[GUEST POST] The International Refugee Assistance Project

A guest post (Elizabeth Van Nostrand) making an EA case around preparedness/capacity: like ER surge capacity, the ACLU's and IRAP's unglamorous ground-level work looked low-leverage until Trump's travel-ban order made it suddenly decisive (IRAP could instantly produce sympathetic, already-represented clients caught at airports). Argues capacity built before a crisis is high-leverage even when it scores poorly on standard cost-effectiveness, and pitches donating to small ground-level orgs like IRAP (annual budget $2M) over the now-flush ACLU/Yale. Timely, well-written advocacy.

Quality 60 · Strong. Solid+ (60): a nice, real EA insight (capacity/preparedness as under-counted leverage) in a clearly-written but short and topical fundraising post; guest advocacy rather than an original framework.

Claude’s paradigm shift 42 · Moderate. Moderate (42): the preparedness-is-high-leverage framing is a fresh angle on cost-effectiveness, tied to a specific moment.

Real-world impact 3 · Moderate. Moderate (3): a fundraising post that plausibly moved donations to IRAP (Open-Phil-linked), amplified by SSC's reach.