ANNUAL 2017 REPORT 2017 ANNUAL REPORT A LETTER FROM OUR EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

In 2017, our most critical metrics—net A letter from impact (money moved minus money spent) and money moved (relative to money spent)—grew ~40% over We are having real impact— our Executive 2016. We achieved a net impact of approximately $3.4 million and a ratio impact that we want to Director of money moved to money spent of dramatically expand in about 13:1. Our Team is also pleased 2018 and beyond. Dear Subscribers and Followers of , that our worldwide audience is now ten times what it was in 2013 when we It is a rare privilege to be able to others. Even more impressive formally started our nonprofit . This all contribute to efforts to reduce have been the stories I have been represents real progress as we seek the devastating impact of living exposed to of people coping with to grow and expand The Life You Can to effectively address global extreme in extreme . I have met so and overcoming extreme poverty. Save. However, to bring TLYCS to scale, poverty. Of course, I also want to thank we will need to attract more funders many amazing people while serving And as the below video shows, we our Team for their skill and dedication— that see the enormous opportunity as Executive Director these past are having real impact—impact that they are a pleasure to work with. Thanks our leverage model (highlighted in the also to for his consistent five years and have been inspired we want to dramatically expand in video above) offers in the battle against availability and his tireless work on by their dedication to helping 2018 and beyond. extreme poverty. behalf of the global poor, and to Frances Kissling, our third Board member, who Since TLYCS’s inception, most of our has provided guidance when I have presence has been online. This has really needed it! largely been by necessity in order to best leverage our very lean team. Thank you in advance for reading our We have had to utilize approaches annual report, particularly our plan for that scale easily and remotely, which 2018; and please do contact me at generally have been technological [email protected] to platforms like our website, email discuss how you would like to support newsletter, and social media. In 2018, our work. we will significantly increase our efforts on both partnership development and expanding in new markets where there is enormous opportunity that we have Do Good Feel Good, not previously had the resources to exploit. Further, we will intensify our efforts to recruit high net worth and Charles Bresler, Ph.D. ultra high net worth donors for support of our recommended nonprofits and TLYCS itself.

This short video features the Executive Directors of two of our Recommended On behalf of our Team and our Nonprofits, GiveDirectly and Village Enterprise, talking about the impact The Life Board of Directors, I want to thank You Can Save has in supporting their work. all of the donors who are helping our recommended nonprofits and TLYCS https://tinyurl.com/ycokvn9w

2 3 2017 ANNUAL REPORT THE2017: ENORMOUS THE YEAR OPPORTUNITY IN NUMBERS

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 2017 THE YEAR IN NUMBERS

This Annual Report describes The Life You Can Save’s work and its impact over In 2017, The Life You Can Save saw strong growth in all our key metrics. the course of 2017. Highlights of our results were: Here are the numbers we look at, and why.

We moved over $3.6 million to our Recommended Metric 2017 2016 % Change DIFFERENCE Nonprofits (RNPs) in 2017, while spending less than $300,000 on our operating expenses. This means that for every $1 we spent, we raised about $13 for our RNPs. Money Moved $3,647,878 $2,735,652 33% $912,226 Our most important metrics continued to grow, though at slower rates than in previous years. Total Money Moved was up 33% relative to 2016, while Net Impact (Money Moved net of expenses) increased by 38%. EXPENSES $283,488 $300,000 $16,512 -6%

We are still much smaller than we want to be, and money for staff, marketing, and programs is the primary constraint. NET IMPACT $3,364,390 $2,435,652 $928,738 38%

Going forward, we’ll devote a much larger share of resources (particularly senior management time) toward partnership development and LEVERAGE RATIO 12.9 9.1 3.7 high-net-worth , which we expect 41% to become major sources of growth. We made some progress in these areas in 2017, but we are significantly under capacity.

UNPAID Web 379,209 395,136 -15,927 Traffic -4%

4 5 2017 ANNUAL REPORT 2017 HIGHLIGHTS

and improved processes in 2017. In 2017 HIGHLIGHTs particular, we: Primary Metrics Director of Growth Initiatives and part- • Migrated to Salesforce for our Performance time Director of Development, Australia, Customer Relationship Management who will also assist in world-wide (CRM) system in order to better In 2017, for every $1 We moved ~$3.4 million more to our partnership development. organize and streamline our customer we spent on operating RNPs than we spent on our operating database to support our fundraising expenses, we moved $13 expenses. We consider this number— plans for 2018 and beyond. Developing to the charities on our list. our “Net Impact”—to be our primary and Nurturing • Systemized much of the workflow metric (as discussed in depth in our around Giving Games, our 2016 Annual Report). Our Net Impact Partnerships education program. increased by over $900k relative to In 2017, we nurtured existing These improvements reduced 2016, or ~38% growth. This increase partnerships and worked to develop operational workload, enhanced post- was driven in roughly equal parts by a pipeline of new ones. This work has game follow-up, and significantly money donated directly on our website been so promising that we will be improved our ability to track a partnership with Prism the Fund and from partners and high devoting significantly more resources outcomes. For more, stay tuned for allowing donations from UK donors net worth individuals. The latter “offline” in this area going forward, as our 2018 the Giving Game Project’s upcoming to qualify for Gift Aid, providing a tax donations grew at a faster pace. See Plan details below. annual report. advantage for to our RNPs and to TLYCS itself. appendix for more details. • In the UK, brought on a (volunteer) UK Building and Development Director and established Improved Financial Capitalizing on Position, Allowing Us Infrastructure to Add Staff In last year’s Annual Report, we Most of TLYCS’s fundraising efforts emphasized the effort we put into go to support the amazing work of building infrastructure, e.g. processes our RNPs. But in order to be able to for new selection and focus our efforts this way, TLYCS itself checkout. In 2017, we reaped the requires core donors who understand rewards of those investments: how we can leverage their support of • Our Panel of Experts added our operating expenses by generating two new nonprofits: Helen multiple dollars to our nonprofits for Keller International’s Vitamin A each dollar we ourselves spend (e.g., Supplementation work (based on in 2017, for every $1 we spent on GiveWell’s recommendation) and operating expenses, we moved $13 to D-Rev (based on Impact Matters’ the charities on our list). In 2017, we audit). made progress in broadening our donor base with people we expect to become • Using data generated by the long-term supporters. This improved donation platform we implemented financial position allowed us to begin in 2016, we were able to conduct staff expansion. In June, we added a more segmented and personalized Marketing Director, which is allowing us communication with our 13,000+ to reorganize and better leverage our mailing list members. talents. We have also added a halftime We continued to invest in infrastructure 6 D-REV 7 2017 ANNUAL REPORT 2018 PLAN

