We need good, smart social workers- there’s a shortage going into the profession. Please stick with it. If you want to focus on saving lives as a social worker, you can go into development, start new programs, expand existing programs.
I’ve been on the administrative side of agencies. I can tell you that 1- having good people makes a huge difference in what they accomplish and 2- while they might advertise that a $100 donation will pay for so many vaccines- it doesn’t really mean that if you give $100 that many lives will be saved. It’s not that simple. There is overhead, program planning. Getting a little more money isn’t going to allow them to expand into another city to start giving vaccines to a new population and they aren’t spending every dime they take in right away, they need to keep reserves on hand. In other words, you can’t really know that you are saving all those lives by giving that much money. You will know what your impact is as a social worker, though. I’d be happy to talk to you more about social work, send me a message if you want to arrange a phone chat.
I can tell you that 1- having good people makes a huge difference in what they accomplish
How huge? In order to make comparisons one needs quantitative data.
while they might advertise that a $100 donation will pay for so many vaccines- it doesn’t really mean that if you give $100 that many lives will be saved. It’s not that simple. There is overhead, program planning.
The $1000/life GiveWell cost-effectiveness calculations take this into account.
Getting a little more money isn’t going to allow them to expand into another city to start giving vaccines to a new population and they aren’t spending every dime they take in right away, they need to keep reserves on hand. In other words, you can’t really know that you are saving all those lives by giving that much money. You will know what your impact is as a social worker, though.
Donating saves an expected life. Yes, one’s donation probably won’t result in an extra life saved but it has a small probability of tipping the balance toward allowing them to expand into another city which would result in lots of lives saved. See circular altruism.
It’s a pretty thorough review of the charity, and givewell understands that spending $100 on vaccinating N children does not mean N lives saved. They write:
“These assumptions yield an estimate of one additional child fully immunized for every ~$41 of VillageReach’s expenses … this would imply that VillageReach is averting a child death for every ~$545 it spends”
Julia’s calculation appears to be using $800 per life saved, which is even more conservative.
We need good, smart social workers- there’s a shortage going into the profession. Please stick with it. If you want to focus on saving lives as a social worker, you can go into development, start new programs, expand existing programs.
I’ve been on the administrative side of agencies. I can tell you that 1- having good people makes a huge difference in what they accomplish and 2- while they might advertise that a $100 donation will pay for so many vaccines- it doesn’t really mean that if you give $100 that many lives will be saved. It’s not that simple. There is overhead, program planning. Getting a little more money isn’t going to allow them to expand into another city to start giving vaccines to a new population and they aren’t spending every dime they take in right away, they need to keep reserves on hand. In other words, you can’t really know that you are saving all those lives by giving that much money. You will know what your impact is as a social worker, though. I’d be happy to talk to you more about social work, send me a message if you want to arrange a phone chat.
That may be, but what opportunity cost is it worth?
How huge? In order to make comparisons one needs quantitative data.
The $1000/life GiveWell cost-effectiveness calculations take this into account.
Donating saves an expected life. Yes, one’s donation probably won’t result in an extra life saved but it has a small probability of tipping the balance toward allowing them to expand into another city which would result in lots of lives saved. See circular altruism.
I believe the $2M = 2500 lives saved number that julia is using comes from the givewell.org evaluation of village reach:
http://www.givewell.org/international/top-charities/villagereach
It’s a pretty thorough review of the charity, and givewell understands that spending $100 on vaccinating N children does not mean N lives saved. They write:
“These assumptions yield an estimate of one additional child fully immunized for every ~$41 of VillageReach’s expenses … this would imply that VillageReach is averting a child death for every ~$545 it spends”
Julia’s calculation appears to be using $800 per life saved, which is even more conservative.