As William MacAskill reminds us in his brilliant primer, Doing Good Better, 1.22 billion people in the world earn less than $1.50 a day. Mainly, that’s down to where they happen to have been born: 85% of the global variation in earnings, he tells us, is determined by location. “The extremely poor are poor simply because they don’t live in an environment that enables them to be productive.” […]

The formula for deciding whether a charity is effective is straightforward: how much of an improvement do you make in how many people’s lives, for how much money?

Doing Good Better by William MacAskill review – if you read this book, you’ll change the charities you donate to, The Guardian, 20.8.2015

 

william_macaskillWilliam MacAskill
Author of «Doing good better»