Addressing the world's most important problems takes more than just good intentions; you'll need to use evidence and careful reasoning to maximize your impact. For that reason, if you're new to effective altruism, it may be best for you to start out by learning more about it, rather than immediately donating or volunteering.
But with seemingly endless things to read, where should you begin?
We recommend starting with our introduction to effective altruism. This article gives an overview of the motivation and thinking behind EA, with links to articles about some of the movement's most important ideas.
If you're looking for more depth, we’ve compiled a series of essays that touch on many of EA's basic concepts, as well as videos and books on some of the same topics.
If you’re trying to decide which focus area you should prioritize, check out the cause prioritization tool and our profiles of promising areas.
If you are or would consider using your career to pursue EA goals, 80,000 Hours’ career guide provides lots of information about not only choosing a job, but also the impact behind different career paths. For a structured introduction that keeps you accountable, you might prefer the Effective Altruism Coursera course.
Once you've become familiar with the basics of effective altruism, you may get value from joining the discussion on the EA Forum, where authors from around the community share their expertise and explore new ideas.
You can see even more content by following individual EA blogs. (If you've gotten this far, you should consider contributing to the conversation yourself as a writer on the EA Forum or a researcher in an EA cause area.)