GiveBetter x SF

Bay Area Mountain Rescue Unit

Volunteer wilderness search and rescue readiness

Research time: ~11 min on GPT-6 Astra Lite + GPT-6 Astra Light
  • Research — reviewed programs, finances and impact evidence.

Published: 11 September 2026.

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Summary

What do they do? BAMRU is an independent501(c)(3), EIN23-7098709, activated by San Mateo Sheriff and deployed across California. Whole gifts support training, equipment, readiness and deployment, not only successful rescue encounters. More

Why this approach interests us

  • Volunteer technical skills and equipment can make a time-critical rescue safer or earlier. The dated operational denominator is16missions in2024.

Our main reservations

  • Most rescue outcomes have multiple producers and alternative teams. Rescued people need not be Bay residents. A favorable5% world provides98.37% of signed expected Bay benefit.

What do you get for your dollar?

A $5,000 whole gift yields 0.01133 expected Bay QALYs in a subjective signed model, or $4,413,582 per10. This is not measured impact; current finances and a marginal readiness offer are unverified. Inspect the model, assumptions and scenarios.

weighted bay donor cost per10qalys
$4,413,582 — Signed expectation before division; all six worlds retained.
central bay donor cost per10
$24,606,299 — Not the ranking headline.
complete societal resources
Unknown — Volunteer time, personal equipment, sheriff, aircraft, EMS and hospital resources are not fully priced.

1. What do they do?

BAMRU is an independent501(c)(3), EIN23-7098709, activated by San Mateo Sheriff and deployed across California. Whole gifts support training, equipment, readiness and deployment, not only successful rescue encounters.

Maintain usable capability

Small gifts may improve or preserve trained-person/equipment readiness; cash additionality includes replacement of member giving or public equipment.

Change access relative to alternatives

Only a modeled fraction of missions involve responsive live patients and a useful change compared with other teams, helicopters, self-rescue or bystanders.

Finite net health

Absolute survival increment times2–10finiteyears at.8utility plus brief distinct survivor morbidity, less independent harms.

Scope of this review. All ordinary-gift cash is charged. Training, unsuccessful search, recovery, community activity and administration are not removed from expenses. No animal, bereavement or justice benefits credited.

2. Monitoring and information sharing

BAMRU2024operations

Primary Sheriff release. 16missions over29days

Our assessment. Credible output anchor, not efficacy, patient uniqueness or Bay-residence measurement.

Selected2024NorthernCalifornia rescues

Primary partner mission descriptions. BAMRU collaborated with other teams and helicopters; some people were in good condition, others dehydrated/nonambulatory.

Our assessment. Mechanism and alternatives, not a representative denominator or a deaths-averted study.

Othercountries and selected cases

Retrospective SAR prognosis studies. Time/acuity matter; no causal extra-team or donation effect established.

Our assessment. No published survival coefficient copied. All absolute-risk improvements and finite utilities remain judgments.

3. Qualitative assessment

Volunteer technical skills and equipment can make a time-critical rescue safer or earlier. The dated operational denominator is16missions in2024.

Key reservations

  • Current whole-organization accounts not verified; scenario costs are not observed unit prices.
  • 98.37% favorable-tail dependence and largely judgmental clinical bridge.
  • Whole gift may replace member contributions, reimbursements or already-funded equipment without changing readiness.
  • Statewide incident locations and Bay victim residence are different; neither is comprehensively measured.
  • Responder injury, patient handling, delayed alternatives and unsafe deployment are independent harm pathways.

Benefits not included in our estimate

  • Body recovery, family closure, animal rescue and non-health civic value remain unquantified.
  • No additional caregiver or lifetime disability benefit; no survival after10years.
  • No fiscal savings or donated equipment retail value converted into QALYs.

4. What do you get for your dollar?

Whole-gift readiness-equivalent model

Current annual cash expenses are analyst assumptions $40k–$100k, not a verified updated2017 filing.16missions is a dated activity anchor, not an annual forecast guarantee. A fractional readiness-equivalent mission is accounting attribution across existing missions, not a newly created emergency. All causal and geographic coefficients are judgments locked before execution.

A better life is our comparison unit of 10 additional quality-adjusted life years (QALYs), potentially spread across people. These are uncertain estimates, not measured returns or verified donation offers.

How we calculate the estimate

Net Bay health: gift / whole cash expense ×16 ×volume ×cash additionality ×[responsive persons ×earlier safe access ×(absolute mortality improvement ×finite survival years ×utility + separate survivor morbidity utility ×years) −harm] ×Bay share
0.011329 weighted Bay QALYs per $5,000

Model inputs and assumptions
Whole annual cash expense
Central$60,000 (range: $40,000–$100,000 scenario assumptions). 2017 IRS extraction$32,052 is old and original return not recovered. No inflation/revenue cap presented as current truth. Very low.
Dated mission anchor
16missions /29days (range: Volume multiplier.75–1.25 in positiveworlds). Sheriff March2025release. Mission count is not patient count. High for2024; low forecast.
Cash-caused readiness
.30 central (range: 0–.60). Members and donors fund cash; Sheriff also replaces equipment. No quoted tranche. Very low.
Responsive live persons and differential access
.40person/mission ×.20 probability (range: .20–.70 ×.10–.40 positiveworlds). Partner examples show co-production and sometimes low acuity; no representative patient register. Very low.
Survival and morbidity
.04 absolute mortality improvement ×5years ×.8utility +.02utility ×.25years (range: Mortality.01–.10; survival2–10years; morbidity.001–.020QALY). Analyst finite packages, not effects estimated by SAR observational literature. Morbidity is on a disjoint survivor pathway, excluding the survival gain. Very low.
Bay-resident share
.40 central (range: .20–.65 positiveworlds). Statewide missions; Bay residence unmeasured. SF.02–.10 nested subset, not additive. Very low.

