Concerning historical analogues: From what I understand about their behaviour, it seems like the Rotary Club pattern-matches some of the ideas of Effective Altruism, specifically the earning-to-give and community-building aspects. They have a million members who give on average over $100/yr to charities picked out by Rotary Club International or local groups. This means that in the past decade, their movement has collected one billion dollars towards the elimination of Polio. Some noticeable differences include:
I can’t find any mention of Rotary spending on charity effectiveness research^1 .
They have a relatively monolithic structure. The polio-elimination charity was founded by Rotarians, charitable goals are suggested to Rotary and picked by Rotarians, etc.
Relatively low expectations for people within the group. Rotarians tend to be first world upper or middle class, so $100 is likely to be closer to 0.1% of their income than the 10% commonly proscribed by EA.
Relatively high barrier of entry. To become Rotarian, you have to be asked by a Rotarian, and you have to be vetted. Any old fool can call themselves Effective Altruist and nobody will challenge them on it.
Allegedly, nepotism. Rotarians allegedly form a network and are willing to give other Rotarians preferential treatment and/or employment. I’ve heard some earning-to-give effective altruists speak of evolving to do the same thing, but we currently don’t have the network.
They started as businessmen, EA started as philosophers and students. That gives us a significant disadvantage when combined with (5), because we aren’t capable of helping each other or funding significant endeavours, and we won’t be for some time.
(1) Note that per year Rotary advanced the annihilation of polio, they saved 1,000 lives and improved 200,000. Highballing at 100,000 life-equivalents saved, that would put them at $10,000 per life saved. That’s a factor 3-4 worse than GiveWell charities, though I’m not confident the current “skimming the margins” tactic would work when you’ve got a billion dollars to distribute.
Concerning historical analogues: From what I understand about their behaviour, it seems like the Rotary Club pattern-matches some of the ideas of Effective Altruism, specifically the earning-to-give and community-building aspects. They have a million members who give on average over $100/yr to charities picked out by Rotary Club International or local groups. This means that in the past decade, their movement has collected one billion dollars towards the elimination of Polio. Some noticeable differences include:
I can’t find any mention of Rotary spending on charity effectiveness research^1 .
They have a relatively monolithic structure. The polio-elimination charity was founded by Rotarians, charitable goals are suggested to Rotary and picked by Rotarians, etc.
Relatively low expectations for people within the group. Rotarians tend to be first world upper or middle class, so $100 is likely to be closer to 0.1% of their income than the 10% commonly proscribed by EA.
Relatively high barrier of entry. To become Rotarian, you have to be asked by a Rotarian, and you have to be vetted. Any old fool can call themselves Effective Altruist and nobody will challenge them on it.
Allegedly, nepotism. Rotarians allegedly form a network and are willing to give other Rotarians preferential treatment and/or employment. I’ve heard some earning-to-give effective altruists speak of evolving to do the same thing, but we currently don’t have the network.
They started as businessmen, EA started as philosophers and students. That gives us a significant disadvantage when combined with (5), because we aren’t capable of helping each other or funding significant endeavours, and we won’t be for some time.
(1) Note that per year Rotary advanced the annihilation of polio, they saved 1,000 lives and improved 200,000. Highballing at 100,000 life-equivalents saved, that would put them at $10,000 per life saved. That’s a factor 3-4 worse than GiveWell charities, though I’m not confident the current “skimming the margins” tactic would work when you’ve got a billion dollars to distribute.