Promoting Giving What We Can and Effective Giving

Published 7th November 2020

This page covers ways Effective Altruism Groups can promote the ideas of effective giving and Giving What We Can pledges.

Contents

About Promoting Giving What We Can

What is Giving What We Can?

Giving What We Can aims to broadly promote effective giving, create a community around giving effectively, and provide pledges to help people to give more, and to give more effectively.

As of September 2020, GWWC has almost 5,000 members that have taken The Pledge (10%+ of income over lifetime) and about 550 who have an active Try Giving pledge (1%+ for any period). So far, their members have donated more than $127m and pledged almost $2 billion.

There are three pledge options:

• Try Giving Pledge: 1%+ of personal income for any chosen period

• The Pledge: 10%+ of personal income over your lifetime

• Further Pledge: Giving all income above an inflation-adjusted living allowance over your lifetime (this is less common and we encourage people to take a smaller pledge first)

Specifically, the wording is as follows:

“I recognise that I can use part of my income to do a significant amount of good. Since I can live well enough on a smaller income, I pledge that from now until ______ I shall give ____ to whichever organisations can most effectively use it to improve the lives of others, now and in the years to come. I make this pledge freely, openly, and sincerely.”

There are three main reasons for taking a pledge (instead of just donating without a pledge):

• Commitment: Making public commitments help us to live up to our most important values and ideals.

• Community: Joining a community provides us with support, advice and a sense of belonging.

• Inspiration: Taking a public pledge helps inspire others to follow our lead, and helps shift cultural norms.

Reasons to promote GWWC

Your donations can do an astonishing amount of good. However, the impact can vary wildly depending on where you donate. The best charities can be at least ten times better than a typical charity within the same area, hundreds of times better than poor-performing charities, and the worst charities can do harm.

This very simple idea is still not widely known, nor integrated into people’s lives. Giving more effectively is an incredibly accessible idea. It’s so accessible that many people come to this conclusion themselves and then find various EA brands from this search. Other people are just waiting to hear it, so simply sharing this idea more widely is still very neglected.

A pledge is a great commitment device and taking a Giving What We Can pledge can be a very powerful way to make a large positive impact over one’s lifetime.

For example, a donor on a typical American income who donated 10% of their income to an effective global health charity could save roughly 50 lives over their career (e.g. ~45 years, ~$50k USD income, ~$4k USD per life saved donating to a life-saving charity recommended by GiveWell).

There are many organisations working on some of the world’s most pressing problems that could have a similar or even larger expected impact with the same donation.

Aside from purely the donations influenced there are a number of significant potential benefits from promoting GWWC:

• Tipping point of moral circle expansion: Creating a norm of giving more, and giving more effectively being "just the right thing to do." Particularly if we are also emphasising moral concepts like geographic neutrality, cause neutrality, concern for animals and the concern for the wellbeing of those in the future.

• Taking significant action: Taking a pledge is a very accessible, legible and concrete activity. It’s also a strong filter for people who are actually altruistic (rather than those who are all talk and no action).

• EAs image & track record: Clear and salient demonstration that effective altruists (i) are the "good guys"; (ii) take meaningful action in the real world and achieve concrete, impressive things (we “walk the walk”).

• Increased involvement in EA: GWWC has a strong track record of getting people more involved, keeping people involved in EA.

• Identity: Taking a pledge can help make EA a part of someone’s identity. GWWC holds events which pledge-takers may participate in after they’ve left the locality of their EA group and between times when they’re thinking about their careers, helping EA to stay a part of their lives long term.

Some additional benefits for local groups:

• Promoting GWWC requires less experience/expertise than advising on a career.

• It can be a very tangible way to have impact as a group organiser.

• Pledges are good commitment mechanisms, keeping people engaged with effective giving and effective altruism more broadly.

• The direct impact of donations are more easily understood as impactful (as compared to career changes).

• Kelsey Piper details things she finds good about GWWC in this 2017 forum post.

Key misconceptions/clarifications

• If you have no significant income and you take a pledge, then the recommendation is to donate 1% of your spending money

• The pledges are in no way legally binding. It is a commitment entered into voluntarily and enforced solely by the pledger’s own conscience. In some circumstances, it may be best to resign from a pledge.

• It’s in the spirit of the pledges to give regularly but there are no percentage or regularity requirements (e.g. giving more one year and less then next is fine if you are still managing to keep ‘on track’). If you plan to give later, it’s in the spirit of the pledges to use a donor-advised fund (DAF) or some similar mechanism so it is “locked-in”.

• Giving is one of many ways we can make an impact. It’s not an either/or scenario, nor a ranked list. Everyone is a complex person who can do good in many facets of their life – that should be celebrated, and encouraged.

Check out the Frequently Asked Questions to make sure you understand the fine print and common misconceptions.

