Giving What We Can & EA Funds now operate independently of CEA

# Giving What We Can & EA Funds now operate independently of CEA
By MaxDalton, Jonas_
Published: 2020-12-22
In 2020, the [Centre for Effective Altruism](https://www.centreforeffectivealtruism.org/) hired [Luke](https://www.linkedin.com/in/lukekevinfreeman/) to run [Giving What We Can](https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/) (GWWC), and Jonas to lead [EA Funds](https://app.effectivealtruism.org/funds). 

We think that they have both made strong progress in the past year. For instance, Luke revamped GWWC’s website and saw the number of new pledges triple compared to the same period in 2019. Meanwhile Jonas improved EA Funds’ capacity to make more effective grants and addressed some issues affecting donor satisfaction.[^1] In addition to the above, we closed EA Grants, redirecting applicants to EA Funds.

As planned, both EA Funds and GWWC now operate independently of my supervision as Executive Director of CEA, while continuing to receive operational support from CEA and oversight from our board. This is similar to 80,000 Hours’ position relative to CEA: they make decisions independently and have their own leadership, but CEA provides operational support and they are legally part of the same entity. 

We are delighted that these projects now have the freedom to grow independently, while CEA is able to focus on nurturing the community’s discussion spaces.

## Our 2020 plans

As mentioned in our [public plans for 2020](https://www.centreforeffectivealtruism.org/blog/ceas-plans-for-2020/):

> In 2019, Giving What We Can members logged over $20m in donations to the charities that they believe to be most effective, and 528 people took a 10% lifetime pledge, bringing the year-end total to 4,454 members. EA Funds facilitated grantmaking of $8.5m through the four main funds, as well as $3.4m to other effective charities.
> 
> I think that both of these programs are important for EA because:
> 
> *   They direct a significant amount of money to effective charities.
> *   They provide an opportunity for individuals to take important, concrete actions based on EA principles.
> 
> However, these projects have a fairly different focus from CEA’s other projects (which focus on community engagement rather than charitable donations), and we think that with more focus and staff time they could achieve more.
> 
> We'd like to move towards a state where these projects have the latitude and resources to accomplish more, and where CEA can focus on a narrower range of projects. Over the last few months, I’ve been working with trustees and staff to plan for the future of these projects, using surveys of users and members to inform our thinking.
> 
> We’ll initially search for someone who can lead an independent Giving What We Can [...] If we find a leader for Giving What We Can, we’ll help to onboard and advise them, and we will continue to provide operational support to both EA Funds and Giving What We Can for the foreseeable future. Once we’ve completed our hiring round for 

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