Frequently Asked Questions

We are building an alliance of altruistic gaming professionals because we believe it will allow us to maximize how much we can help others with our donations.

First, it can be helpful to have a formal commitment to increase the likelihood that we will follow through with our philanthropic intentions. Often, we plan to do something in the future—such as give a certain amount to charity—only to have those plans fall apart for one reason or another. Formalizing a commitment can help us all stay on track with our true priorities.

Second, it can be helpful to feel community support and encouragement. It’s easy to feel isolated, especially with the current state of the world, and feeling like we’re part of a team can help motivate us to continue giving. Additionally, as team members, we can help each other out when needs arise, whether it be with promotion of a new release or an opportunity to stream something early.

Perhaps most importantly, the Effective Giving Quest Alliance allows us to showcase a growing momentum behind effective philanthropy. As we reach out to individuals who may not be familiar with strategies to prioritize causes and select charities—or who perhaps are not yet giving at all—our message will be much more likely to be received if we have a strong alliance behind us. In that way, your efforts can be multiplicative by encouraging new members to join the Effective Giving Quest Alliance.

In essence, effective altruism is both an intellectual project, dedicated to using evidence and reason to prioritize the most effective ways to help others, and a practical project, taking action on this research to proactively build this better world.

We at Effective Giving Quest attempt to take part in both of these projects: on the philosophical side of the movement, we identify charity evaluators and fund managers who can best find opportunities where our donations can do the most good; and on the social side of the movement, we take an active part by helping gaming companies, streamers, esports and other professionals direct their money toward these most effective causes.

We encourage you to learn more about effective giving and ask gaming professionals to consider joining the Effective Giving Quest Alliance.

In an ideal world, we would be able to fund all initiatives which help others. Unfortunately, the reality is that we are dealing with a limited pool of charitable resources, and we cannot fund all causes. Instead, we are left with the option to do the next best thing, which is to identify high-priority causes based on their importance, tractability, and neglectedness, and attempt to direct as many funds as possible to effective charities working in those areas. See our About Effective Giving page for more information.

Gaming has grown immensely in popularity of late. Gone are the days when it was just kids on the playground discussing secret warp pipes in the first Super Mario Bros.; today, people of all ages from all backgrounds enjoy playing games. Not only do more people play games, but more people find a main source of entertainment in watching other people play games, either casually through Twitch streamers or competitively through esports competitions. It’s a massively popular hobby!

With these growing audiences comes significantly increased revenue. In 2020, the gaming industry brought in almost $180 billion dollars. This is more than the entire gross revenues of the movie industry and all of North American sports combined. Some of this was a result of pandemic restrictions, but it’s still indicative of how far gaming has come. With all of this money in play, it’s clear that the industry would benefit from guidance on effective giving.

In fact, many gamers are already fundraising for nonprofits. We saw streamers raise over $83 million dollars in 2020 alone, and that number will only continue to grow. Developers and publishers often already give a percentage of their revenue to charity, ranging anywhere from 1–10% of their total income.

But it’s not just the popularity or the money. Gamers already have the mindset to be strategic with their giving; for example, many gamers are familiar with the concept of min/maxing, where a player maximizes certain stats and minimizes other attributes to build a particular type of character. Games often provide opportunities for the player to make tough decisions about what to optimize in order to best achieve their goal, and this can involve challenging analysis.

There are a lot of similarities between this approach and what effective altruists try to do when they evaluate charitable opportunities. We also try to maximize the good we can do by focusing on high impact causes and selecting interventions which minimize costs. We’re also faced with difficult trade-offs while aiming for the greater good, and we are also running the numbers to figure out the best path forward. In this way, gamers and effective altruists share similarities in the ways that they deal with problems.

By syncing with the gaming industry and forging this Effective Giving Quest Alliance of game companies, streamers, and professionals, we can build momentum to reach large audiences with a message of effective giving, thereby extending the impact of our philanthropic intentions far past what we could do in isolation.

At this stage, no. Charities most aligned with the effective altruism movement currently receive less than 0.08% of all donations annually in the United States and we expect many other countries are similar in this regard. We are mindful of the importance of diversification; we believe that we must take multi-pronged approaches to solving difficult problems. However, we are so far from the point at which we would be worried about overfunding our current giving options that we have no qualms whatsoever about exclusively promoting these efforts. All charitable projects are not equal in their effects, regardless of their good intentions, and we believe in elevating those which research shows are likely to help others the most and those chosen by experts in each relevant cause area. Finally, a key criterion in evaluating opportunities in this space is their room for more funding: the ability to absorb more funds and still be able to utilize them in an effective manner. As such, the concern of overfunding is very much at the forefront of our minds.

Thank you for your interest! You can have an extraordinary impact through your individual donations when giving to some of the most effective charities and projects. We encourage you to give to our recommended funds directly.

If you officially partner with Effective Giving Quest and commit to giving a portion of your profits to effective charities, you or your company will need to sign a Memorandum of Understanding. Here is a sample MOU for streamers; note we also work with esports athletes, teams, game developers, publishers, and other professionals. If you are selling games, you may also need to sign a Commercial Co-Venture Agreement. EGQ will also sign an NDA to protect your privacy.

We completely understand. Thank you for your interest in effective giving! We recommend that you sign up for updates in the footer below so that you can stay informed as opportunities arise. We anticipate sending just a few emails each year.