This post gives some general information on my interest in effective altruism. For my history of financial donations, see here. You can also look at the Donations List Website, a preliminary, un-vetted website I am using to track donors, donees, and donations.

I’ve had some involvement with the effective altruism movement (central website, Wikipedia page, list of learning resources, Facebook group).

I used to post reasonably often in the Effective Altruists Facebook group, and I recommend that you join the group if you’re interested, even if you don’t identify as an effective altruist in the strong sense.

Organizations related to effective altruism that I have interacted with or whose work I have discussed at significant length include GiveWell (see my page about my history with GiveWell) and the Open Philanthropy Project (see my page about my interaction with the Open Philanthropy Project).

Some of my writings related to my personal involvement with effective altruism as well as some general observations concerning it are below. You can get additional lists of writings by clicking to my pages above about GiveWell and the Open Philanthropy Project.

• Guest post from Vipul Naik on the GiveWell blog, August 5, 2011, describes my personal history of donation and of deciding to follow GiveWell’s recommendations. Note that both my views and GiveWell’s recommendations have evolved considerably since the time of my writing the post.

You can also read my posts in the Effective Altruists Facebook group. Some of my posts that I think are most interesting are listed below. Note that my views as expressed in these posts may not reflect my current views.

• Summary of commonly cited reasons for donating now versus donating later, December 15, 2014. 8 likes, 10 comments. I intend to do a post on the Effective Altruism Forum expanding on these points and offering my critiques of them.
• My view that people earning modest incomes should concentrate on saving rather than making small donations to charity, March 24, 2014. 31 likes, 70 comments. I intend to discuss these ideas in my forthcoming EA Forum post alluded to in the preceding point.
• Proposal for a blog post about whether one should donate to the Wikimedia Foundation, December 14, 2014. 17 likes, 21 comments. The blog post was published on the Effective Altruism Forum with the title Should you donate to the Wikimedia Foundation? on March 28, 2015.