Director of Communications
Reading time: 6 min
How many of us have spontaneously donated after a compelling report, an association’s stand, or simply an emotional impulse? Yet, behind these sincere gestures, the effectiveness of a donation often remains a gray area.
Take a documented example: PlayPump.
This water pumping system, powered by children playing on a carousel, seemed brilliant. It received significant media, philanthropic, and political support. But field evaluations revealed a different reality: as the novelty wore off, the pumps frequently broke down, and communities preferred their existing systems. Despite initial enthusiasm, the expected impact did not materialize. A clear demonstration: intuition alone does not ensure a project’s utility.
In ‘Doing Good, Better’, William MacAskill invites us to blend solidarity and rigorous analysis. Rather than cooling generosity, this approach aims to enhance its scope. What if we learned to direct our donations where they can truly change lives?
Certain actions allow, for the same amount, incomparable results.
This isn’t a moral judgment on causes but an invitation to integrate a new criteria: observable effectiveness. It’s not about turning away from what we care about but expanding our perspective.
Finally, considering how we use donations isn’t a cold stance. It’s a responsibility: each euro given to one organization could have been a lever of major action elsewhere. Ignoring this means missing out on an impact that could have been possible.
William MacAskill proposes a simple yet powerful framework to evaluate a charitable action. It’s not about imposing choices but fostering constructive reflection:
These guidelines may seem demanding, but they offer a valuable compass for those seeking to avoid the PlayPump effect: believing you are doing good without knowing if it’s truly useful.
GiveWell is one of the reference sources cited in the book. It evaluates associations based on transparency, evidence of effectiveness, costs, and unmet needs. It identifies interventions with measurable effects: mosquito nets against malaria, deworming programs, direct cash transfers.
The most promising causes are often the least visible: global health, animal suffering in industrial farming, or preventing future risks like pandemics and technological misuse. These are the cases where each additional euro given produces significant effects, a high marginal impact.
If this clashes with our natural preference for the local, it’s important to acknowledge it. The book simply reminds us that in a world where needs are unevenly distributed, every contribution can have different impacts depending on the context.
The first step is to define a sustainable commitment: 1%, 5%, 10% of your income.
There’s no need to wait for the perfect moment or association. What matters is to commit consistently, adjust with clarity, and strive to improve.
Educate yourself on these issues, read, compare approaches, ask questions: all steps that reinforce confidence in your choices.
Giving discernedly doesn’t doubt generosity; it aligns it more coherently with our deeper aspirations.
It also means engaging independent evaluators who analyze transparency, effectiveness, and unmet needs of associations.
For French speakers, the book emphasizes that Mieux Donner shares these principles and offers decision-making tools.
Refusing to rely on emotion, questioning certainties, accepting the uncertainty of long-term effects—all this requires effort. But it’s also what allows us to multiply our impact. The book illustrates with rigor, yet without excessive promise, how certain interventions have changed thousands of lives at very low costs.
Doing good isn’t enough. We must learn how to do good well. By providing clear guidelines and asking the right questions, everyone can enhance the real impact of their donation.
You don’t need to change everything. But starting today, you can test a new way of giving: by consulting an independent evaluation, discovering a lesser-known cause, or discussing these issues around you.
If you want to go further: Doing Good, Better by William MacAskill is a valuable read for anyone who wishes to act heartfully and discerningly. It offers a rigorous, accessible, and inspiring foundation to evolve your contribution approach.
Capucine (Altruisme Efficace France) and Romain (Mieux Donner) discuss the key ideas of the book and how it can concretely change our way of contributing.
🎥 Watch the videoAnd if you need support, Mieux Donner is here to help you take action: simple tools, association evaluations, impact simulator… to ensure every donation truly counts.
Finland, Iceland, Denmark lead the 2026 ranking. Full list of 147 countries, key findings on social media and wellbeing, and how your donations create happiness.
Human life is precious. It is natural to want to mobilise all our resources to save a life, even if it only prolongs a life by a week. But what happens when other people are also in danger, and our resources are not enough to help them all? As a society, we face practical limits that force us to make difficult decisions.
It’s easy to feel discouraged by the dramatic retreat of glaciers in the Alps and the scale of climate change can easily leave us feeling powerless. This article will equip you with the knowledge to take meaningful climate action, in both your personal life and through your charitable donations.
Is deciding from London or Paris who needs help and how a form of colonialism? This article examines what the critique gets right, where it goes wrong, and what effective giving does concretely differently — including its own blind spots.
Scared Straight won an Oscar and increased delinquency. Open Philanthropy invested $130 million in criminal justice reform — then changed course. Romain Barbe examines what the evidence actually says, and where your money can do the most good.
31 confirmed deaths, or nearly a million? Romain Barbe examines what the data actually say about Chernobyl’s human toll — and why the fear it generated may have killed far more than the radiation itself.
