Cause prioritization is an important part of effective altruism. While there is a growing emphasis on effectiveness and evidence among nonprofits, this is usually done with a single cause in mind, such as education or climate change. Within effective altruism, however, there are also efforts to evaluate effectiveness on a meta-level through cause prioritization research: by comparing the relative importance of different causes.
Effective altruists attempt to choose the highest priority causes based on whether activities in each cause area could efficiently advance broad goals, such as increasing human and animal welfare, or reducing suffering. They then focus their attention on interventions in high priority areas. Several organizations are performing cause prioritization research.
Some priorities of effective altruists include: poverty in the developing world, the suffering of non-human animals in factory farms, wild animal suffering, and humanity's long-term future. AI researcher Paul Christiano has argued that "Cause prioritization is the most effective use of altruistic resources."