2018 PLAN

The emphasis of our work in 2018 will be on scaling our outreach to people who are not already giving effectively, and ideally, people who have never even considered what “effective giving” means. Our interest is not in “preaching to the choir”; we have a powerful and compelling argument to make and we want new people to hear it and to support our Recommended Nonprofits (RNPs). This overarching goal frames the specific initiatives that we plan to pursue in 2018.

Expand Public actively engage in is “growth hacking,” Awareness of a process of rapid experimentation across marketing channels and product Effective Giving development to identify the most Capturing the attention of new efficient ways to grow a business. audiences is foundational to all that we hope to achieve in influencing the THE LIFE YOU CAN SAVE — THE BOOK: We expect to purchase the rights in culture of giving in order to improve HELLEN KELLER INTERNATIONAL life for the millions living in extreme North America to Peter Singer’s seminal poverty. To this end, channels we hope book, The Life You Can Save, in Q3. to pursue in 2018 include the following: Peter Singer has generously offered to donate his world-wide audio book PILOTING TRADITIONAL AND DIGITAL rights to TLYCS, which we hope we MARKETING CAMPAIGNS: These can will be able to use very productively. be scaled when there is a clear return on We intend to explore many ways to investment and source of funding. One share the electronic version of the book relatively inexpensive strategy we will widely, which we think can also have a significant impact on our key metrics in the back half of 2018.

GLOBAL FOOTPRINT: We have a powerful and • EXPLORE ESTABLISHING ADDITIONAL GLOBAL ENTITIES: compelling argument to Creating additional local branches make and we want new of TLYCS has the potential to people to hear it and to greatly scale awareness and dollars, including in developing support our Recommended countries where extreme poverty, Nonprofits. as well as highly cost-effective, impactful nonprofit organizations, are in donors’ own communities or

8 OXFAM 9 2017 ANNUAL REPORT 2018 PLAN

countries. We are currently actively dialoguing with potential partners in India and Chile as we pursue this strand of potential growth. • TLYCS UK: In our third largest We will pursue having market, we have established TLYCS UK in partnership with Prism the select companies feature Gift Fund, allowing contributions some of our RNPs. from UK donors to qualify for Gift Aid, providing a tax advantage for gifts to several of our RNPs and to TLYCS itself. Our (volunteer) UK Development Director will continue to expand our UK presence. United States, Australia, and the UK. • TLYCS AUSTRALIA: Despite its relatively small population (23 • We plan to continue to evolve our million), Australia is our second best own online and offline curricula, donor market, likely because it is incorporating: Peter Singer’s country of origin. Our »» Effective giving concepts in a recently-hired (part-time) Australia range of subject areas Development Director will expand »» Effective giving concepts targeted awareness of TLYCS and effective at many age groups giving, especially with high net worth »» Modules allowing for adaptation individuals; he will also head our and flexibility newly formed Australian nonprofit, »» A school-based chapter model to TLYCS Australia, which will make help spread and develop ideas donations tax-deductible there. »» Customization for particular PHILANTHROPY EDUCATION: We audiences like (ultra) high net aim to educate on a scale that will worth families change the way the world gives. To do »» Providing research/feedback about that, we plan to facilitate embedding best practices in philanthropy transformative philanthropy curriculum education in schools, businesses, religious and secular groups, and more. MEDIA COVERAGE: Over the past two years, we have received numerous • We will continue to promote high-profile media mentions, including our signature Giving Games to in the Washington Post, NBC News and encourage charity-minded individuals Scientific American. We will expand and (particularly in university settings) to deepen our network of journalists and consider the effectiveness of their other influencers promoting high impact life-long giving. nonprofit work and spreading high • We have begun dialoguing with level themes about effective giving and Effective Giving NL about partnering extreme poverty. to extend their “Master Classes” to the 10 FISTULA 11 2017 ANNUAL REPORT 2018 PLAN

