Blog

This profile is part of the "People of Giving What We Can" series by Alexandra Heller.

I’m writing to introduce myself as the new president of Giving What We Can. I take this role with gratitude to former presidents Toby Ord and Sam Deere, and to former executive director Michelle Hutchinson. Giving What We Can has been a very meaningful part of my life over the years, and I’m honored to be able to work on it in a fuller capacity.

We’re in the process of moving the activities of the Giving What We Can Trust to a new platform to make it easier for donors to donate to a broader range of effective charities in one payment, track the donations they make and, for those in the UK and US, to donate tax deductibly in support of charities outside of the UK and US.

Last week I was able to attend a lecture marking the retirement of Professor Alan Fenwick, Director of the Schistosomiasis Institute. It was a fascinating insight into both a remarkable endeavour and a remarkable man, which I want to share with the Giving What We Can community. A huge thank you to Alan for the lecture and for providing the images in this post for me to use.

An explanation of EA Funds and why it may be a more effective donation option for many individuals.

A huge thank you to all of our members for all of your contributions to our recent pledge campaign which has seen 318 new members join Giving What We Can. This blog post gives some information on what to do next if you are a new member.

A five-minute conversation has the potential to prevent 40 lives being lost. That's about how long it takes to explain the basic precepts of the Giving What We Can pledge to someone.

When we talk about charities, we often use numbers, since we want to give a concrete idea of how cost-effective a charity is (because our charities are some of the most cost-effective in the world!). On our website, for example, we say that it costs $3,500 to avert a child’s death through “interventions supported by AMF” and $1.26 to treat a child through “interventions supported by SCI”. But why use such convoluted language?

Throughout the month of July, Giving What We Can is running our Tell a Friend campaign, in which we encourage our members and supporters to start a discussion with their friends about effective giving.

Give Directly has decided to test  a universal basic income intervention in Kenya: they’re planning to provide about 6,000 people with unconditional transfers for at least 10 years, transferring money to all residents of the villages which will be targeted by the intervention. This has received a lot of attention from the media, with the trial being mentioned, among others, on Slate, Vox, The Independent and Der Spiegel.