In December 2025, we launched the Happier Lives Fund (HLF), the easiest way for donors to support the best charities we’ve found so far and the Happier Lives Institute with one donation.
How much money was raised? How much impact will it have?
After finalising the disbursement of the first batch of donations to the charities, we are happy to share that the start of the Fund has been a roaring success, with $72,585.58 raised in the first month. When added to direct donations to our charities, the total raised in Q4 is $92,190.54, equivalent to an impact of 5,481 WELLBYs created.
As an alternative framing, as depression is associated with a loss of 1.3 life satisfaction points (on a 0-10 scale), you can think of this as preventing a year of depression for 4,216 people: a cost of about $20 to prevent a year’s depression.
90% of HLF donations goes straight to our recommended charities, and 10% supports HLI’s research, outreach and fund management.
How did we allocate the funds to the charities?
Our objective in disbursing the funds is to have the maximum impact while supporting a range of excellent charities. To do this, we drew on our preexisting public evaluations as well as our inside knowledge on the charities’ operations.
We granted 67% of the total to our 2 Top Charities, StrongMinds and Friendship Bench, using an even split between them. Our Top Charities are the most cost-effective we’ve found that we are also highly confident in.
We granted the remaining 33% to our Promising Charities, Pure Earth and Taimaka. As we consider Pure Earth notably more cost-effective than Taimaka, we granted Pure Earth 60% of this, and Taimaka 40%. Our Promising Charities are those we think could be more cost-effective than our Top Charities, but we have greater uncertainty about.
Did we provide unrestricted or restricted funding?
For StrongMinds and Taimaka, we are providing unrestricted funding. For Pure Earth, the funding is restricted to the Ghana cosmetics programme.
For Friendship Bench we are making a special grant to fund tests and improvements of their programme that they have not yet been able to fund (in part because of USAID cuts, see here and here). This means we are delaying the HLF disbursement, for two main reasons. First, because we need to develop the details of what the grant will fund. Second, because we want to wait until the sum set aside for Friendship Bench through the HLF is substantial enough for such a project, as we continue raising money in 2026. Overall, we think that by leveraging donations this way, we are increasing impact.
The impact from our recommended charities
| Charity | What they do | Money sent | WELLBYs created | Years of depression averted |
|---|---|---|---|---|
StrongMinds | Delivers lay-delivered group psychotherapy to people with depression or anxiety in Uganda and Zambia. |
$24,418.53 (from the HLF and direct donations) |
986 |
758 |
Friendship Bench |
Delivers lay-delivered psychotherapy to people with depression or anxiety in Zimbabwe. |
$16,749.15 (from direct donations). We are keeping $21,659.40 from the HLF for a more impactful grant. |
1,864 (including the HLF money) |
1,434 |
Pure Earth |
Works with governments and businesses to reduce exposure to toxic lead in products. We focus on their cosmetics programme in Ghana. |
$16,816.66 |
1,772 |
1,363 (equivalent) |
Taimaka |
Treats children with acute malnutrition in Gombe State, Nigeria, working through local health facilities |
$12,546.79 |
859 |
661 (equivalent) |
If you want to learn more about our charities and how we vet them, you can find more information on this page.
The remaining 10% of the HLF went to support the Happier Lives Institute’s research to identify and monitor the charities, and to conduct further outreach for them. The total for this was $7,607.37.
We are deeply grateful for the generosity of our donors. It has moved the needle, covering a significant portion of the funding gap for our recommended charities. But there is still much to do to improve wellbeing worldwide! We invite you to consider donating and to encourage others to do the same.