Attendees at the launch of the Big Varsity MatchGiving What We Can

The charity campaign the ‘Big Varsity Match’ has raised thousands of pounds for a malaria charity from Cambridge and Oxford students.

The campaign, which is being run jointly by ‘Giving What We Can: Oxford’ and ‘Giving What We Can: Cambridge’ between 12rd February and 8th March, aims to raise money for the Against Malaria Foundation (AMF), a charity that works to protect people from malaria by providing mosquito nets.

The Cambridge branch aimed to raise £15,000, and by Wednesday evening had reached £17,361. Oxford had raised £16,124 by the same time. The two groups have also promised to match all donations, up to a limit of £32,000, with contributions to the AMF.

As well as aiming to raise as much money as possible, both organisations said that their aspiration is “raising awareness about malaria and the power of donations to do good”.

Giving What We Can: Cambridge is a branch of the international Giving What We Can organisation – a part of the growing ‘Effective Altruism’ movement – that seeks to “inspire people to donate significantly and as effectively as possible”. Their vision is “a world in which giving 10 per cent of our income to the most effective charities is the norm”.

The aim of ‘Effective Altruism’ is to motivate people not only to donate to charities but to donate as effectively as possible. Giving What We Can describes its missions as “making sure that the impact of a donation is as large as possible”. This involves working out the most effective ways to relieve the suffering of others and evaluating charities on the amount of good they do per dollar. They use findings from organisations such as Give Well, which is committed to pursuing this kind of research.

Currently the AMF is their top rated charity, commended especially by Giving What We Can for its efficiency and transparency in allocating funds