Why charities usually don't differ astronomically in expected cost-effectiveness

Abstract

Charities typically differ much less in expected cost-effectiveness than is often claimed and the difference between them is unlikely to be more than hundreds of times at most. Reasons for this include flow through effects, replaceability of donations, cross-fertilization, the improbability of finding breakthrough ideas, and logical action correlations. The impact of a charity is usually positive although negative impacts are possible, including the promotion of harmful ideas, drawing away of resources from better causes, and the overall waste of economic resources. – AI-generated abstract.