Varsha Venugopal

They never told us which one of us was a cat or a dog.

But I think they did a lot of behind the scene calculations, I guess, based on several exercises we did with different people within the incubation.

So I think there was some of just trusting their judgment.

But also, I think it is such a fundamentally important decision to get right that...

it's okay to, I guess, try out early on and see if it works or not, like with a lot of these decisions.

And if not, being, I guess, brave to find something else.

Yeah, to walk away.

Yeah.

So I know for next year, CE plans to focus on international policy as a priority cause area.

And I know they plan to incubate a total of five charities that are significantly more cost effective than EA recommended direct delivery interventions.

So I let them, I guess, focus on the policy interventions.

The one area I am keen to see grow is this effective giving movement in India that has been led and supported by the Life You Can Save and others.

I get approached fairly regularly by university students and others in India interested in learning more about starting effective charities in India, but also on effective giving.

And my understanding of the key bottleneck there is that most Indians are most interested in giving to charities in India.

And there isn't a clear, credible list of potential charities that are highly evidence based, cost effective in India.

There has been some attempt in the past to figure out which of the top give well charities are also functioning in India.

But the challenge has been that once you donate funds to them, they go into a central pool.

So it's hard to ring fence the amount that's going directly to impact lives in India.

So I'm quite keen to make a call out there for some kind of individual or institution to take on that role of exploring evidence-based, highly cost-effective charities that could make the cut for effective giving in India.

That is a great question.