If you’re going to give to Ukraine, where should you donate?
by Vesa Hautala.
This is a temporary page about donating to help people who suffer in the ongoing war in Ukraine. Last updated March 14 2022.
Helping in the Ukraine crisis is challenging from an EA perspective. We want to use reason and evidence to find the most impactful ways to do good. The usual way to go about this is conducting careful analysis on charities to find out which ones are the most effective. However, the situation in Ukraine is new and changing fast, so it simply has not been possible to conduct the kind of research people in EA usually expect to inform their giving decisions.
The general EA advice is that crisis situations usually aren’t the most effective causes because they generally receive a lot of attention and funding (see for example https://80000hours.org/2014/01/neglectedness-and-impact/ ). This is also the case with the Ukraine war. Help is pouring into Ukraine from all over the world. Other pressing problems in the world like children dying of malaria or climate change have sadly not gone away even if they are currently less on everyone’s mind.
For these reasons – lack of high-quality research and evidence, non-neglectedness, and the urgency of ongoing problems – it is very likely that the usual charities recommended by GiveWell and others are still superior in terms of lives saved per dollar.
However, we also recognize that people do have other motivations to give than just an impartial desire to do the most good – and it’s okay to care about multiple things! Many people who are interested in EA or engaged with the movement want to donate to help Ukraine. So how can they do it effectively?
Here are some recommendations we have gathered from within the EA movement. Effective Altruism Poland maintains an updated list of recommended charities. This Effective Altruism Forum thread contains discussion on ways to help. EA-affiliated journalist Kelsey Piper has published some recommendations in a Vox article. The German EA donation site Effektiv Spenden (Donate Effectively) has also published an article about donating to help Ukraine ((German original, Google translation to English). Descriptions in quotes below are from the EA Poland page.
The Polish Medical Mission
https://pmm.org.pl/en/ukraine-urgent-medical-aid
(Bank details for donations at the bottom of the linked page)
“Since 1999 the Polish Medical Mission Association has been helping victims of wars, disasters and cataclysms. PMM’s activities are run by volunteers: doctors, paramedics, nurses, rehabilitation specialists, as well as psychologists and medical analysts.
The funds raised will be donated to provide rapid medical support and purchase necessary medical supplies.”
Vostok SOS
Bank details for donations (Google translation from Ukrainian language)
“Vostok SOS collects funds to support people living in cities (providing food, medicine, hygiene products, gasoline etc.) and for humanitarian aid to the army, as well as transport. They also fund evacuations paying for and organizing transportation.”
Polish Humanitarian Action
https://www.pah.org.pl/en/donate/?form=ukraine
“This Polish NGO has been operating since 1992 and provides humanitarian aid all over the world. They react in places where humanitarian crises (natural disasters and armed conflicts) occur. Their main priority is immediate humanitarian response, but they think it’s equally important to seek long-term solutions and prevent further catastrophes.
This fundraiser will help provide food and hygien products to the people most threatened by war in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.”
Meduza
Free Russian news media, gives information about the war.
OVD info
Russian human rights service. Helps especially those persecuted for political reasons, for example protestors arrested in anti-war demonstrations.
Mega-charities (the Red Cross etc.)
So-called mega-charities are not normally recommended as donation targets in EA, because their effectiveness is hard to assess. However, in a crisis situation like this they might be good candidates because they have years of experience in war and crisis zones.