He is a hedonistic utilitarian. Sounds thrilling, right? But Peter Singer is not in pursuit of a hedonistic lifestyle – quite the opposite. Singer wants to produce the most happiness for the most people.

Peter Singer is in search of the most good you can do. He is a leading figure in a movement called ‘Effective Altruism’. Most of its members are millenials, and they include a number of Silicon Valley millionaires like Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz.

Effective Altruists pledge to give a certain percentage of their income to charity, but only to those charities that provide the most bang for the buck.

Singer says people are rethinking how they do philanthropy. That’s significant, because it turns out we give away a lot of money.

Shuffle the stats with the buttons at the top of the infographic.

Over 95% of American households contributed to charity in 2014, giving away an estimated $258 billion dollars. That eclipses the donations made by Bill Gates and all the charitable foundations combined.

How those dollars are distributed could have a big impact. So how do individuals decide which charities to support?

THREE WAYS TO DECIDE WHICH CHARITY TO GIVE TO

Data creates a level playing field. Charities can be assessed on their impact, rather than their marketing.

At IHME, Chris Murray had figured out a way to measure health. Next, economists began to think in terms of DALYs for the dollar; for any given investment, how much ill health was being avoided?

Effective Altruists love data. Websites like Givewell and The Life You Can Save analyze the numbers and drive donors toward the most cost-effective charities.

Among the top charities recommended is the Against Malaria Foundation (AMF), which has distributed almost 14 million insecticide-treated nets to countries throughout Africa.

The data show that installing mosquito nets is a highly effective way of fighting malaria. It’s highly cost-effective too. Each net costs only $3. It’s hard to beat that for bang for the buck.

Peter Singer lets the numbers speak for themselves. “Since 2000 we’ve made dramatic reductions in the prevalence of malaria in Africa and that has largely been data driven.”

Below is the data, but it’s hard to comprehend, so try this. Imagine one year of your life when you were in good health. Now multiply that by 29,004,274. That’s how much good health was generated between 2005 and 2013.

The goal of Effective Altruism is to create the most impact for the dollar. Ideally, we would feed every health care intervention, from mosquito nets to vaccines, into a computer and fund the things that produce the most years of good health for the most people.

But what, and who, gets lost in all the number crunching?