Beneficiary_group.page

---
title: Beneficiary group
format: markdown
categories: Cause_prioritization
...

One way to classify cause areas is by their **beneficiary group**, i.e. the group of entities the cause area helps. For example, global poverty alleviation targets the subset of humans in poverty, animal welfare activism targets non-human animals, and AI safety potentially helps all sentient beings.

In trying to find new cause areas, one might look for new beneficiary groups ("[expanding the moral circle](Moral_circle_expansion)") or look for specific subgroups within existing groups (e.g. depressed people as a subgroup of present people, or wild animals as a subgroup of all animals).

# External links

- [“Finding more effective causes”](http://effective-altruism.com/ea/s0/finding_more_effective_causes/). Effective Altruism Forum. Retrieved February 17, 2018.
- [This comment](http://effective-altruism.com/ea/1jh/how_to_get_a_new_cause_into_ea/d4a) by Daniel Dewey