Details :
Host: Fonds de Dotation Don Efficace
Supervisor: Alejandrina Cristia
Contact: Alejandrina Cristia
Level: M1, M2
Duration: part-time or full-time, 2-4 months
Location: Paris
Wage: pro rata ~600€/month
Language: English / French
The context
Having a positive impact with donations seems very difficult: there are so many organizations, and so many stories of NGOs that have negative effects or no effect at all. How to choose? The Don Efficace Endowment Fund is a non-profit NGO, intended to finance actions to reduce the suffering of all sentient beings (human and non-human). We rely on impartial international assessments to select philanthropic programs with high positive impact. Thus, we want to contribute in this way to promoting philanthropy, nourished by the common values of empathy, compassion, impartiality and scientific spirit.
The Founders and advisors of Don Efficace are highly diverse in their expertise:
Alejandrina Cristia, PhD (president, co-founder), Director of Research in CNRS
Effektiv Spenden (co-founder), an organization that arose in Germany and currently facilitates effective donations also in Switzerland and Chequia
Effective Ventures (co-founder), a federation of organizations working to have a large positive impact in the world
Jørgen Ljønes (advisor) is managing director of Gi Effektiv, which facilitates effective donations in Norway
Florent Berthet (advisor) is an entrepreneur and operations specialist for Altruisme Efficace France
Jean-Christophe Mourrat, PhD (advisor), Director of Research in CNRS
Internship opportunities
Don Efficace is constituting an interdisciplinary team, including also interns in law and web design, so as to best serve two kinds of stakeholders: On the one hand, individuals and companies who would like to donate to effective programs; and on the other, the non-governmental organizations running such programs.
We are offering internships to students with background/experience in one or more of the following fields:
psychology
cognitive science
anthropology
social science
data science
behavioral sciences
Cogmaster interns will contribute in the creation of studies using qualitative (interviews, focus groups) and/or quantitative methods (surveys, literature searches, data re-purposing) aimed to answer questions like the following:
What is the psychological, demographic, and behavioral profile of people who would like to make donations to effective causes -- regardless of whether they donate today? How are those people's current donations distributed among key different effective cause areas (global poverty, climate change, animal suffering) versus other causes?
Why aren't international charity evaluators that consider cost-effectiveness (such as GiveWell) recommending French programs or organizations? Are French organizations applying to be evaluated? Are they carrying out their own evaluations? Are some French-led programs potentially as cost-effective as those currently recommended by international charity evaluators? What could be done for these programs to be considered?
The precise research question and methodology will be agreed upon in collaboration with the student, to fit their educational and career goals.
While Don Efficace is a new organization, its president has 15+ years of experience in cognitive science and currently co-teaches "Cognitive science in the real world", in the Cognitive Engineering specialization. She aims to bring to Don Efficace the same collegial and positive work environment, accepting of cultural and individual diversity, that she cultivates in her scientific CNRS team. Regular mentoring is used to help team members gain clarity about their skills & broader career goals, and take steps to attain them. The internship can be part- or full-time, and teleworking is possible.