EA-Aligned Impact Investing: Mind Ease Case Study

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2021·EA Forum·forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/Ch5NZ7LhsY3mumMzn/ea-al...

Authors

Brendon_Wong·Will Roderick·jh

Credibility Rating

3/5

Good(3)

Good quality. Reputable source with community review or editorial standards, but less rigorous than peer-reviewed venues.

Rating inherited from publication venue: EA Forum

This post is relevant to EA funding strategy discussions rather than core AI safety research, but offers a useful framework for evaluating mission-aligned capital allocation that could apply to AI safety organizations seeking impact investment.

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Forum

eaforum

Forum Tags

Cause prioritizationGlobal health & developmentSocially responsible investingFunding high-impact for-profitsImpact assessmentInvestingMental health (cause area)

Metadata

Importance: 38/100blog postanalysis

Summary

This EA Forum post introduces the Total Portfolio Return (TPR) framework for evaluating impact investments through an EA lens, using Mind Ease (a mental health app) as a case study. The authors estimate $150 in averted DALYs per dollar invested, arguing that rigorous impact investing may outperform both traditional donations and investing-to-give strategies. The post advocates for greater EA community engagement with impact investing as an underexplored funding mechanism.

Key Points

•Introduces the Total Portfolio Return (TPR) framework to systematically evaluate impact investments across financial returns, user impact, investor impact, and strategic value.
•Uses Mind Ease mental health intervention as a concrete case study, estimating ~$150 in averted DALYs per dollar invested.
•Argues impact investing is neglected by the EA community despite potentially outperforming traditional donate-or-invest-to-give strategies.
•Proposes that impact investing can align financial incentives with social good, enabling sustainable scaling of high-impact interventions.
•Highlights the importance of counterfactual impact assessment when evaluating whether an investor's capital meaningfully changes outcomes.

Cited by 1 page

Page	Type	Quality
Lionheart Ventures	Organization	50.0

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EA-Aligned Impact Investing: Mind Ease Case Study — EA Forum 
 
 This website requires javascript to properly function. Consider activating javascript to get access to all site functionality. Hide table of contents EA-Aligned Impact Investing: Mind Ease Case Study 

 by Brendon_Wong , Will Roderick , jh Nov 15 2021 21 min read 23 71

 Cause prioritization Global health & development Socially responsible investing Funding high-impact for-profits Impact assessment Investing Mental health (cause area) Frontpage EA-Aligned Impact Investing: Mind Ease Case Study Summary Background and Implications Mind Ease Case Study Acknowledgements Framework TPR Framework Applied to Mind Ease Step 1: Business Analysis and Financial Returns Financial returns Step 2: Investor Impact and Impact Returns User Impact Assessment Investor Impact Impact Returns Step 3: Strategic Returns and Time Costs Step 4: Decision Matrix How to Contribute to This Area 23 comments Summary

 
 We use the term “impact investing” to refer to any investment made for the dual purpose of having a positive impact and generating a financial return

 Impact investing has received relatively little attention from an EA perspective

 We review an investment case study produced by the Total Portfolio Project (TPP) leveraging research from Lionheart Ventures, Let’s Fund, and Rethink Priorities

 The case study uses TPP’s Total Portfolio Return (TPR) framework , a rigorous framework which can be used to assess the value of an impact investment relative to other ways of generating impact

 The case study estimates that an impact investment into Mind Ease averts DALYs at $150 per dollar invested in expectation, comparing favorably to GiveWell top charities before financial returns are taken into account

 We show how the TPR framework can be used to determine that, for a donor who is already making the best possible use of donations and investing to give, investing in Mind Ease appears better than either additional donations or more investing to give

 Given the lack of prior research in this area and the potential for impact investing to significantly benefit many cause areas, we recommend that the EA community direct more research and attention to this area.
 
 We highlight several ways to contribute including: dialogue and movement building, evaluations, research, entrepreneurship, and shifting money towards impact investing.

 

 
 Background and Implications

 Impact investing has largely been neglected by the EA community. This is perhaps due to the perception that most impact investing is relatively low impact per dollar invested. In turn, EA principles are largely neglected within impact investing. We believe there could be benefits on both sides to exploring the potential of impact investing to produce effective results.

 Complicating things is the fact that the term “impact investing” has many possible interpretations and connotations. It generally refers to one or more strategies within a di

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