“Why I donate: some selfish reasons” by Kestrel🔸

This year, I have given money to a range of EA cause areas. Most of it has either been towards global health and development, or EA infrastructure I believe does or could lead to effective fundraising for global health and development.

The following are a list of very selfish personal reasons why I like to do this. I feel the selfless reasons have been adequately covered elsewhere, so I'm intentionally leaving them off.

I get to ignore ineffective charity adverts.

In order to genuinely convince myself that I am helping, I want to see things like well-regarded cost-effectiveness metrics. I do not like heartstring-tugging advertising or vague statements of "should", particularly to do with orphanages. They make me feel a bit ill. So I am glad that donating effectively gives me a very good justification to ignore them.

It is a marker of my politics.

I don't believe that poor people I don't know in rich countries are 100× more worthy of my help [i.e. worthy of help that's 100× less cost-efficient] than poor people in poor countries. This is because I don't believe anyone is 100× more worthy than anyone. Choosing to donate based on the cost-effectiveness of [...]

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Outline:

(00:36) I get to ignore ineffective charity adverts.

(01:02) It is a marker of my politics.

(01:36) Giving expresses abundance.

(02:32) Ive stopped valuing things by how expensive they are.

(03:17) People have stopped (openly) judging me about some of my life choices.

(03:56) I get to hang out with cool people and be in the cool kids club.

(04:16) It helps me genuinely care about helping people.

(04:37) It motivates me at my job.

(05:01) By giving effectively, I can do great things.

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First published:
December 12th, 2025

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/84PYRzFCeqZGfgv3N/why-i-donate-some-selfish-reasons

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.