our RNPs, including the following: young stock and commodity traders, In order to attract more TLYCS followers while suggesting that philanthropy and generate more donations for our HIGH VOLUME RETAILERS: Many should be a part of their life, and Charlie RNPs, we plan to expand recently- of these retailers already have point gave a keynote at their convention. established partnerships and build new Capturing the attention of new of sale giving programs and all have Developing an editorial presence in ones: audiences is foundational to international supply chains, but none relevant journals and at appropriate that we are aware of feature the most conferences would also be valuable. TODAY: We have developed a all that we hope to achieve in effective (global) nonprofits at their We will continue to pursue building significant relationship with a influencing the culture of giving. point of sale. We will pursue having relationships with financial advisors technology marketing group, Today, select companies feature some of our through direct engagement and industry in Melbourne, Australia. This group RNPs, beginning with Amazon Smile, presence. is dedicating considerable pro bono Starbucks, and Costco, based on existing resources to building a new, engaging, relationships. COORDINATED FUNDRAISING and flexible donation platform that we CAMPAIGNS: As opportunities present, believe will increase donor engagement, UNIVERSITY CHAPTERS: We believe CORPORATE GIVING PROGRAMS: we will continue engaging in new donations, and donation tracking. We that university undergraduate and Our first significant corporate giving coordinated fundraising campaigns are hopeful that this relationship will graduate chapters introducing young program is with the digital marketing to raise money for specific effective continue beyond the current project adults to effective giving has great firm, MediaMath. We will be looking projects, as we have done in the past, and will become a major asset. The potential in shifting the overall culture of for other businesses where we can e.g. promoting the Village Enterprise platform we are building with Today is philanthropy in developed countries. introduce our RNPs as a giving choice Development Impact Bond, holding an important step towards our vision of • One for The World is already a for employees, including: Paul Simon benefit concerts for Fistula establishing a world class online donor partner of TLYCS, with programs • Donor Advised Funds (DAFs) as part Foundation and for TLYCS, etc. management system where we provide on 12 campuses including Harvard of employers’ cafeteria benefits plans behavioral feedback to help donors and Wharton Graduate Schools • Payroll deductions (“give more Raise Funds More increase their impact. of Business. It is currently run tomorrow”) exclusively by volunteers. We will Effectively for RNPs • Philanthropy education (Giving engage with interest groups—both our Games in Corporate Settings) RNPs and otherwise—that maintain an active university presence in order • Year End Giving Guides to leverage their access to giving- • Webinars by Peter and Charlie oriented young people. FINANCIAL & LEGACY ADVISORS / TRUST ATTORNEYS: We believe We see our online and offline activities settings where we can discuss effective as complementing each other. Our giving with financial advisors (and in online presence will serve as one of some cases, directly with their ultra high many ways of sourcing and nurturing net worth clients) is a productive area to high value leads. And we expect some pursue. We have given talks at Schwab, of our offline partnerships to be major are developing a relationship with a sources of web traffic as our partners financial advisor group with $5 billion steer their audiences to our site. under management, and have plans to Donations by Making soon develop connections with Silicon Valley investing groups. In 2017, TLYCS Effective Giving Easier became a featured and financially We see many exciting possibilities for supported nonprofit of Traders4ACause, generating greatly increased funds for an organization that seeks to educate 12 ONE ACRE FUND 13 2017 ANNUAL REPORT 2018 PLAN

a talented Marketing Director, who is handling digital efforts along with our Chief Technology Officer. This in turn is allowing our Executive Director and Chief Operating Officer to devote more In order to implement the time to offline opportunities. plan, we need additional funders who understand Plan for new hires: the leverage we can provide • We have hired an experienced fundraiser (part-time) to focus on and see the enormous high net worth and ultra high net opportunity in front of us. worth individuals in Australia, our second-largest market. • We have hired a Director of Growth Initiatives who will support many of the above new projects. staff we can now afford will help move • We are looking for another senior us toward our goal of scaling. In order staff member to assist with to implement the above plan, we need partnership development and additional funders who understand the fundraising. leverage we can provide and see the We believe these staffing changes will enormous opportunity in front of us. FISTULA FOUNDATION allow us to better pursue the projects In 2013, my wife and I believed we discussed above, as opportunities arise. could create a multiple on our initial These projects are labor intensive (or in investment ($500,000) to develop the case of traditional and some digital TLYCS. This has proven to be true, as marketing, capital intensive), so we had PRISM THE GIFT FUND: In our third opportunity to seed DAFs for university the cumulative impact (along with that been awaiting funding to pursue them— largest market, our (volunteer) UK students where we can influence of other early donors) has achieved a and, in many cases, still are. Clearly, Development Director facilitated a lifetime of giving by establishing significant multiple. At the time, it was in order to scale, we need significantly establishment of a partnership with effective giving habits early on. We a risk to make the contribution that we more resources—both people and Prism the Gift Fund. This allows also hope to collaborate to increase the did, because TLYCS was still relatively money! donations from UK donors to qualify number of corporations providing DAFs an unknown, and we could have for Gift Aid, providing a tax advantage as part of their benefits programs. given our gift to an established highly for gifts to our RNPs and to TLYCS Conclusion effective nonprofit where its impact itself. We will leverage this relationship Reorganization and As indicated by two leaders of highly would have been guaranteed. Now, to grow donations from the UK in 2018 New Hires effective nonprofits in the video in donors do not face that risk—we have and beyond; it is already proving fruitful, substantial evidence that donations In order to achieve our goals for 2018, the beginning of this report, TLYCS including facilitating a $100,000 donation will create considerable leverage. We we will be expanding and reorganizing has proven that we can efficiently to an RNP. hope you’ll take advantage of that our staff. From 2013-2017, TLYCS increase our net impact and leverage. opportunity. GROWFUND: We are dialoguing with operated largely as a single Team. However, we have not yet achieved Growfund, a company that creates Going forward, we will implement a the type of hockey stick growth we no-minimum donor-advised funds reorganization entailing increased believe is possible. The infrastructure (DAFs). We will be working to find specialization that began informally and relationships we have built over philanthropists who see the amazing in Q4 of last year. In 2017, we added the last five years and the additional 14 15 2017 ANNUAL REPORT APPENDIX

