If you want to do good in the world, I recommend a simple thing you can do is to donate to charities. Here are a list of recommendations with reasonings why they are worth donating to.
Main Recommendations
These are the two I most strongly recommend prioritizing based on their effectiveness and room for growth.
The AMF has historically been regarded by the Effective Altruist organization GiveWell as being the most effective charity to donate to. Early on it was estimated that you could save a life by providing just $1800 worth of bednets to people in Africa. Currently this amount is closer to $4800 $5500, which is still very good. In terms of DALYs and cost-effectiveness, this is widely considered among the best. (Edit: The amount increased again according to the latest data.)
There’s some argument to be made that charities that provide things that the local government or businesses should be providing actually hurts development in the long run. For those concerns, a less patronizing way of giving is direct cash transfers to those people who are in the deepest poverty. This charity offers this option, as well as funds pilot projects for basic income, which I consider an important policy given increasing automation. Furthermore, cash transfers generally have more room for growth than bednets, which is to say that it will take more money to saturate its marginal effectiveness.
Former Recommendations
I previously recommended these, but in retrospect, the opportunity cost of donating to them rather than the above two, limits the priority I would put on them. I’ll continue to list them as potential alternatives in case you’re less interested in the above, as many of these cover other cause areas that are still worth considering.
One of humanity’s most successful global health efforts was the eradication of smallpox. Polio is next on the list and the potential value of saving future generations from its scourge is difficult to quantify.
Machine Intelligence Research Institute
This is Eliezer Yudkowsky of the rationalist community Less Wrong fame’s outfit. They’re rather obsessed with trying to ensure that future superintelligent AI is friendly and safe for humanity. (Update: Recently, Eliezer Yudkowsky has become very pessimistic about future prospects regarding safe AGI.)
Helps women in Africa with depression counselling. Mental health is a global issue.
They fund research and development into alternative meat sources such as lab-grown meat, which has the potential to allievate significant suffering caused by factory farming.
I personally use Wikipedia all the time, and I think the value it provides to educate people on a daily basis on many things is difficult to quantify and worth supporting regardless.
A significant organization in terms of the open source community. They provide a lot of the server software that form the backbone of the Internet infrastructure.
Again, the Internet is essential to everyday life and ensuring that certain large for-profit corporations don’t completely monopolize browsers is important.
They do good work around the world helping with various emergencies.
They are part of the International Red Cross, which often works where no one else is during major disasters.
A small way to forestall Global Warming by getting more trees planted to act as carbon sinks.
A small way to support the notion of human rights in difficult places.
The United Nations do good work, and one of their major programs is this.
A lot of people in the world go hungry.
An important charity for helping people closer to my local community.