldwide. If you are interested in funding any of these projects, please contact Tee at [email protected].

Hope you enjoyed the read!