INTRODUCTION of several more granular perspectives APPENDIX: Money Moved on our money moved, breaking the This appendix aims to provide readers aggregate number down by charity and with a deeper understanding of our type of donor. Methodology and Details “Money Moved,” a critical figure which underlies our most important metrics. A note on methodology: we’ve adopted Introduction It explains the methodology we use to GiveWell’s convention of counting money calculate this figure, which requires some moved on a February-January basis. This Growth Rates and Trajectory judgment calls, so we want to clearly gives a more accurate representation Different Types of Money Moved communicate what we include in our of annual impact since January giving “Money Moved”, what we don’t, and why. typically includes carry-over from the • Direct Donations. December “giving season”.1 • Referral Donations. The appendix also includes a discussion • Large Gifts from High Net Worth Donors • Partnerships

Counterfactuals Growth Rates and Trajectory • Counterfactual 1: What factors besides TLYCS could be responsible for The ~$3.6 million we moved in 2017 was up 33% vs. the previous year. While we TLYCS’s impact? believe that rate represents solid growth given our lean team, a closer examination reveals a potentially worrisome trend that warrants discussion. • Counterfactual 2: If The Life You Can Save didn’t exist, would the money we’re moving still end up in the hands of highly effective nonprofits? As the table below illustrates, our growth slowed toward the end of the year. »» GiveWell Money Moved, Ex-One for the World2 »» EA Funds’ and Development Fund »» Money Moved by Charity Metric 2017 2016 % Change

Online Donation Analytics Full Metric 3,487,585 2,735,651 • Online donations by user acquisition channel year (Feb-Jan) 27% • Online donations by age cohort Q1-Q3 • Online donations by country (Feb-Oct) 1,878,655 1,184,927 59% • New vs. Returning Q4 • Online donations by gender (Nov- Jan) 1,608,929 1,550,724 4%

December 879,839 849,329 4%

[1] In calendar year 2017, we moved ~$3.75m up 44% from ~$2.6m moved in calendar year 2016. The calendar year 2016 number reflects a downward revision of ~$100,000 from the figure listed in our previous annual report. This was due to receiving donation reports from charities that were below our placeholder estimates. As discussed later in this report, our impact figures are now significantly less reliant on estimates, which account for only 7% of our 2017 impact. [2] One for the World is excluded because while they’re part of TLYCS they operate largely independently and they weren’t in our 2016 numbers so this perspective provides a cleaner comparison of the trajectory of our 16 core operations. 17 2017 ANNUAL REPORT APPENDIX

INNOVATIONS FOR POVERTY ACTION Of particular note is that we moved roughly • While donations slowed, this wasn’t the same amount of money in December entirely driven by a simple “web traffic 2017 as we did in December 2016. Since slowed with a corresponding slowdown December accounts for an outsized share in donations” narrative. As noted above, of our impact (~25% in 2017), our lack of the slowdown in web traffic started growth in “giving season” clearly slowed a few months prior to the slowdown our growth rate for the full year. We knew in donations. Also, while we had less that December 2016 would be a “tough web traffic in December 2017 than the comparable” to beat, since we had a previous year, donations through our particularly high profile media mention website were actually 16% higher. and we know we can’t expect that every • The precision of our money moved year. While we received some nice media tracking improved in 2017 vs. 2016. mentions in December 2017, including in Estimated donations (discussed below) the Washington Post, NBC News, and on accounted for just 7% of our 2017 Felix Salmon’s and Marc Gunther’s blogs, money moved, down from 15% in 2016. we still saw less referral traffic than in the This is largely because we only started previous year. That said, we feel we are, processing donations on our site in unambiguously, in the best place we’ve late May 2016, so prior to that time we been with media relationships and we will relied much more on estimated figures. be working to deepen and broaden those This shifting composition of our money connections going forward. moved calculation from year to year complicates our attribution work. However, our slowing growth is more than just a “December” story: our growth rate On net, we’re not entirely sure how to for the October-November period was just interpret these observations. One theory 21% vs. 2016, vs. a 77% growth rate in is that the second half of 2017 was a the January-September period. We first difficult environment in which to fundraise noticed donations starting to slow in the for extreme poverty. Hurricanes Harvey fall, and this followed a drop off in web and Irma inflicted enormous amounts of traffic that began during the summer. damage and attracted significant donor attention. And probably more importantly, In investigating these slowdowns (which we regularly hear feedback from donors we noticed in close to real time thanks to in wealthy countries, even people deeply the dashboards and tracking systems in committed to fighting extreme poverty, that which we previously invested), we’ve made they are currently directing a greater share some observations suggesting that the of their giving to domestic political issues explanation is complex. than previously. • The slowdown in traffic was broad- based, and relatively consistent across We plan to compare our 2017 results many different segments of our and growth experience to those of some audience. This suggests there was no peer organizations (see Counterfactuals single cause, and no single (or simple) section for more info) as that information solution. Improving the trajectory of our is released. We hope this benchmarking traffic is going to require more than, for exercise will shed light on whether our example, lowering the bounce rate on experience was idiosyncratic to TLYCS or our homepage. something more widespread across the 18 global nonprofit sector. 19 2017 ANNUAL REPORT APPENDIX

