Donor Briefing 05/2020

Thanks for checking out our briefing. Wherever you happen to be sheltering-in-place, we hope you and yours are staying safe. We have spoken to many in the charitable sector that have been forced to be resilient to varying degrees due to COVID. The RC team continues to draw inspiration from charitable initiatives and donors focused on alleviating suffering and looking out for the future of humanity in the midst of these very challenging times.


Project Headlines - RC collaborates with the EA Giving Tuesday team in raising >$1.5M for effective charities, RC Forward publishes their 2019 year-in-review, Rethink Priorities graduates from RC, and the EA Hub consolidates resources for local groups.

Financials Snapshot* - $USD

*= Note figures do not include the Rethink Priorities project ** = Approximate estimate that includes currency conversion Note: in the previous briefing, typos indicated that our staffing numbers and runway were unchanged from February. This briefi…

*= Note figures do not include the Rethink Priorities project

** = Approximate estimate that includes currency conversion

Note: in the previous briefing, typos indicated that our staffing numbers and runway were unchanged from February. This briefing’s information is accurate.

Full RC Briefing

Project Updates

Rethink Charity Overview

You may have noticed our project offering has become more focused. Since the turn of the year, RC has been principally working toward winding down certain projects, buttressing the sustainability of the Rethink Charity regranting model, and spinning off Rethink Priorities. Our staff did engage in a seasonal push with the EA Giving Tuesday team that facilitated $1,094,039 in donations to effective charities with over 50% of those funds matched. 

We’ve pivoted the bulk of our efforts toward the promotion and streamlining of RC Forward, while also seeking to generate revenue for operations by acting as fiscal sponsors for impactful foreign and domestic projects. Though still in the exploration phase, we’re encouraged by the level of demand for promising projects that want to offer tax advantages for funders. Please email Tee at [email protected] if you are aware of any projects that could be a good fit!

Rethink Priorities graduation - RP released a post late last year outlining the process of spinning off from Rethink Charity to form its own public charity in the US. Both organizations will continue collaboration efforts, including the EA Survey and cost-effectiveness analyses for RC Forward. We are excited to see RP scale new heights in producing valuable research for the world. 

Rethink Priorities (RP)

RC Forward

  • RC Forward released their 2019 year-in-review and opened up additional routes for Canadians to give to organizations that are leading COVID-19 research and relief efforts.  

  • RC Forward began allocating 4% of all donations made through our platform to our operations, with several notable exceptions that include COVID relief efforts. 

  • Excluding the single largest donor of 2018, the platform has experienced year-on-year quarterly growth.

EA Survey

EA Hub

What’s Next

Despite these troubling times, we can cite examples abound of generous folks who have stepped up levels of support for initiatives doing good work. Thank you to everyone who continues to support us and other worthwhile initiatives as the pandemic continues. 

Rethink Charity and COVID-19

Since our launch in 2017, Rethink Charity has always been a remote team, but now this feels critical to our safety and well-being. While closely monitoring our own mental health and emotional responses in this troubling time, we are thankful to be able to continue our work moving money to high-impact (and relevant) charities, providing important and neglected research to the community, and supporting promising initiatives with our fiscal services.

Now more than ever, it’s crucial to foster communities that are empathically dedicating their time and efforts towards doing the most good. We’re excited about supporting these efforts in a number of ways:

Supporting the fight against COVID-19

RC Forward provides COVID-19 giving opportunities for Canadians

While continuing to support our current partner charities, we have also opened up routes for Canadians to give to organizations that are leading research and relief efforts for COVID-19 and the prevention of future pandemics. These include organizations like the Center for Health Security (CHS) at Johns Hopkins University and the Combating COVID-19 Fund at the Gates Foundation. Additionally, we’re supporting our partner charities like GiveDirectly and Development Media International in their COVID-19 initiatives, as well as our other global health partners whose programs continue to promote the health of vulnerable communities.

Rethink Priorities consolidates and summarizes relevant ongoing research

Our research team has begun devoting significant resources towards projects relevant to the ongoing crisis. There’s a lot of information circulating and not all of it is relevant, current and reliable, which is why we have been taking time to filter the most important information into semi-regular Consolidated Briefs. Read the most recent here.

Additionally, there is information important specifically for nonprofits who may be facing difficult times ahead financially. Governments are aiding nonprofits and charities, but it can be difficult to figure out how to take full advantage of that aid. RP has written an instructional post for US nonprofits.

Finally, the team is currently working on a summary of the effects of COVID-19 on nonhuman animals, to be released in the coming month.

Rethink Charity offers to fiscally sponsor relevant initiatives

We have recently been exploring ways to support up-and-coming initiatives through fiscal services that we already have the infrastructure to support. This could include creating tax-advantaged funding routes through which Americans and Canadians can support promising and underfunded COVID-19 projects. If you’re interested in learning more or suggesting a project, please email [email protected]. 

Supporting our team

We may be in a more fortunate position than many, but no one is immune to the effects that this pandemic is having on our communities. Our staff are no exception to this. We are therefore implementing and continuing a number of measures to promote staff well-being, including:

  • Encouraging mental, physical, and emotional health:  We’re encouraging our team to take the time and space they need to maintain health and a sustainable work-life balance. This has been standard practice at Rethink Charity since before the pandemic, but has been emphasized in recent weeks.

