Effective vs. Efficient

Why Being Effective is More Important than Being Efficient

I’m reading William MacAskill’s “Doing Good Better: How Effective Altruism Can Help You Help Others, Do Work that Matters, and Make Smarter Choices about Giving Back.”

In Chapter 7, MacAskill argues that the accepted approach of judging a charity by how much of its donations go towards program spending relative to administrative costs would need more finesse.

Instead of focusing on cost efficiency, he suggests a series of five criteria:

• What does this charity do?
• How cost-effective is each program area?
• How robust is the evidence behind each program?
• How well is each program implemented?
• Does the charity need additional funds?

These criteria are, when you think about it, very logical.

As MacAskill describes:

“Suppose you’re deciding whether to buy a Mac or a PC. What factors would you consider? …. You certainly won’t think about how much Apple and Microsoft each spend on administration, and you wouldn’t think about how much their respective CEOs are paid.”

Exactly.

After all, based on the traditional matrix, one can easily create a cost-efficient charity that does very little good.