Different Types And even for those that do, the based on the number of times someone transfers, donor advised funds, and of Money Moved: systems unfortunately have significant clicks a “donate” button for that charity foundations. We only know that we weaknesses: and the average “referral donation have influenced one of these gifts if Description and • Most importantly, we’re very per donate click” of the RNPs that we the donor indicates this, either telling Methodology limited in our ability to track giving can track (excluding those that track us directly, or by telling the charity, who To help us better understand our from “migrated” donors who were ongoing referral giving, to avoid skewing then includes the gift in their tracking impact, we break our money moved originally influenced by us and the numbers). for us. While charities are more likely down into four main sources: subsequently give directly through to inquire about where their largest the nonprofits’ sites without 3. Large Gifts from High gifts come from, we’re confident we’re 1. Direct Donations: indicating our influence. This Net Worth (HNW) Donors: missing some untracked gifts of this dynamic is discussed in more detail $648,200 nature (e.g. anonymous grants via $1,056,714 below. We’re only able to track this donor advised funds). Donations made directly through our sort of giving for two nonprofits Cultivating these gifts will be an website are of course the easiest for us (AMF and GiveDirectly, the latter increased area of focus going forward, Occasionally, we need to make a to track, and we can do so perfectly. We only since Q416), and tellingly, these so we find it helpful to split these gifts judgment call about how to account began processing donations through organizations report significantly out as their own category. for a large gift in our metrics; this our site in May 2016, so 2017 was the higher money moved than our happens infrequently enough that we When we’re in direct contact with a first full year for which we have been other RNPs (though we suspect simply handle them on a case by case donor, we can track these gifts well. able to track this metric. other factors also contribute to this basis. Historically the most important When we’re not in direct contact, our discrepancy). judgment call has been that we’ve taken tracking is a mixed bag at best. Large credit for only 5% of $13 million given 2. Referral Donations: • Many donors don’t report what gifts are generally made to RNPs offline to our recommended nonprofits ($5 influenced their donation, and $1,415,143 ($1,164,751 through vehicles like checks, bank million in 2015, $6 million in 2016, and reported by charities + we’re missing the portion of those $250,392 estimated) donors whom we influenced. This issue is particularly acute for offline Some (perhaps many) of the donors we donations, where donors aren’t influence donate directly to our RNPs automatically asked about the driver (online or offline), rather than through of their gift. Compounding this TLYCS’s website. We can track some problem, large donors are more likely of this giving, but much has to go right to give via offline methods (check, for that to happen, so the quality of this bank transfer, or foundation/donor measurement varies significantly across advised fund grant), so our tracking charities. systematically misses the largest gifts. For the RNPs with which we have • Our referral tracking misses people systems set up, we can typically track who first learn of an RNP via TLYCS, a) when someone donates to a charity but who then donate on the RNP’s immediately after coming to their website during a separate web website via a link on ours and/or b) session, including getting there via a when someone explicitly indicates that search engine, rather than from our their donation was influenced by TLYCS website. (e.g. in response to a “where did you hear about us?” question). Many of our For RNPs with which we do not have RNPs do not have the ability to capture tracking established, we estimate either of these types of indicators. referral donations. These estimates are 20 INNOVATIONS FOR POVERTY ACTION 21 2017 ANNUAL REPORT APPENDIX

$2 million in 2017) by a particular family is any guide) will require extended sales Counterfactuals media appearances and distribute his we consulted with, because we believe cycles. Therefore, we internally pay less content through our website and other this family very likely would have given attention to relatively volatile metrics Aggregating the money we move through channels. Sales of his book The Life You to effective nonprofits even without our (e.g. “Trailing 3 month donations vs indirect channels is only half the battle. Can Save, have, naturally enough, declined involvement. Same 3 months previous year”) and We also need to understand the extent to since 2009, when it was published, whereas focus more on qualitative assessments which our work caused these donations The Life You Can Save is informing new This year, the most notable judgment about the number and quality of our to be made. To do that, we examine visitors about his ideas, and keeping the list call was around a $425,000 gift to HNW leads at various stages of the two key questions: Could other factors of recommended nonprofits up to date. So Fistula Foundation which we are fully sales funnel, and the trajectory of our besides TLYCS itself be creating the some of Peter’s impact should properly be counting in our metrics. While the progress. impact we’re claiming as our own? And is attributed to TLYCS. donor cited Peter Singer rather than it possible that other actors would replace TLYCS as inspiring their gift, TLYCS has 4. Partnerships: $527,821 our impact if TLYCS didn’t exist? We’ll look Fortunately, we have some information done a significant amount of work to at each of these questions in turn. available to help us tease apart these highlight and leverage Peter’s support Partnerships are another metric we’ll effects. The Life You Can Save’s website for Fistula Foundation (arranging a be paying close attention to as we Counterfactual 1: Could was launched soon after the book’s by Paul Simon being a increase resources in this area in 2018 publication in 2009, and was supported and notable example). In contrast, before and beyond. To date, it’s been relatively Peter Singer himself account for a portion or maintained by a small team of volunteers. TLYCS became a nonprofit, our website easy to track much of the partnership- It wasn’t until 2013 that The Life You Can contained a single paragraph about related money moved, as these dollars most of TLYCS’s impact? Save acquired a small full time staff and Fistula Foundation. Distinguishing our have generally taken the form of became a registered nonprofit. The interim It can be difficult to distinguish between impact from Peter’s is a tricky issue, financial donations or the donation period provides a valuable baseline. which we discuss in detail in the section of services that led to quantifiable TLYCS’s impact and the impact of our founder, Peter Singer. Peter has been about counterfactuals. financial donations. Going forward, we The data tell a clear story. Before the spreading the ideas that underlie TLYCS expect some of our partnerships to full-time staff was hired, web traffic was since his seminal 1972 essay Famine, The HNW category is much “lumpier” have impact that is harder to track or consistently ~60,000 visitors per year. Affluence, and Morality. He was doing that than, for example, the steady giving quantify. When TLYCS became a nonprofit, traffic before TLYCS became a nonprofit, and he’d that takes place on our website. Our began rising steadily; it is now roughly be doing it even if TLYCS had never been largest gifts will definitionally be 10x the previous level. Most of the drivers created. So it’s worth assessing to what relatively infrequent and (if experience of that growth can clearly be attributed extent TLYCS might simply be measuring to our team’s work, such as content Peter’s impact rather than creating its own. creation, search engine optimization, and LIVING GOODS development of media contacts. We don’t There’s no question that TLYCS’s numbers have baseline data for money moved (i.e. include some money that is moved as a for 2009-2012), but we do know that we’ve result of Peter Singer’s work. We know seen consistently strong growth in this that many people who donate through metric. Again, much of that growth can our site find us via Peter, and when RNPs be attributed back to our staff’s work, not track donations, they’ll typically treat “The Peter’s. It seems obvious that our work Life You Can Save” and “Peter Singer” as has been the primary catalyst behind our the same source. Complicating matters growth. further, our nonprofit is named after Peter’s book of the same name, creating ambiguity Is it possible that a portion of our if someone says they were influenced numbers is merely a product of by “The Life You Can Save.” On the other ongoing giving from donors who Peter hand, there’s also no question that TLYCS influenced prior to 2013? We likely amplifies Peter’s work. We help arrange include some of this money, but it’s 22 23 2017 ANNUAL REPORT APPENDIX

