This type of commitment is based on lived experience and the desire to transform a personal ordeal into collective action. The legitimacy of the testimony and the intimate understanding of the problem reinforce the effectiveness of the action.
What if the impact of a donation depended more on the charity chosen than on the amount donated?
Sébastien Delangle
Communications Project Manager
Reading time: 5 minutes
With a donation of €50, you can pay for a large first aid kit which may not be used effectively, or you can protect 40 people from malaria for one year, which has been proven to be one of the most effective ways to save lives.
Same budget, completely different impact. High-impact charities are organisations that seek to create the greatest possible change, based on impartial and effective criteria.
Conversely, other charities base their actions on criteria that are more emotionally driven or geographically close to home. Donations received by these high-impact charities are used to fund interventions that are rigorously evaluated for their effectiveness, according to metrics such as:
Cost per Quality Adjusted Life Year (years of healthy life gained)
Consumption units (doubling a household’s income for one year)
WELLBYs Well-Being Adjusted Life-Years (WELLBYs)
Or a combination of several of these units with moral weightings, defined in particular through interviews with beneficiaries
Why choose an association recognised for its effectiveness?
Take, for example, the Against Malaria Foundation (AMF), ranked among the top four charities by GiveWell [2], an independent NGO that assesses and ranks charities according to their effectiveness. AMF is a major player in the distribution of mosquito nets in sub-Saharan Africa. Since its creation in 2004, it has distributed nearly 340 million mosquito nets. [3].
A donation of €100 protects 80 people from malaria for a year, which works out at €1.25 per person. With 340 million mosquito nets distributed, AMF has effectively protected [4] approximately 608 million people for an average individual cost of only €1.25.
The effectiveness of an organisation is therefore not measured solely by the amount of money it raises, but above all by how that money is used. Choosing this type of organisation means wanting to use the potential of every euro to have a greater impact. By donating to highly effective charities, you can literally multiply the impact of your donations by a hundred or more.
This means that with the same amount of money, you can achieve up to 100 times more impact: more lives saved, more diseases prevented, more people protected. How? Because these organisations use every euro for rigorously selected interventions based on measurable data. They focus their resources on the most effective actions in terms of social impact, thanks to economies of scale, streamlined logistics and evidence-based methodology.
With €100, we can protect 80 people from malaria and reduce the risk of fatal diseases.
Whereas in rich countries, such as the UK, it is very difficult to find charities where such a sum could actually be used for something so effective that would not already have happened without us.
This potential for exponential impact does not cost you any more: it is based solely on making better choices about how you allocate your donations. It is therefore less about “giving more” and more about “giving better”.
Should donations be reserved solely for charities that are considered effective?
If your goal is to help as many people as possible, then choosing an organisation based on data and a scientific approach is a rational choice.
But that doesn’t mean you should rule out other types of organisations. The choice also depends on your motivation for donating. Here are a few examples:
Identity and/or national motivations for donating
Some charities focus their efforts on a specific territory or group: a country, a city, a professional community, etc. This type of commitment is based on an identity-based motivation: helping those we perceive as “our own”.
Some telling examples:
- Secours Populaire Français carries out its activities exclusively in France.
- America’s Vet Dogs trains assistance dogs exclusively for American veterans.
- A local organisation may choose to focus its efforts on the homeless in Paris, providing them with meals, basic necessities or housing solutions.
This type of targeting is based on a logic of local roots or community solidarity. It allows people to feel a more direct and tangible impact, in an environment they know or identify with.
Emotional motivations for donating
Emotional motivations focus charitable engagement on events or situations that directly touch people’s sensibilities: outrage at a widely publicised injustice, empathy for a human tragedy, collective guilt following a disaster, etc.
Notable examples:
- Tsunami 2004 donations distributed $14 billion following the global outpouring of emotion caused by the disaster.
- Baby Jessica Well donations was created when an 18-month-old girl fell into a well in Texas, raising €700,000 for her 58-hour rescue.
- An association may be created after a shocking event to support victims by organising psychological support, financial aid or legal assistance.
This type of commitment is based on the immediate emotional reaction and the person’s identification with the situation. The urgency and media coverage create a sense of personal involvement, even at a geographical or cultural distance.
Motivations linked to personal experiences for donating
Motivations linked to personal experiences drive individuals to commit to causes they have directly experienced: personal or family illness, disability, trauma, addiction, etc. This proximity to the issue often creates a more lasting and militant commitment.
Notable examples:
- The League Against Cancer receives numerous donations from people who have been affected by the disease, either personally or among their loved ones.
- Autism Speaks mainly collects donations from families affected by autism, which are used to fund research and support programmes.
- An association that helps accident victims can count on donations from former accident victims to fund specialised equipment, medical research, or support programmes.
Religious motivations for giving
Religious motivations guide charitable engagement towards causes that are linked to a person’s spiritual values: religious traditions, moral duty dictated by faith, community belonging, etc. This type of giving is often part of a regular, ritualised practice.
Notable examples:
- Caritas, a global Catholic network, collects donations mainly from believers motivated by the social values of the Church. Islamic Relief Worldwide receives donations from Muslims who apply the principle of zakat, a pillar of their faith.
- An association may specialise in the restoration of historic religious buildings, relying on donations from believers attached to their spiritual heritage.
This type of commitment is based on consistency between personal beliefs and charitable action. Religious affiliation creates a bond of trust and lasting motivation, often passed down through family or community tradition.
Giving is a generous and valuable gesture in all cases, regardless of our motivation. Other motivations besides pure impact may guide some people. That is why we recommend giving at least part of your donations to the most effective charities in terms of measurable impact, and another part to charities that resonate with your personal motivations.
This approach allows you to reconcile effectiveness and emotions, reason and heart.
At Mieux Donner, our role is to facilitate donations to highly effective charities for those who want to amplify their impact.
How to choose a highly effective association?
Learning how to distinguish between high-impact charities and those that are not can take a lot of time and skill. However, there are several tools that can help you find or verify whether the charity you have chosen is one of the best in terms of impact:
- Mieux Donner can assist you with your donations: you can choose the causes that are important to you and the amount you wish to donate. Acting as an intermediary, we allow you to make your donations directly on our website, and then we transfer these donations in full to the selected charities. The charities recommended by Mieux Donner are among those that are considered to have the greatest impact globally in making a real difference.
- Seek information from external evaluators: There are several NGOs whose main role is to evaluate the effectiveness of a large number of associations in order to highlight the most effective ones using rankings such as “Top Charities”. These organisations use rigorous methodologies: analysis of independent academic studies, in-depth interviews with organisation staff, field visits to verify real impact, and construction of cost-effectiveness models based on budgets and monitoring data. They also closely monitor their recommended charities over time. As a result, these NGOs publish a large number of substantiated and verified documents, allowing everyone to be informed about the concrete results and impact of each charity. Among the main ones are tools such as GiveWell and Giving What We Can for English speakers and Mieux Donner for French speakers.
There is a real difference in effectiveness between charities, and it can be considerable. High-impact charities make the most of every euro thanks to efficient logistics and an approach based on measuring results. This does not mean that other types of charities should be abandoned.
Donating based on emotion, proximity or personal conviction can still be legitimate. But you may want to consider supporting these high-impact charities, and knowing about these differences in effectiveness will allow you to make more informed choices.
A balanced approach can combine the two: allocate part of your donations to the most effective charities to amplify the impact, and another part to causes that are close to your heart!