If you’re inspired to “give with the head and the heart” based on the charity recommendations of The Life You Can Save, you can connect with 17 of its currently recommended charities on RC Forward.
A quick introduction to The Life You Can Save
The Life You Can Save is an international nonprofit recommending charities that save lives and improve well-being where each dollar goes the furthest. The Life You Can Save aims to create a world where everyone has an opportunity to build a better life, and where there’s no suffering or death due to extreme poverty.
The organization was founded by Peter Singer, the prominent philosopher whom you have likely heard of if you’re found yourself on RC Forward through your explorations of effective giving or effective altruism.
The Life You Can Save actively maintains a list of recommended charities, based on its best understanding of which charities save the most lives or reduce the most suffering per dollar.
Why we’re publishing this post now
Now is an exciting time to share this article for two reasons:
Singer recently won the $1 million USD Berggruen Prize, an annual prize awarded to an individual in the field of philosophy. Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Paul Farmer have also won the prize.
As you may have heard, Singer decided to donate the entire prize to charities. He pledged US$600,000 to The Life You Can Save, and there was a public vote for which of its recommended charities would receive $100,000 of the prize money.
I (Megan) was one of thousands of people that voted in the contest, because voting is a quick and easy way to support high-impact charities. (And it doesn’t cost anything.) The winning charities were recently announced: Fistula Foundation, Seva Foundation, and GiveDirectly.
It’s also a great time to publish this post because it’s easier than ever for Canadians to take action based on the charity recommendations of The Life You Can Save by using our RC Forward platform.
Filter charity recommendations by impact and tax deductibility
The Life You Can Save website offers in-depth information on the ways you can make an impact by using its charity recommendations, for example by helping women and girls, ending hunger and malnutrition, and creating economic opportunity. Here is the full list of impact areas:
- Save a child’s life
- Help women and girls
- Improve health and fight infectious disease
- End hunger and malnutrition
- Provide clean water and improve sanitation
- Create economic opportunity
- Fund research on charity effectiveness
- Prevent blindness and restore sight
- Protect people against malaria
- Tackle climate change
Tax deductibility isn’t nearly as exciting as reflecting on your impact, but it’s also important. Tax deductibility can make a big difference in the value of your generosity. The Life You Can Save’s website also offers simple ways to incorporate tax deductibility into how you engage with its charity recommendations:
- On its Best Charities page, you can filter by tax deductibility by country, including Canada.
- On its tax deductibility page, you can see links to tax-efficient giving options by country all in one place.
Using charity recommendations to make gifts from Canada
We offer tax-efficient giving options for Canadian donors to many of the charities that The Life You Can Save recommends.
By giving online through RC Forward, you can support up to 6 charities in a single gift, by splitting your donation. The option to split your donation is available on the second page of our online donation forms. We are excited to offer this option, because many of our donors support multiple charities and causes.
Use the table below to explore 17 of the charities that The Life You Can Save currently recommends. All 17 of these charities are available on RC Forward, where Canadians can make tax-efficient gifts to high-impact charities recommended by experts.
The Life You Can Save Best Charities available on RC Forward
| Charity | What they do | Where you can learn more or make a gift |
|---|---|---|
| Against Malaria Foundation | Works to prevent the spread of malaria by distributing long-lasting, insecticide-treated mosquito nets to susceptible populations in developing countries | https://rcforward.org/charity/amf |
| Carbon180 | Champions the development and implementation of carbon removal technologies and practices – a critical but relatively neglected component of achieving climate goals | https://rcforward.org/charity/carbon180 |
| Clean Air Task Force | Through policy change, technology innovation, and thought leadership, drives impact to prevent catastrophic climate change through pragmatic solutions | https://rcforward.org/charity/catf |
| Development Media International | Works with local broadcasters to create informative and engaging programming that focuses on maternal and child health, nutrition, hygiene and sanitation, reproductive health, and early childhood development | https://rcforward.org/charity/dmi |
| Evidence Action | Operates several high-potential, cost-effective interventions, such as its Deworm the World Initiative, a school-based deworming program | https://rcforward.org/charity/evidenceaction |
| Fistula Foundation | Treats obstetric fistula, a devasting childbirth injury that leaves women incontinent, humiliated, and often shunned by their communities | https://rcforward.org/charity/fistula-foundation |
| GiveDirectly | Provides unconditional cash transfers using cell phone technology to some of the world’s poorest people, as well as refugees, urban youth, and disaster victims | https://rcforward.org/charity/give-directly |
| Helen Keller International | Runs Vitamin A Supplementation programs to provide critical nutrition to children around world at-risk for vitamin A deficiency, a condition that can lead to blindness and death | https://rcforward.org/charity/hki |
| Innovations for Poverty Action | A global research and policy nonprofit that leads the field of development in cutting-edge research quality and innovation | https://rcforward.org/charity/ipa |
| Iodine Global Network | Supports the elimination of iodine deficiency, the most common cause of brain damage in newborns | https://rcforward.org/charity/ign |
| Living Goods | Supports and trains local community health workers, the majority of whom are women, to deliver lifesaving medicines, health education, diagnoses, and health products to millions of people who need them | https://rcforward.org/charity/living-goods |
| Malaria Consortium | Delivers programs that protect the poorest and most marginalized children in Africa and Asia, including its SMC program, an extremely cost-effective and evidence-based way of protecting children under 5 from malaria | https://rcforward.org/charity/malaria-consortium |
| New Incentives | Educates caregivers about the importance of vaccinating children and disburses cash incentives that are condition on infants receiving four life-saving vaccines | https://rcforward.org/charity/new-incentives |
| Population Services International | Helps women live health and plan the lives they desire | https://rcforward.org/charity/psi |
| Sanku – Project Healthy Children | Provides children with simple, inexpensive, basic nutritional support they require to survive and thrive | https://rcforward.org/charity/phc |
| SCI Foundation | Supports programs controlling and eliminating two types of parasitic worm infections, mostly in school-aged children | https://rcforward.org/charity/sci |
| Village Enterprise | Equips the extreme poor in Africa with resources to start sustainable businesses through a four-part program: entrepreneurship training, a cash grant, business mentoring, and a savings group | https://rcforward.org/charity/village-enterprise |