unlikely to be a material amount for a It’s more probable that our donors would tools. Therefore, we expect our audience GiveWell survey respondents) and donors variety of reasons: find great nonprofits through other will be significantly more diverse than (20%)6. We clearly had some influence • Prior to 2013, Peter tended to refer intermediaries if we didn’t exist. We see the GiveWell’s; in fact, that’s a big part of our on those gifts, which is an argument to donors to GiveWell, especially when largest potential for overlap with GiveWell growth strategy! And we’ve observed that include them in our metrics. But GiveWell TLYCS had very limited content. So and Giving What We Can. However, for GiveWell’s research doesn’t appear to be obviously has a great claim to them as well: we’d expect these “legacy donors” to reasons discussed below, we don’t think our driving the decisions of many donors on after all, the donors in question ultimately mostly show up in GiveWell’s money money moved includes significant amounts our site. While those of our RNPs that gave through their site. And we don’t know moved. This dynamic is discussed in of money that would go to one of these match GiveWell’s recommendations receive how much of a role we really played, as more detail below. organizations (or nonprofits recommended significant support from donors on our site, GiveWell’s research may well have been the • Our limited ability to track giving by them) in our absence. we move comparable dollars to several deciding factor for these donors. This is a from “migrated donors” (donors who non-GiveWell recommended organizations.4 major reason why we exclude these gifts originate with us and then make GiveWell All of this suggests that significant portions from our money moved metrics. subsequent gifts directly to the Our relationship with GiveWell is symbiotic. of our audience would not use GiveWell in charity) means we’re systematically Their charity evaluation research has long our absence. Lastly, it’s worth noting that we think missing the most questionable gifts. been a major piece of our own charity counterfactual concerns around GiveWell selection process. And The Life You Can As explained above, when people donate are likely smaller than in years past. • In 2017, ~50% of donations through Save and Peter Singer both help spread to GiveWell-recommended organizations Historically, GiveWell recommended that our site came from new visitors. GiveWell’s research and brand. on our site or note to one of our RNPs donors split their gifts following specific • Since TLYCS has substantially that we influenced their direct gifts to that allocation across one or more charities. It improved our web content, it has While some of our donors would use charity, we include those gifts in our money was therefore possible for donors to follow some claim to credit for current gifts GiveWell in our absence, we expect that moved. However, there’s also the question GiveWell’s recommendations on our site from donors Peter influenced before dynamic is limited by the ways in which of money given to our shared RNPs via as well, and donors who did that would we became active. we’re differentiated from them. GiveWell’s GiveWell’s site by donors who indicate to almost certainly give through GiveWell in primary focus is its research; it offers GiveWell that they found them through our absence. However, in Giving Season Counterfactual 2: If The rigorous and often highly technical The Life You Can Save. This is a significant 2017, GiveWell recommended that donors Life You Can Save didn’t analyses. This product seems to resonate amount of money, and it’s not obvious how give in a lump sum to GiveWell to regrant exist, would the money particularly strongly with a relatively narrow to properly attribute it. as they see fit. Therefore, we don’t need to we’re moving still end demographic. GiveWell’s donors generally worry about misattributing any donors who up in the hands of highly skew young (72% are under 40 years old), GiveWell reported over $8.6 million in giving followed GiveWell’s main recommendation effective nonprofits? live in the US (85%) and work in the finance from donors referred by The Life You Can in our 2017 Giving Season metrics. or tech industries (these account for 57% of Save or Peter Singer in 20155. We were If we weren’t around, how might our donors their donors and 76% of money donated). their largest source of both money (34% of otherwise find highly effective nonprofits These donors are usually active consumers to support? Obviously one way would be of the thorough content GiveWell produces: 87% report high or moderate engagement [3] All data is from GiveWell’s 2015 Metrics Report, and refers GiveWell’s to “major donors” (those giving between $2,000 to track down such nonprofits themselves. and $1 million). These donors accounted for ~90% of GiveWell’s money moved, and are the only donors for which Alternatively, they could use another with their research, while only 13% rely demographic data is available. GiveWell does provide a caveat around the engagement numbers, noting: “We do not intermediary (meta-charity) that identifies mostly on GiveWell’s recommendations.3 expect that the sample of donors for which we have this information is representative of all our donors (we would guess it is strongly skewed to include donors who are most engaged).”This is also a good place to mention that GiveWell them. deserves a massive tip of the hat for publishing such detailed information. Thanks GiveWell! The Life You Can Save has a very different [4] We’re fairly confident in this assertion, though the comparison is somewhat complicated by differences in our ability approach: we focus on generating consumer to track donations (we generally have better tracking in place for GiveWell-recommended charities).We can make an We think the first possibility is unlikely, at apples-to-apples comparison looking only at donations made directly through our site. We have perfect tracking data least at significant scale. High quality charity engagement with mass audience. As such, for these gifts for 17 charities. Ranking these charities from most money received to least, GiveWell’s Top Charities rank the information on our site is designed 1,2, and 9, while their Standout Charities rank 7,11,15, 16, and 17. Evidence Action (which runs programs earning both evaluation is difficult and time consuming. Top Charity and Standout ratings from GiveWell) ranked 5. Some donors would no doubt find effective to be accessible to more casual donors. [5] We have asked GiveWell for more granular data to help us distinguish between referrals from The Life You Can Save organizations on their own through Our content is presented in a way that’s and Peter Singer. At time of writing, GiveWell has agreed to provide some data that will allow for more detailed analysis. [6] The $8.6 million figure came from a survey GiveWell conducted, which received responses from donors that perseverance or luck, but they’d likely be a easy to understand, and we supplement accounted for 65% of GiveWell’s 2015 money moved. In our broad Money Influenced metric, we include $13.2 million in small minority. text with images, videos, and interactive donations through GiveWell. This assumes a) GiveWell’s survey is representative of their donors ($8.6 million / 65% = 13.2 million) and b) Money moved through GiveWell was unchanged between 2015 and 2016 (as 2016 data is not yet 24 25 available, though it should be soon). 2017 ANNUAL REPORT APPENDIX

