It’s no coincidence that the effective altruism movement came about when evidence-based practices — using science and data to make decisions, rather than conventions and intuition — were on the rise in areas such as government and health care, not to mention sports, as chronicled in Michael Lewis’s book “Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game.” Unlike moneyballing, however, EA hasn’t yet gone mainstream. Like many subcultures, it’s very familiar to a few but unknown to most. In 2011, a group led by MacAskill and others coined the term and founded the Center for Effective Altruism, one of the movement’s many closely aligned organizations.

Varshini Prakash, 27, is co-founder of the Sunrise Movement, a youth-led political organization fighting to stop climate change. She is co-editor of the book “Winning the Green New Deal: Why We Must, How We Can,” which was released in August.