Happier Lives Institute

What Happier Lives Institute does

Happier Lives Institute (HLI) is a UK-registered nonprofit research organization founded in 2019 by Dr. Michael Plant, headquartered in Bristol and operating remotely with approximately five core staff plus contractors. HLI's core product is the WELLBY (Wellbeing-Adjusted Life Year) — a methodology that measures a one-point increase on a 0–10 wellbeing scale for one person for one year — which it uses to evaluate and rank the cost-effectiveness of charities delivering mental health, lead-exposure remediation, child nutrition, and related interventions in low- and middle-income countries. The organization's outputs include tiered charity recommendations (Top, Promising, Honourable Mentions), the Living Review of WELLBY Cost-Effectiveness Analyses, an interactive Happiness Calculator supporting multiple currencies, and contributions to the annual World Happiness Report (most notably the 2025 chapter presenting the first-ever global comparison of charity cost-effectiveness).

HLI's primary customers are individual philanthropists and effective altruism community members who use its recommendations to direct donations; secondary audiences include policymakers (UK Treasury and New Zealand Treasury have adopted the WELLBY into official guidance), academic researchers, and the charities and NGOs that HLI evaluates. The go-to-market motion is community-led: content marketing through a blog, multi-platform social media (LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, Substack, Facebook, Bluesky), academic publications, conference presentations, and major media coverage (Guardian, BBC, CNN, CNBC, Vox, The Times).

The business model is donation-funded. HLI accepts unrestricted donations to support research and operations, and in December 2025 launched the Happier Lives Fund (HLF), a donor-advised fund vehicle that allocates 90% of contributions to recommended charities and retains 10% for HLI's research, outreach, and fund management. HLI also offers research consultancy services for a fee. To date HLI reports influencing $7.6M+ in charitable donations toward high-impact charities, with $208M being the equivalent cost had those donations gone to standard charities — implying a roughly 27x leverage effect on donor capital.

Name

Happier Lives Institute

Legal name

Happier Lives Institute

Website

https://happierlivesinstitute.org

Company type

Private

Founded year

2019

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

Happier Lives Institute is a UK-based nonprofit that develops the WELLBY methodology to evaluate and recommend the most cost-effective charities for improving global happiness, serving individual donors, policymakers, and academic researchers.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Headquarters

HQ city

Oxford

HQ country

United Kingdom

HQ region

Europe

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B and B2C

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Technology or R&D, Others

Revenue model

1. Donations and Charitable Contributions: Happier Lives Institute is funded through donations from individuals and organizations. They also operate the Happier Lives Fund (HLF), a donor-advised fund where 90% of donations go to recommended charities and 10% supports HLI's research, outreach and fund management.

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels1 record

Marketing channels5 records

Core offering

Happier Lives Institute is a nonprofit research organization that evaluates and ranks charities using the proprietary WELLBY (Wellbeing-Adjusted Life Year) methodology, then channels donor contributions to the highest-impact charities through recommendations and the Happier Lives Fund. It provides tiered charity evaluations (Top, Promising, Honourable Mentions), pooled donation fund management, an interactive Happiness Calculator, research consultancy, and publishes cost-effectiveness research including in the World Happiness Report.

Product overview

Happier Lives Institute is a nonprofit research organization (not a technology product company) that provides wellbeing-focused charity evaluations and recommendations. Its core offering is the WELLBY (Wellbeing-Adjusted Life Year) methodology, which measures the cost-effectiveness of charities in terms of happiness created per dollar donated. The organization offers: charity evaluation services with tiered recommendations (Top Charities, Promising Charities, Honourable Mentions), the Happier Lives Fund for pooled donations, an interactive Happiness Calculator, and publishes research including the Living Review of WELLBY Cost-Effectiveness Analyses and World Happiness Report contributions. All offerings are service-based rather than software products, and there are no technical integrations, APIs, or AI-powered features.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Charity Evaluations and Recommendations Research-based evaluations and recommendations of the most cost-effective charities for improving global happiness, categorized as Top Charities, Promising Charities, and Honourable Mentions.
• Happier Lives Fund (HLF) A pooled donation fund launched in December 2025 that distributes donations across HLI's recommended charities, with 90% of donations going to charities and 10% supporting HLI operations, research, and outreach.
• Research Consultancy Services Tailored research consultancy provided to individuals, organizations, and policymakers seeking evidence-based guidance on wellbeing and charitable impact.
• Living Review of WELLBY Cost-Effectiveness Analyses An evolving, evidence-based resource that curates and compares charity cost-effectiveness analyses using WELLBYs from multiple independent evaluators.
• Measuring Wellbeing Course An educational course on measuring wellbeing, part of HLI's effort to raise standards and promote evidence-based approaches in the effective giving ecosystem.

