Frequently Asked Questions
You can learn more about this project by reviewing our FAQ below. If you don't find an answer to your question, feel free to contact us.
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What is your mission statement?
Our mission is to promote a culture of generous and effective charitable giving. Our goal is to encourage people to give more, to give more effectively, and to derive more satisfaction from their giving. We aim to help people become great philanthropists, embracing Laura Arrillaga Andreesen’s definition of a philanthropist as “Anyone who gives anything—time, money, experience, skills, and networks—in any amount, to create a better world.”
What do you do?
We sponsor and coordinate live and online “Giving Games” that promote effective charitable giving. Many of our live games take place at universities around the world, so that we can reach and help shape the behavior of the next generation of donors in a scalable way. But we encourage everyone to participate, and our online games make it easy for anyone to do so. We encourage other donors to increase their impact by running Giving Games, and will share the lessons we collect to help them do so.
What are Giving Games?
In a Giving Game, players are presented with a choice of charities and are given funds that they can donate to their preferred causes. We typically ask players to choose between two or three charities. Many Giving Games take the form of a moderated discussion, but this structure is incredibly flexible- Giving Games can take place online, over a casual lunch conversation between friends, on a street corner, or at a conference in a packed auditorium.
Who pays for the charitable donations?
Jon Behar, the founder of A Path That’s Clear, originally provided sponsorship for Giving Games. Jon graduated Bowdoin College in
2001 with a degree in Economics and Government, and has a background in the
hedge fund industry.
Going forward, most Giving Games will be sponsored by The Life You Can Save. TLYCS is actively looking for Giving Games to sponsor, so if you'd like to run one with using their funding, please send an inquiry. People are also welcome to fund their own games of course. You can learn more about how APTC relates to TLYCS below.
Going forward, most Giving Games will be sponsored by The Life You Can Save. TLYCS is actively looking for Giving Games to sponsor, so if you'd like to run one with using their funding, please send an inquiry. People are also welcome to fund their own games of course. You can learn more about how APTC relates to TLYCS below.
What is A Path That's Clear?
APTC was started by Jon Behar as a way to leverage his charitable giving, which he used to sponsor the Giving Games he helped coordinate. But this project has really been made possible through the participation of others. An amazing community of volunteers has recruited players, designed Giving Games, served as moderators, handled the logistics of individual games, and helped design the website. Some of these volunteers got involved after participating in a Giving Game themselves.
A Path That's Clear is also the name of a donor advised fund we use to provide records that the donations are made appropriately. This fund contains money that has already been earmarked for charity, allowing the specific recipients to be determined by Giving Game players.
A Path That's Clear is also the name of a donor advised fund we use to provide records that the donations are made appropriately. This fund contains money that has already been earmarked for charity, allowing the specific recipients to be determined by Giving Game players.
Is APTC associated with The Life You Can Save?
In September 2013, Jon Behar (APTC's founder) began working for The Life You Can Save as their Director of Philanthropy Education. Basically, that means he's now setting up a Giving Games program for TLYCS and organizing games for them to sponsor. (Charlie Bresler, TLYCS's Executive Director and primary funder, provides the money for these games.)
Cooperating with an existing organization like TLYCS had a lot of advantages, and this exciting partnership will provide access to the resources needed to aggressively scale Giving Games worldwide.
Cooperating with an existing organization like TLYCS had a lot of advantages, and this exciting partnership will provide access to the resources needed to aggressively scale Giving Games worldwide.
How do Giving Games improve giving decisions?
Giving Games spread awareness of highly effective charities, and resources that donors can use to make more informed choices. They also present players with a giving decision that requires strategic thinking. In order to make their choice, players need to think about what they value most, and why. This reflection can inform and improve any future donations a player might make. We hope to empower the next generation of donors by promoting an early interest in effective giving.
Why is effective giving so important?
Lots of charities improve the world with the work that they do. But donors have to choose which charities to support, and some organizations can use a donations to do much more good than others. To use an example taken from Toby Ord’s essay “The Moral Imperative toward Cost-Effectiveness”, the cost to help one blind person by training a guide dog is $40,000; that same amount of money could fund enough surgeries to cure over 1300 cases of blindness in the developing world.
Good intentions aren’t enough- Americans give $300 billion to charity annually (with individual donors accounting for $200 billion), but the impact of these gifts could be magnified dramatically if donors supported more effective charities.
Good intentions aren’t enough- Americans give $300 billion to charity annually (with individual donors accounting for $200 billion), but the impact of these gifts could be magnified dramatically if donors supported more effective charities.
What have you accomplished and what's coming next?
So far, APTC and TLYCS have run over eighty Giving Games, moving almost twenty thousand dollars to great charities, and engaging over three thousand people in conversations about effective philanthropy.
Going forward, we intend to:
Going forward, we intend to:
- Expand our reach by running
more Giving Games and encouraging other donors to do the same.
We're particularly eager to partner with colleges to make Giving Games available to their entire student bodies by using them in orientation programs, residential life, and the classroom.
- Improve our impact by analyzing the Giving Games we’ve run. We’re also collaborating with researchers at George Mason University’s Interdisciplinary Center for Economic Science to study Giving Games in a laboratory environment.
- Share what we learn with other groups promoting effective philanthropy.
How can I get involved?
You can learn about different ways to participate in Giving Games through our Get Involved page. Or, review our suggested links for other effective giving resources.
Why is GiveWell's research featured so prominently?
GiveWell is widely viewed as an indispensable resource for donors looking to maximize the impact of their donation. GiveWell looks for organizations that can make a compelling case for impact and actively searches to find charities with strong, documented track records, highly cost-effective activities, room for more funding, and transparency and accountability to donors.
Jon Behar, APTC's founder, became interested in effective giving through GiveWell's research, and has previously served on the organization's board.
Jon Behar, APTC's founder, became interested in effective giving through GiveWell's research, and has previously served on the organization's board.