Things to be careful of

• Taking a pledge can be a big decision, especially for those who do not have much experience making big financial decisions such as undergrads. This may particularly be the case for students who expect to graduate with significant debt. It is important to be respectful, not overly pushy, and emphasise that it is important to seriously think through their commitment. Emphasise that Try Giving might be a better option for some.

  • However, it’s also important to remember that students are adults who are able to make their own decisions (and vote, go to war, drink, decide on their major etc). Respect their autonomy and ability to make an informed decision.

• Some people who take a pledge do not annually meet their pledge, and broken commitments are generally not a good standard to set (it’s preferred that people formally resign if they don’t intend to get back on track).

  • While it’s not good to pressure people into making commitments they won’t keep, it’s okay for people to make a commitment that they have every intention of keeping while knowing that there is some chance that extenuating circumstances may change that. If you promise to pick up your niece from school and are hit by a car it’s not terrible for you to break that promise because you’re in the ICU. Knowing that there’s a possibility you might not be able to keep a commitment isn’t really a good reason not to make one.

• Some people might be less inclined to do direct work if they take a pledge.

  • It’s important for people to consider this seriously. Only they can know how they will feel. However, many of the most prominent EAs have taken The Pledge (or even the Further Pledge) and are also doing direct work. There are many anecdotes of people being staying involved through GWWC/donations until the right direct work opportunity came up.

• Overemphasis on GWWC could result in a distorted image of EA: People thinking EA is only about donating.

  • However, we may have over-corrected. Giving is a way that many people can do a lot of good, emphasising that giving is still an excellent way to do good can help spur people on who might not be able to find the right career opportunity.

• Mentioning how much you donate can (if done poorly) come across as overly self-promoting.

  • However, in most cultures we talk about giving too little, not too much. We also shy away from talking about effectiveness when it comes to charity. Here are how Giving What We Can members have approached the conversation.

• It can make EA seem inaccessible for people who would find it hard to take a pledge, for example, those who have low-incomes, high-debt, or significant family responsibilities.

  • However, this can be overcome by celebrating people taking the Try Giving pledge more and by emphasising that taking a pledge is one of many ways to do good – it is an invitation for those interested and able and not an admonition of those who are uninterested or unable.

• It could mean that you are able to spend less time and effort promoting career plan changes, which may be more impactful.

  • However, most groups should be able to find plenty of time to promote many ways of doing good and giving is a really simple and accessible way to talk about effective altruism (the core ideas discussed in giving can then extend quite naturally to careers).

Is GWWC promotion suitable for your group?

All groups can talk about GWWC as part of their regular activities:

• As an example of an action that members of the EA community do to make a difference.

• When discussing ways of having a high-impact career. Donating is a great way of making an impact in any career (including priority paths). This would be particularly good to discuss when talking about careers with people who may not be in a position to pursue the highest-priority career paths, such as those suggested by 80,000 Hours.

• GWWC could be mentioned when discussing what charities group members like to support, or when discussing goals for having an impact in the next year.

GWWC promotion may be even more valuable for groups which:

• Have group organisers who have taken The Pledge themselves and have started their 10% donations so that they can share their experiences.

• Have members who have an unusually high income (e.g. people in senior corporate roles) or have strong safety net (come from privilege, live in a country with a good safety net, or have great fallback to live with family etc).

• Have students who haven’t started to earn a salary yet. They won’t get accustomed to having that extra 10%, which may make it easier to keep donating rather than to start donating once you have more income (see Hedonic Treadmill). However, be careful about those who might have significant debt, no runway, or safety net etc.

• Have members who are primarily concerned by problems in global health, development and animal welfare, where donations may be more relatively impactful compared to other forms of action.

• Have members who are less likely to make impact-focused career plan changes, such as people who are mid-late career professionals, people who are retired, or people who have significant family responsibilities.

• Are based in places where high-impact jobs are harder to determine or get.

Tips when talking about GWWC

It is an invitation, not an admonition

Many of us want to do good in the world. Donating effectively and making a pledge to continue to do so significantly is a great way to do this. Giving What We Can invites those interested and able to take a pledge and does not admonish those who are uninterested or unable.

Money can be a sensitive topic

It is important to remember that people come from many different financial backgrounds and have different relationships to donating. While sharing an income distribution graph can be a good way to visually share the immense privilege those of us in developed countries have, some people may feel that it minimises or discredits the struggles of the poor in developed countries. Additionally, there are certainly inaccuracies in any attempt to convey the true distribution of income.

This Forum post details some of the negative images that might be associated with GWWC and suggests some tips for curbing them.

Being aware of how this is a sensitive topic can allow you to promote GWWC in a more respectful and considerate way.

Depicting poverty

Giving What We Can is cause-neutral, however many groups focus on the impact of effective global health and poverty charities when discussing GWWC. If you are focusing on this cause area, be very careful about how you depict poverty in general. You can find helpful guidelines on depicting poverty in this Forum post.

Resources

• Guide to Talking about GWWC

• Members Experience Talking about GWWC

• GWWC FAQ

• Myths About Aid and Charity