GIVE DIRECTLY EA Funds’ Global Health Giving What We Can (GWWC) and Development Fund The Life You Can Save and GWWC have The Centre for Effective ’s many similarities. Both organizations Global Health and Development Fund is are communities of donors committed clearly marketed toward a “traditional to supporting highly effective effective altruist” audience, presumably nonprofits, and both were founded by similar to the demographics of philosophers. So one might expect that GiveWell’s donors discussed above. if The Life You Can Save didn’t exist, our Kerry Vaughan, manager of the EA members would naturally gravitate to Funds project, described this strategy Giving What We Can. on the Marketing Panel at EA Global 20177: Once again though, our broad outreach approach represents important “Emotional appeals don’t really differentiation. We work to entice seem to work. The best copy for casual donors into the effective giving getting someone to donate to EA fold. GWWC is building a community funds is a 5-10 page article I wrote of unusually committed givers as about all the arguments why you evidenced by the substantial giving should do it: that works really pledge that is a core part of their well. So I think that’s just that EA identity. They describe this lifetime is attracting a particular type of pledge as “a solemn commitment to person who violate a bunch of the giving at least 10% of your income to existing marketing stereotypes and the organisations that you think can marketing wisdom and you have to do the most good with it.” TLYCS, on adapt what you do on the basis of the other hand, takes a much lighter how that audience is different.” approach to recommending taking a pledge, and to the pledge amount. We As described above (under “GiveWell”), believe this differentiation severely TLYCS is explicitly seeking a broad mitigates concerns about whether our target audience, and our user impact would be replaced by GWWC in experience is designed accordingly. our absence. Given the dramatic differences in our approaches, we don’t think the Health and Development EA Fund is a material counterfactual concern.

[7] https://www.eaglobal.org/talks/marketing-ea-panel/ (19:00) 26 27 2017 ANNUAL REPORT APPENDIX

INNOVATIONS FOR POVERTY ACTIONS Recom- REFERRAL REFERRAL mendED DIRECT PARTNERSHIP HNW TOTAL Nonprofit (REPORTED) (ESTIMATED)

AMF 134,091 718,407 - 76,580 100,000 1,029,078

FISTULA 89,675 16,153 12,955 2,334 425,000 546,117 FOUNDATION GIVE 101,964 239,771 2,280 105,071 - 449,086 DIRECTLY

SEVA 36,007 57,225 1,080 78,923 123,200 296,434

OXFAM 87,084 12,069 1,222 105,077 - 205,452

SCI 64,722 - 32,845 103,077 - 200,789

EVIDENCE 75,662 - 48,335 40,440 - 164,437 ACTION

PHC 65,120 - 37,515 3,059 - 105,694

ONE ACRE 73,511 26,947 960 3,044 - 104,463 FUND Money Moved by nearly 70% of overall referral (reported + IPA 36,323 44,894 560 - - 81,777 Charity estimated) donations, but it’s likely that much (though not all) of this dynamic PSI 65,018 268 11,000 4,572 - 80,858 is simply because we’re tracking The table on the right displays the VILLAGE more donations to these charities, not 44,348 510 21,380 - - 66,238 distribution of our money moved across ENTERPRISE RNPs, broken out by type of money because we’re moving more money DMI 42,941 - 19,875 1,520 - 64,336 moved. to them. By way of comparison, AMF and GD account for just 22% of all The split is quite top-heavy, with the top online () donations, GAIN 28,850 - 19,465 385 - 48,700 which provides an apples to apples three RNPs accounting for more than LIVING 27,583 8,811 6,695 784 - 43,873 half of total donations. However, there comparison across RNPs. GOODS are two important reasons to believe POSSIBLE 29,564 - 12,225 1,690 - 43,478 that our impact won’t be nearly that The other important note is that, as discussed above, HNW donations concentrated going forward. FRED - 39,696 - - - 39,696 are quite lumpy. Fistula Foundation HOLLOWS First, some of the concentration is due is always a favorite among our IGN 27,138 - 7,545 1,120 - 35,803 to the fact that we have particularly audience, but their particularly strong good tracking systems set up with performance this year was driven by D-REV 15,945 - 5,805 - - 21,750 Against Foundation (AMF) and just one large offline gift. We expect GiveDirectly (GD); of particular note is that over time, we’ll help more of our HELEN 11,167 - 8,650 - 19,817 that we’re able to capture “migrated RNPs attract large gifts, and that the KELLER INTL donors” (discussed above) for these overall spread of money will even out. two—and only these two—charities. TOTAL 1,054,714 1,164,751 250,392 527,821 648,200 3,647,878 AMF and GD collectively account for 28 29 2017 ANNUAL REPORT APPENDIX

