That's just called utilitarianism/consequentialism. It's a perfect respectable ethical framework. Not the most popular in academic philosophy, but prominent enough that you have to at least engage with it.

Effective altruism is a political movement, with all the baggage implicit in that.

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Vinnl 10 hours ago | parent [-]

Is there a term for looking at the impact of your donations, rather than process (like percentage spent on "overhead")? I like discussing that, but have the same problem as GP.

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edent 2 hours ago | parent [-]

"Overhead" is part of the work. It's like saying you want to look at the impact of your coding, rather than the overhead spent on documentation.

An (effective) charity needs an accountant. It needs an HR team. It needs people to clean the office, order printer toner, and organise meetings.

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lmm an hour ago | parent [-]

> An (effective) charity needs an accountant. It needs an HR team. It needs people to clean the office, order printer toner, and organise meetings.

Define "needs". Some overheads are part of the costs of delivering the effective part, sure. But a lot of them are costs of fundraising, or entirely unnecessary costs.

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edent 5 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

> costs of fundraising

How does a charity spend money unless people give it money?

They need to fund raise. There's only so far you can get with volunteers shaking tins on streets.

If a TV adverts costs £X but raises 2X, is that a sensible cost?

Here's a random UK charity which spent £15m on fund raising.

https://register-of-charities.charitycommission.gov.uk/en/ch...

That allowed them to raise 3X the amount they spent. Tell me if you think that was unnecessary?

Sure, buying the CEO a jet should start ringing alarm bells, but most charities have costs. If you want a charity to be well managed, it needs to pay for staff, audits, training, etc.

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throw4847285 an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

That's what an organization like Charity Navigator is for. Like a BBB for charities. I'm sure their methodology is flawed in some way and that there is an EA critique. But if I recall, early EA advocates used Charity Navigator as one of their inputs.

	▲	lmm 40 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		The "Program Expense Ratio" is pretty prominent in Charity Navigator's reports, and that's almost exactly a measure of "overhead".