Executive Summary
Effective Altruism Australia (EAA) exists to maximise the good that Australians can do through evidence-based giving. To achieve this, we are investing in growth – both in the donations we move to high-impact charities and in expanding the size and strength of the effective altruism community in Australia.
Going forward, our operations and growth efforts – including staff, communications, marketing, and fundraising – will be funded entirely through donations and grants that have been directed specifically to our operations, not from the money given to our partner charities. For every dollar spent on EAA’s operations, we typically raise an additional $5–$8 for our partner charities – a strong multiplier that demonstrates the effectiveness of investing in our capacity.
You can expect to see more communications, events, and engagement initiatives as we test strategies to reach new donors, while maintaining transparency and respect for donor preferences. Your feedback and support in introducing our work to your community will help us continue to grow our impact responsibly.
From Lean Beginnings to Growing Impact
EAA has always existed to do as much good as possible.
Back in 2015, a group of volunteers established a charity to help Australians make tax-deductible donations to highly effective, evidence-based global poverty-alleviation programs recommended by GiveWell. The organisation was kept as lean as possible – relying primarily on volunteers to build our website, donation systems, and get the word out.
Over time, EAA grew steadily through word of mouth and the broader rise of the effective altruism movement.
At the end of 2022, we received a grant from Founders Pledge, recognising EAA’s role as a “giving multiplier” – meaning that each dollar spent on our operations has enabled us to raise many additional dollars for effective charities. The grant supported us to explore how marketing and fundraising could help us raise even more for our partner charities.
Led by Thomas King, we launched initiatives such as end-of-financial-year campaigns, re-engaging lapsed donors, and hosting events with our partner charities.
These efforts paid off. During the 2024-25 financial year, our EOFY campaign raised over $2.87 million – a 29% increase from the previous year. Crucially, this additional funding would not have been possible without investing in our own capacity.
In early 2025, we conducted a cost-effectiveness analysis of our operations to measure our giving multiplier. Between 2022 and 2024, we found that for every $1 we spent on operations, we raised an additional $8 for our partner charities (with $5 as a more conservative estimate). You can read more about this analysis in our blog post.
This evidence shows there is still significant room to grow and refine our communications and fundraising strategy – helping us introduce more people to effective giving and expand the impact we can achieve together as a donor community.
Continuing to grow, while maintaining a strong giving multiplier, is the best way for EAA to fulfil its mission: raising funds for cost-effective programs that improve global health and wellbeing.
How We’re Funding Growth
To achieve this, we’re increasing our efforts in communications and marketing – areas that are essential to reaching new donors and building awareness of effective giving.
Importantly, these efforts – along with our staff salaries and core operations – will be funded through direct donations and grants, not from the money given to our partner charities. This means that when you give to a cause through EAA, your donation will be granted to the partner charity.
In the past, we used to take roughly 2% from undirected donations to cover essential costs like accounting and basic operations. We’ve now transitioned away from that model to give donors confidence that their contributions are used exactly as intended.
If we’re no longer able to cover our costs with grants and direct donations to our operations, we may change our model again, but our goal is to keep our operations self-sustaining.
Many of our donors have chosen to give directly to EAA’s operations because we’ve shown that every dollar we spend on our operations, we typically raise an additional (counterfactual) $5–$8 for our partner charities – a strong multiplier that allows us to grow the overall pie of effective giving in Australia.
This approach allows us to invest in our own growth – without diverting funds away from high-impact charities.
What You Can Expect
As we expand our efforts, you might notice more from us: more emails, more social media activity, more events.
We’ll be experimenting with a range of strategies to help us reach new audiences and deepen engagement with existing supporters. Throughout, we’ll continue to uphold the effective altruist values of transparency, evidence, and learning – testing what works, measuring impact, and iterating as we go.
We also know that different people have different preferences when it comes to how often they hear from us and what kinds of updates they find valuable. We’ll do our best to strike the right balance – and we’re always open to feedback on how we can improve the way we communicate.
Balancing Efficiency and Growth
We’ve always prided ourselves on efficiency – keeping our operations lean so that as much funding as possible reaches highly effective charities. It’s a value many of our donors care deeply about, and we still hear from people who say they give to EAA precisely because we keep our costs low.
At the same time, in our 2024 donor survey, the majority of respondents told us they support EAA increasing operational spending if it helps us raise more money overall for effective charities. This confirmed what we were already seeing in practice – that investing in our operations and communications allows us to multiply our impact many times over.
We believe the right balance is to continue growing our outreach and fundraising capacity, while keeping EAA’s operations optional to support. This means donors can choose whether to give directly to EAA’s operations, knowing that each dollar helps us raise many more for our partner charities – or give directly to those charities themselves.
By doing both – respecting donor preferences and strategically investing in growth – we can maximise the total impact of Australia’s effective giving community.
How You Can Help
We’d love your feedback as we test new initiatives and explore what works best. And if you believe in EAA’s mission, one of the most valuable ways you can support us is by introducing our work to your community – whether that’s by sharing our posts, bringing a friend to an event, or simply starting a conversation about effective giving.
You can also directly support our operations and growth by donating to EAA itself – helping us raise even more funds for high-impact charities around the world.
Together, we can help more Australians give more effectively, and make a greater difference for the world’s most pressing problems.