$5,000 small-gift scenario; larger scaling unsupported

  • funding_null: Weight0.3; Bay priceNot defined. BayQALY0; full scenario matrix in model. Negative/null cases retained.
  • clinical_null: Weight0.2; Bay priceNot defined. BayQALY0; full scenario matrix in model. Negative/null cases retained.
  • harm: Weight0.1; Bay priceNot defined. BayQALY-0.001200; full scenario matrix in model. Negative/null cases retained.
  • cautious: Weight0.2; Bay priceNot defined. BayQALY-0.000002; full scenario matrix in model. Negative/null cases retained.
  • central: Weight0.15; Bay price$24,606,299. BayQALY0.002032; full scenario matrix in model. Negative/null cases retained.
  • favorable: Weight0.05; Bay price$224,331. BayQALY0.222885; full scenario matrix in model. Negative/null cases retained.
  • All Bay residents: $2,840,089. BayQALY0.017605. Diagnostic only; no base retuning.
  • All current cash expenses $100k: $11,003,047. BayQALY0.004544. Diagnostic only; no base retuning.
  • All current cash expenses $32,052 (historical stress, not present fact): $3,526,696. BayQALY0.014178. Diagnostic only; no base retuning.
  • All cash additionality 100%: $2,606,079. BayQALY0.019186. Diagnostic only; no base retuning.
  • Survival benefit discounted3% at year-end: $5,155,813. BayQALY0.009698. Diagnostic only; no base retuning.
  • Mortality credit zero: $496,534,191. BayQALY0.000101. Diagnostic only; no base retuning.
  • All modeled harm allocated to Bay; benefit geography unchanged: $4,504,660. BayQALY0.011100. Diagnostic only; no base retuning.

Uncertainty. 5% subjective mass below$1m/10 and0%below$100k/10, from this discrete scenario set only; not a calibrated probability or claim that unmodeled possibilities are impossible. Favorable tail98.37%; without it price~$257.57m/10.

5. Funding and previous grants

HOLD giving on health cost-effectiveness. Need current whole cash accounts and a dated funding-caused capability gap; do not equate rescue contacts with deaths prevented.

No priced marginal gift offer. Historical assets are not current liquidity. The model does not claim a donation creates demand or that volunteer/public complements scale freely. Current full cash expense and complete societal cost remain unknown.

This review does not establish a verified marginal funding offer or a complete history of grants.

Donate

Opens the organization’s giving page. A general donation may not fund the specific activity modeled here; confirm allocation with the recipient.

6. Sources

  1. Organization, activity and identity. BAMRU. Primary organization. Published: Undated current page; retrieved: 2026-09-11.
  2. Donation scope. BAMRU. Primary organization. Published: Undated current page; retrieved: 2026-09-11.
  3. Partners and mutual aid. BAMRU. Primary organization. Published: Undated current page; retrieved: 2026-09-11.
  4. 2024 missions and 2025 training release. San Mateo County Sheriff. Primary government release. Published: 2025-03-06; retrieved: 2026-09-11.
  5. Organizational assessment, pages362–363. San Mateo County Sheriff / Meliora. Government-commissioned assessment. Published: July2024; retrieved: 2026-09-11.
  6. Historical2017 990-EZ extraction. IRS via ProPublica API. IRS-derived extraction, original not verified. Published: Taxyear2017; current BMF extract2026; retrieved: 2026-09-11.
  7. 2024 missions: Occidental and Lyons Lake. Marin Search and Rescue. Primary partner operational reports. Published: 2024; retrieved: 2026-09-11.
  8. Search is a time-critical event: when search and rescue missions may become futile. Adams et al.. Primary observational study, abstract search. Published: 2007; retrieved: 2026-09-11.
  9. Causes of death and characteristics of non-survivors rescued during recreational mountain activities in Japan. Oshiro et al.. Primary retrospective study. Published: 2022; retrieved: 2026-09-11.

Annual expenses: years and sources

Average annual expenses (three consecutive fiscal years): Not available. Organization size is separate from the modeled cost-effectiveness of a donation.

Bay Area Mountain Rescue Unit

Form 990/990-EZ reported whole-entity expenses; includes program, administration and fundraising costs, but excludes any costs netted against revenue.

Three consecutive full-year expense totals are not verified.

Historical extracted filing window; newer original filings may be available and have not yet been reconciled.