  • Flexibility of working hours and time off: Another staple of RC’s workplace culture, flexibility is moving front and center. As our staff adjusts to recent events, we will continue to encourage them to work when they’re at their best and take breaks when needed. 

  • Frequent video check-ins: Recent stay-at-home orders have left many of us feeling isolated. That’s why we’re continuing to meet virtually to help our team feel more connected and meet everyone’s needs as much as we can.

From all of us at Rethink Charity, we hope you’re staying safe, and we’re looking forward to a healthier future ahead. 

RC Forward Operations Allocation

Beginning February 26, 2020, RC Forward will be allocating 4% of all donations made through our platform to our operations (with several notable exceptions listed below). This includes recurring/monthly donations, but does not include any donations made prior to February 26 (online, postmarked, or e-transferred). Below we outline our reasoning for this adjustment.

This will likely last through the 2020 calendar year; however, we will be reassessing this policy on a quarterly basis to determine whether to maintain this allocation, reduce the percentage, institute allocation tiers, or do away with it altogether.

Exceptions include: 

  • Donations made directly to our partner charities that are registered in Canada (Against Malaria Foundation, Schistosomiasis Control Initiative, Rethink Priorities, and Iodine Global Network, as of February 2020). 0% of these donations will be allocated to our operations unless indicated otherwise by the donor. (Note that this exception does not include donations to RC Forward Funds.)

  • Large donations made by donors who have provided significant support for our operations in the past. These exceptions will be determined on a case-by-case basis through correspondence with the donor. If you feel this applies to you, please inquire at the time of donation for more information.

  • Donations made to charities that are not official partner charities (i.e., listed on our website). It is possible that a proportion of the donation larger than 4% will be allocated to our operations in these cases, to be determined on a case-by-case basis through correspondence with the individual donor.

Our Reasoning

RC Forward is in a period of transition after our operations fundraising push fell short, leaving our runway for 2020 down to just a few months. As a result, we’re taking action to make the project more sustainable and working more closely with major donors with hopes of keeping this project operational.

We are taking two major steps in converting to a more sustainable funding model: 

First, we have reduced staff to the bare essentials in order to minimize our in-house expenses. This should save us quite a bit of money every month. It has left us in a position where we won’t be able to put much focus on expansion, but we hope the change will be temporary.

Second, we have reluctantly decided to allocate a proportion of donations passed through our platform to our operations as outlined above. We aim for this to be temporary, or to reduce the allocation percentage over time, but ultimately, this will depend on whether or not we can engage donors in monthly support or procure steady revenue by other means.

We think that these two major steps, along with our appeals to major donors, will bring the project to the point of being sustainable. We need funding to bridge the gap between spring and giving season 2020. This means we are working to raise the remainder of our 2020 budget over the next few months.

Feedback and Evidence

We did not arrive at this decision lightly. Some evidence suggests that in the nonprofit industry, donors tend to give larger donations on average to charities that allocate 100% of their donations to programs (as opposed to operations and administration). However, we want to make sure our donors understand that this allocation to our operations will increase our impact over time by making RC Forward a sustainable and long-lasting project. In other words, after three giving seasons and $6M CAD moved to effective charities, we are extremely confident that a mandatory allocation to our operations is likely far better for the world than RC Forward ceasing to exist.

In January, we polled more than 70 RC Forward donors on their subjective sense of what would feel like an appropriate allocation and how this allocation may affect their giving habits. Here’s what we concluded based on the results:

  • The vast majority of our donors signaled their support for an allocation to our operations, and many found it surprising that we had no such designation before now.

  • We don’t expect donations to decrease significantly as a result of instituting this allocation.

  • 4% appears to be a happy medium for an allocation to our operations, though a tiered system may be better for larger donations.

  • Donors would like more transparency around our operations funding and methods. This would make donors more comfortable with the allocation.

Taking a moment to respond to the final bullet point: we agree that we could be more transparent about our organizational costs and will strive to do better with this in the future. In short, our operational costs include (from the most significant portion of our budget to the least): 

  • Salaries for our team of four; 

  • Third-party cross-border and fund transfer fee coverage; 

  • Technology, accounting, and legal costs; and

  • Conference attendance for our staff. 

Our budget for 2020 is $223,000 USD, which we consider very lean for an organization that has recently reached $6M CAD cumulatively (since giving season 2017) passed through to effective charities. See our cost-effectiveness analysis for more information, and stay tuned for an updated version (using 2019 donation data) to be released in March.

In addition to surveying our donors, we have received wide support from partner charities that would be affected by this allocation. They overwhelmingly agree with the value and impact that RC Forward provides, and understand that an allocation to our operations may be necessary for the project to remain sustainable. Like many of our donors, our partner charities were surprised that we didn’t need to implement an allocation like this earlier.

It is our hope that by taking these steps, RC Forward will continue to thrive as a tool that provides Canadian donors with the opportunity to give to the best charities in the world. 

Please feel free to reach out to our Executive Director, Baxter Bullock ([email protected]), or our RC Forward Manager Siobhan Brenton ([email protected]) with any questions, comments, feedback or concerns.