If you shop on Amazon in the countries listed below, you can earn a substantial commission for charity by doing so via the links below. This is a cost-free way to do a lot of good, so I'd encourage you to do so! You can bookmark one of the direct links to Amazon below and then use that bookmark every time you shop.

The commission will be at least 5%, varying by product category. This is substantially better than the AmazonSmile scheme available in the US, which only gives 0.5% of the money you spend to charity. It works through Amazon's 'Associates Program', which pays this commission for referring purchasers to them, from the unaltered purchase price (details here). It doesn't cost the purchaser anything. The money goes to Associates Program accounts owned by the EA non-profit Charity Science, money to which always gets regranted to GiveWell-recommended charities unless explicitly earmarked otherwise. For ease of administration and to get tax-deductibility, commission will get regranted to the Schistosomiasis Control Initiative until further notice.

Direct links to Amazon for your bookmarks

If you'd like to shop for charity, please bookmark the appropriate link below now:

• US
• Canada
• UK
• Italy
• Spain
• Germany and Austria

From now through November 28: Black Friday Deals Week

Amazon's biggest cut price sale is this week. The links below take you to currently available deals:

• US
• Canada
• UK

Please share these links

I'll add other links on the main 'Shop for Charity' page later. I'd love to hear suggestions for good commission schemes in other countries. If you'd like to share these links with friends and family, please point them to this post or even better this project's main page.

Happy shopping!

'Shop for Charity' is a Charity Science project

The idea that being public about your giving can help inspire others is widespread, particularly in the effective altruism movement. And it’s also true that sharing your choice of charities can have a positive influence, particularly when that choice takes into account their effectiveness. With this in mind, we’ve created created an EA Donation Registry through which people can share plans to donate (of any form, and to any cause), as well as record past donations that they’ve made. We did so partly in response to requests for a cause neutral venue for donation plans, so if you give or plan to give to organisations which work to alleviate existential risk or aim to improve the far future in other ways then you may be interested in signing up.

You can already see hundreds of people’s past and planned donations on the Registry. There’s some inspiring material there, from the over $40 million that Jim Greenbaum has given over his lifetime, to the many people aiming to donate substantial portions of their income, such as Peter Singer. You can filter people’s donation plans by their cause area so as to see those planning to donate towards existential risk alleviation and other far future causes, as well as to charities working on animal welfare and global poverty.

If you’d like to read more about the reasons to share your giving, Peter Hurford’s post To Inspire People to Give, Be Public About Your Giving provides a good summary. As he discusses, it shows that giving large amounts to effective charities is something that people actually do, providing social proof and normalising and encouraging this, particularly among peer groups. We also hope that the EA Donation Registry can serve as a gentle prompt to action and commitment device, although understanding that plans change we’ve given donors the ability to edit them at any time - it'd be both expected and understood that many will do so. This a registry of plans, not necessarily pledges.

The registry is an open, community-owned project coordinated through .impact, so we’d love to hear of any uses that you might make of it, and you can also send us suggestions or feedback via our contact form. But most of all, we’d encourage you to share your past or planned donations on it for the reasons above. You can share plans of any form and size via a free text field, so take a moment to consider if there are any that you’d like to share - and if you’ve yet to think about where you might donate, we hope that this will provide a great opportunity to do so!

We’re excited to announce EA Profiles, a new community platform for effective altruists. There are already hundreds of profiles for you to browse from members of the community such as Peter Singer and Jeff Kaufman, full of interesting information like people’s favoured causes and charities, and the actions they’re taking to make the world a better place. And you can create your own right now!

The Profiles should serve as a virtual “Who’s Who” of EA - a place to see information about those who identify with effective altruism, and share what we’re doing to inspire and motivate others. They enable applications such as a map of EAs and a cause-neutral registry of past and planned donations, which we'll cover in a separate announcement. 

Your EA Profile provides a natural, standard way to share your identification with the ideas of effective altruism and the ways in which you and people you know can do enormous amounts of good, from spreading these ideas to donating to highly efficient charities. We know that people can be slow or cautious about sharing this, but for familiar reasons think that doing so is highly valuable, spreading and normalising a focus on effectiveness and high impact donations. And making a Profile is a great excuse to do so: you’re sharing this information because we asked for it! You can then point people to it, potentially triggering interesting conversations with friends who might like to hear about the ways they can do the most good.

Many of the Profiles come from answers which people opted to make public in the first annual survey of effective altruists this year (still open if you haven’t taken it yet - it provides another way to create a full or partial Profile). Peter Hurford is currently working on analysing the survey results and will share them and the raw data from the survey soon, but for now the EA Profiles provide some of the most interesting results: public information on the inspiring actions that individuals are taking.

If you’re interested in building up this project, or working on other similar projects, consider looking into .impact, a coordinated volunteer force working on potentially high-impact projects like this one.

Do the following things in email tone lower status?:

• Exclamation marks
• Friendliness
• Saying 'please', or 'it'd be great if'
• Saying 'you don't have to do this, but...'
• Saying 'sorry' (e.g. 'sorry to bother you')
• Signing of with 'Thanks!'