Online Donation Online donations by user Online donations by age we do see donations across the Analytics acquisition channel cohort spectrum of ages. And we suspect that older members of our audience Google Analytics provides us with One of the main cuts of data we look at Our online donors skew young, with disproportionately favor offline giving, valuable insights into who is donating is “acquisition channel”, which tells us 60% of donations coming from people which isn’t captured in this data. on our site (unfortunately we don’t have how users arrive at our website. About between the ages of 25-44. However, such information for offline donors or half the money donated through our site those we refer to our RNPs). Please is given by donors who find us through note that these numbers include some “Organic Search” (e.g. by doing a Google ECOMMERCE imprecision (including only counting the search). AGE USER TRANSACTIONS CONVERSION REVENUE % OF REVENUE initial gift of a recurring donation) and RATE some missing data (e.g. Google only Note that “Paid Search” reflects our provides demographic data on a subset free Google adwords allocation for 18-24 67,856 619 0.74% $47,206 9% of users). nonprofits, not ads we pay for. While we expect this channel to convert at a Our general takeaway from this data much lower rate than other channels, 25-34 74,830 834 0.92% $172,689 34% is that we have a long way to go in our we still know there’s plenty of room for efforts to reach a mass audience; our optimization and have recently started experimenting with outsourcing this current user base still exhibits a great 35-44 49,455 536 0.92% $132,108 26% deal of demographic concentration. work.

45-54 35,982 214 0.51% $58,548 11% DEFAULT ECOMMERCE CHANNEL USERs CONVERSION TRANSACTIONS REVENUE % OF REVENUE GROUPING RATE 55-64 32,810 182 0.49% $41,921 8% ORGANIC 201,632 0.76% 1,825 $409,425 47% SEARCH 65+ 31,948 227 0.61% $61,285 12% DIRECT 54,996 1.18% 781 $196,358 23% TOTAL 292,881 2,612 0.75% $513,757 100% REFERRAL 29,581 1.08% 400 $81,628 9%

EMAIL 5,009 2.13% 169 $56,471 7%

PAID SEARCH 231,511 0.14% 348 $51,736 6%

SOCIAL 18,000 1.88% 418 $38,377 4%

(OTHER) 3,589 2.37% 125 $33,096 4%

DISPLAY 19 0.00% 0 $0 0%

TOTAL 544,337 0.64% 4,066 $867,091 100%

30 ONE ACRE FUND 31 2017 ANNUAL REPORT APPENDIX

Online donations by advantaged means. (In 2018, we’ll be New vs. Returning much higher rate. In 2018, these factors country able to look at data from TLYCS UK and balanced out such that we received TLYCS Australia, our two new sister We have many more new visitors to roughly half our donations from each of The U.S. accounts for most of our organizations.) our website than returning visitors, but these cohorts. online donations by a wide margin. as you’d expect, the latter donate at a However, this picture is distorted Therefore this table may be most useful because donations through our website in gauging the relative magnitudes are only tax deductible for US donors, of our audiences in various non-US so we regularly direct international countries. ECOMMERCE donors to give through other tax USER TYPE USERs TRANSACTIONS CONVERSION REVENUE % OF REVENUE RATE NEW VISITOR 531,545 2,012 0.38% $441,146 53%

ECOMMERCE RETURNING % OF 60,062 2,104 2.02% $394,025 47% COUNTRY USER TRANSACTIONS CONVERSION REVENUE REVENUE VISITOR REVENUE RATE TOTAL 591,607 4,116 0.65% $835,170 UNITED STATES 237,893 2,893 1.04% $664,767 84% -

AUSTRALIA 38,121 373 0.73% $45,994 6% 38% Online donations by margin), male visitors are almost UNITED twice as likely to donate, and men 94,262 221 0.20% $31,073 4% 25% gender KINGDOM donate ~20% more than women on We see an interesting gender difference average. Therefore, male visitors end CANADA 35,863 129 0.30% $19,551 2% 16% in our online giving, though we’re not up accounting for 65% of giving on our really sure what to make of it. Even site. (Note that this data is based on a though women make up the majority particularly small sample size). IRELAND 5,419 22 0.35% $11,969 2% 10% of the visitors to our site (by a modest

GERMANY 5,063 32 0.46% $7,944 1% 7%

NEW 4,410 38 0.72% $3,498 0% 3% ECOMMERCE ZEALAND GENDEr USERs TRANSACTIONS CONVERSION REVENUE % OF REVENUE RATE SINGAPORE 4,554 34 0.60% $2,655 0% 2% FEMALE 176,739 1,033 0.49% 179,790 35%

INDIA 19,381 6 0.03% $746 0% 1% MALE 140,854 1,611 0.95% 340,094 65%

SOUTH AFRICA 9,011 9 0.09% $357 0% 0% TOTAL 317,593 2,644 0.69% 519,884 100%

32 33