Reid Hoffman, the founder of Linkedin, recently reviewed Will's book, Doing Good Better.
Overall, it was very positive. One difference, however, was that he thinks we should continue to give some portion of our resources locally rather than internationally, and he justifies this on the basis of having a greater long-run impact. I hadn't seen this argument made by someone who agrees with so much of effective altruism before (normally those in favor of local giving reject the idea that we should maximise our social impact at all, or seem to have misunderstood effective altruism). I'm not convinced, but I think we should take the argument seriously:
But we're also members of local communities, and we have a moral obligation to support philanthropic efforts in those communities too, even if they don't leverage our contributions as efficiently as they might somewhere else.
Local participation in philanthropy isn't just a moral obligation though. It also has its own utilitarian component through strong derivative impact. When you donate locally, you function as a tangible role model to others in your community. You help build networks for action. You form partnerships and alliances with other community members, and position philanthropy as a local norm, a tangible part of the culture that has a compounding effect over time by solidifying community ties, facilitating engagement and collaboration, and creating a tradition of mutual support.
See the full article.
Three anecdotes:
1.) One time I was with two friends and we were stopped on the street by a Planned Parenthood canvasser who asked us for money. I gave $10 because I wanted my friends to see donating as a good thing in general and to not see me as shying away from donating. I'm not sure if that was the right call.
2.) When I was in college, I was a founding member of a student venture philanthropy organization. We had a $10K grant to give to a local non-profit that we gave, along with 200 person hours of volunteering to implement the grant. We solicited proposals from non-profits for how to implement it. It's possible we could have had more impact with our money if we could give it abroad (e.g., to AMF), but we would not have been able to effectively volunteer, so there wouldn't be anything to do as a club. I think our learning was heightened by giving locally. (It wasn't our money anyway and the donor was quite keen on local giving.)
3.) Another thing I did in college my senior year was help run the student org that coordinated all the volunteering on campus. I think it was another great opportunity to learn how non-profits and volunteering worked, even if it was confined to only local orgs.