Head of Communications
5 min read
Every euro you give is a chance to help save a life, ease suffering or make a lasting difference to the future. But with so many causes and only limited resources, how do you choose the actions that will do the most good?
The effective altruism movement grew out of this question. It offers a rigorous approach to finding the best ways to help others. Popularised by thinkers such as Peter Singer (“Famine, Affluence, and Morality”, 1972), Toby Ord and William MacAskill, it rests on two core principles:
Mieux Donner builds on these principles, translating and adapting research from GiveWell, Giving What We Can and other evaluators to point you towards the most effective, transparent and evidence-backed interventions.
Effective altruism rests on a few key principles:
Mieux Donner builds on these principles, translating and adapting research from external evaluators such as GiveWell to point you towards the most effective, transparent and evidence-backed interventions.
Wondering how to turn these principles into action?
Here are four ways to get started:
We live in an era of huge, interconnected challenges:
Effective altruism offers a structured way to get the most out of every action:
More recently, Power for Democracies has been applying prioritisation principles inspired by effective altruism to questions of democracy.
At Mieux Donner, we’re proud to be part of the effective giving movement, which Giving What We Can and other international organisations helped get started. Our mission is simple: to help everyone in France give better, with clarity, rigour and impact.
To do this, we look at causes that affect many lives, where every donation can fund solutions with real potential for change. We assess each cause on its scale, its tractability and how neglected it is.
We then select the charities with the greatest impact per euro donated, drawing on analysis from independent evaluators such as GiveWell and Giving Green.
We make this research accessible to donors in France through:
We’re also the French partner for the 10% Pledge, an initiative led by Giving What We Can. The idea is simple: make a voluntary commitment to give at least 10% of your income to high-impact charities.
It isn’t a contract or an imposed rule. It’s a personal, considered choice, and a practical way to bring your actions in line with your values. More than 10,000 people around the world have already taken the Pledge, committing over a billion dollars in total to highly effective causes.
In practice, our role at Mieux Donner is to:
Taking the 10% Pledge is a way to make a difference: simple, structured and genuinely useful.
Bednet distribution | Around €5 per net | Covers around two people for roughly two years. Between 2004 and 2019, bednets helped avert more than 816 million malaria cases and save 4.8 million lives. |
Vitamin A supplementation (Helen Keller Intl) | €2 per child per year | Significantly reduces child mortality, an effect confirmed by many high-quality studies. |
Promoting plant-based alternatives (GFI) | 50 € | Spares an estimated 265 animals from factory farming. |
This table shows a simple truth: a few well-directed euros can reduce deaths, prevent suffering and help build a more sustainable future.
Every donation can have an outsized effect, as long as it goes to the right interventions. That’s exactly why we exist: to help you turn your generosity into real, measurable and lasting impact.
Giving thoughtfully turns your generosity into a powerful way to save lives and protect our shared future. Mieux Donner lets you support rigorously selected charities from France, with a suitable tax framework and personal guidance.
Every euro given with care turns into practical help for the people who need it most.
Useful links to go further : GiveWell | Against Malaria Foundation | Helen Keller International | Giving What We Can | 80,000 Hours | AltruismeEfficace France| Mieux Donner
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.
Giving Green has published its 2026 climate recommendations. Half the fund’s grants now go to low- and middle-income countries, three new sector reports rank the strategies, and the five recommended charities stay the same.
At least 7,900 excess deaths. Ninety-four thousand people cut off from mains water. Two to three million birds dead in days. What the year cost France, and what it changes about where you give.
More than 230 million land animals are slaughtered every day, nine in ten of them chickens. The 2024 figures by species, including fish and France.