I recently posted on LessWrong main about the jobs and internships currently available at the Centre for Effective Altruism. (As I mentioned, effective altruism in general and CEA in particular have been discussed many times on LessWrong, so these opportunities might be of interest to some readers!) We're just starting a new project to do effective altruism outreach and 'marketing' (much like what Peter Hurford discusses in this post), so have added some new roles in this to the recruitment round; there's a full description of them here. If you're interested, apply by 5pm GMT on February 28th, and if you know anyone who might be, do pass it along!

I work at the Centre for Effective Altruism, and thought some LessWrongers might be interested in applying for the jobs and internships that we're currently offering - or else know others who might be! CEA’s been discussed on LessWrong several times before, and is the umbrella organisation to which 80,000 Hours and Giving What We Can belong. We’re also starting to branch out into global prioritisation research (e.g. comparing the value of work on AI risk and on helping the global poor) and pure promotion of effective altruist ideas.

CEA is an exciting and inspiring place to work. You’re part of a focused team of intelligent, enthusiastic, driven colleagues; everyone involved is passionate about their work, making the office an inspiring place to be.  We’re based in the centre of Oxford, where we share offices with the Future of Humanity Institute, and which is a global hub for the effective altruist community. For more, see this explanation of why working at CEA is an excellent opportunity.

The deadline to apply is 5pm GMT on February the 21st. To apply, or see more information about these roles, visit our careers page. If you know anyone who might be interested in these opportunities, do pass them on. Here is the full list of jobs and internships that are available:

Director of Development

We’re looking for a new staff member to lead our fundraising efforts. CEA is a young and rapidly growing charity, which has grown to a £300,000 annual budget over 18 months. In this role you’ll be fundraising for two exciting organisations that are part of the Centre for Effective Altruism - Giving What We Can and 80,000 Hours. CEA has a track record of incubating new charitable projects, and will continue to expand into new areas.

In order to meet its growth targets CEA has set the ambitious goal of raising an extra £150,000 over the next year. Currently, CEA is funded primarily by ‘high net worth’ donors, but also a number of medium-sized donors focussed on the effectiveness of their donations, and some grants. For this role we are interested in people with previous experience in fundraising. We would be willing to pay up to £40,000, dependent on experience.

Director of Community at Giving What We Can

Giving What We Can is looking for an exceptional candidate to lead its outreach to existing and potential members. GWWC asks people to pledge to donate 10% of their income to the best charities that they are aware of; to date, it has found 430 members who have collectively pledged over £100 million. The Director of Community is an essential part of our team, and the process by which we have impact in helping those in poverty. We have found that in order to be willing to pledge to give 10% of their income for the rest of their lives, people need personal contact with a friendly member of staff who can answer their questions and introduce them to other people doing the same.

GWWC is looking for someone willing to stay in this role for many years. If successful, this person could eventually oversee a team of people attracting and engaging members. They would be working closely with a Director of Communications who would help to generate prospective members and an Executive Director who would set the strategic direction of the organisation.

Lead Developer at 80,000 Hours

We’ve got an exciting opportunity to become a core member of the 80,000 Hours team. We’re looking for someone to join us in a full-time paid position as a lead developer, helping 80,000 Hours drive forward its mission to help thousands of people identify and take high leverage ways to have a social impact.

We are looking for a developer to work closely with our founding team, in order to:

• Develop an online platform for people to learn about our research
• Create interactive ways to deliver our career coaching online
• Help start other tech projects focused on evidence-based approaches to improving the world.

There may also be the opportunity to work more broadly with the CEA, helping to foster an incubator for high impact projects. The role is also highly flexible, and we’ll tailor it to your skills, interests and development aims.

Careers Analyst at 80,000 Hours

Another full-time paid role at 80,000 Hours that we’re advertising for is that of a Careers Analyst, helping us in our mission through providing high quality high impact careers guidance. In this role you would:

• Give one-on-one coaching to amazing people who want to change the world, as part of our case studies
• Do research into finding the most promising career opportunities in the world
• Promote our research in the international media, online and through other outreach
• Monitor our impact.

The role is also highly flexible, and we’ll tailor it to your skills, interests and development aims. We are particularly interested in people with knowledge of economics.

Internships on our Graduate Volunteer Scheme

Both Giving What We Can and 80,000 Hours are looking for talented and enthusiastic people to volunteer with us full-time in Oxford. We run a Graduate Volunteer Scheme on which you can intern with us for several months. We can often provide accommodation and expenses to ensure that you’re not left out of pocket. As a Graduate Volunteer or intern, there are lots of different areas to work on, and there’s plenty of flexibility to adjust the role so it plays to your strengths and development aims. We make it our responsibility to ensure your time here allows you to grow as much as possible, as well as just being lots of fun! We’re looking for hardworking individuals with a strong desire for personal development who are deeply interested in making the world a better place in an effective way.

See here for more details about the scheme. If you would be interested in interning with us, please let us know via this form.

Two week internships on Giving What We Can's September development programme

Do you want to join the fight against global poverty and gain experience of research or communications within the voluntary sector? Giving What We Can is running a development programme for students interested in promoting effective charitable giving. In this two week period (15th-26th September 2014) interns will gain training and experience in the area of their choice; either cost-effectiveness Research or Communications. For more details and to apply, see this page.