Quantifiable outcome

• Donating to HLI-recommended charities creates 150x or more impact than donating to typical charities in high-income countries
• +4 more outcomes

Named customers3 records

Segments4 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Feature1 record

Partnerships

Two partnerships are on record, tiered core.

• UK TreasurycoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerHLI's WELLBY (Wellbeing-Adjusted Life Year) metric has been officially incorporated into UK Treasury Green Book supplementary guidance, making it an accepted framework for evaluating policy impacts on wellbeing in UK government decisions.
• New Zealand TreasurycoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerHLI's WELLBY methodology has been adopted in New Zealand Treasury guidance for wellbeing analysis, enabling government policymakers to evaluate interventions using standardized happiness metrics.

Scale indicators6 records

Recent moves8 records

Expansion highlights6 records

Direct peers

• GiveWell: GiveWell is the leading evidence-based charity evaluator in the effective altruism space, producing in-depth cost-effectiveness analyses that recommend top charities for donors. It is the closest direct peer to HLI, sharing methodology, donor audience (high-impact philanthropists), and recommended charity overlap (e.g., both evaluate deworming and lead exposure interventions).
• The Life You Can Save: The Life You Can Save is a nonprofit founded by philosopher Peter Singer that recommends highly cost-effective charities to individual donors and runs a pledge program for sustained giving. It competes directly with HLI for the same EA-aligned donor audience and operates a similar charity recommendation catalog with overlapping causes.
• Giving What We Can: Giving What We Can is an EA-aligned organization focused on encouraging members to pledge a percentage of income to highly effective charities. It is explicitly mentioned by HLI stakeholders as a peer organization in the effective giving ecosystem and shares the cost-effectiveness framing for donor decisions.
• Founders Pledge: Founders Pledge is a donor-advised fund vehicle for tech entrepreneurs and high earners to direct pre-tax wealth to evaluated high-impact charities. It shares HLI's donor-advised fund model (HLF), evaluation-driven grantmaking, and focus on high-net-worth EA-aligned donors.
• Animal Charity Evaluator: Animal Charity Evaluator applies a very similar rigorous cost-effectiveness framework to identify top animal welfare charities, mirroring HLI's WELLBY methodology in structure and donor experience. It is a direct methodology peer operating in a different cause area.
• 80,000 Hours: 80,000 Hours is an EA research and advisory organization that helps individuals maximize their career impact and also publishes research on priority cause areas. It shares HLI's evidence-based, cost-effectiveness-driven approach and overlapping EA donor and researcher communities.

Broad incumbents

• Open Philanthropy: Open Philanthropy is one of the largest EA-aligned grantmaking foundations, deploying hundreds of millions of dollars based on cost-effectiveness reasoning. It is a much larger institutional peer that overlaps with HLI in methodology and cause areas while operating at a fundamentally different scale and as a grantmaker rather than research intermediary.
• Charity Navigator: Charity Navigator is the largest mainstream US charity evaluation platform, using financial efficiency metrics (overhead ratios, accountability scores) rather than wellbeing cost-effectiveness. It serves a comparable donor information function to HLI but uses a fundamentally different (and less rigorous) evaluation lens.

Emerging players

• GiveDirectly: GiveDirectly is a cash transfer nonprofit that is frequently the benchmark donation target used by HLI and other EA evaluators to compare charity impact. While not a direct evaluator peer, it is a frequent reference point for HLI's cost-effectiveness analyses and competes for the same donor dollar.
• Centre for Effective Altruism: Centre for Effective Altruism is the EA community-building organization that supports research, talent, and movement infrastructure. It is ecosystem-adjacent to HLI, sharing community, donor audience, and intellectual lineage though operating a much broader community-support function.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• YouTubeyoutube.com/channel/UCBTpxfb5k-heqidplxDxvjA
• Facebookfacebook.com/happierlivesinstitute
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/happierlivesinstitute
• Instagraminstagram.com/happierlivesinstitute
• Xx.com/HappierLivesIns

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles8 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Happier Lives Institute