Whatever your goal these days, finding stuff to watch or a custom tailored eating plan or the best vacation destination based on what you like to do,

apps and algorithms can take in your specific preferences

and calculate what works best for you and only you. In a world where thousands of charities

are competing for support, there is a movement to also optimize the impact of our

philanthropic contributions by putting our dollars toward whatever can save the most human

lives for the least cost.

But are those the only factors that should matter to donors?

From KERA in Dallas, this is think. I'm Chris Boyd.

Emma Goldberg is a business features writer at the New York Times, which published her article,

What if charity shouldn't be optimized?

It explores the undeniable

benefits of what is called effective altruism, but also notes the ways that unyielding

adherence to efficiency can harm small, local organizations that may not directly save lives,

but can improve their quality. Emma, welcome to think. Thanks for having me on. You start by noting

our collective obsession with tools like smart watches, which promise to optimize our sleep and our

steps and our water intake and calories. Given our belief that we can objectively determine what

is best for our bodies, maybe it's not surprising that

many of us want to do the same thing with other aspects of our lives, like charitable giving.

It's a good point. I think what prompted me to write this article is that I'm very sympathetic

to what you just said. I and so many people all around me rely on so many

tools to optimize how productive we are at work and how healthy we are. I use apps that track

my running, for example, and my reading. And I think then the question just became, when we choose where to give

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