[Linkpost] WHR Chapter 8 – Giving to others: How to convert your money into greater happiness for others
Key insights
- The cost-effectiveness of charities can be measured and compared with a standardised metric of value: wellbeing-years (WELLBYs).
- In the first global review of published evidence, we find that the cost-effectiveness of charities varies dramatically. The best charities in our sample are hundreds of times better at increasing happiness per dollar than others. Therefore, you can multiply your impact at no extra cost by funding more cost-effective charities.
- There are no published evaluations of large, well-known charities or typical acts of charitable giving, such as helping the homeless, using a wellbeing approach. We present some rough evaluations of these cases but find them to be less cost-effective than nearly all the charities in our sample.