November news: Sharing your 15th anniversary stories

To celebrate Giving What We Can’s 15th birthday over the last week, we’ve had so many people share their stories about GWWC and the 10% Pledge over the years.

Here are just a few highlights:

”This community helps me feel that we can make big differences together. Even though the scale of problems in the world is huge, none of us are helpless. We can use evidence to find the best ways to help, and we can use our resources to put a dent even in big problems.” - Julia Wise, Pledger since 2012

“I believe in a world where who you are born as and where you were born shouldn't decide your access to basic rights like food, water, and safety. Systemic change is necessary for a fair society, but in the meantime charity helps bridge the gap.” Quinn Grace, Trial Pledger since 2024

“Although I didn't do it for selfish reasons, donating 10% of my income has given me sense of pride and achievement. No matter what else I do with my life, I have donated ten's of thousands of pounds to charities that are considered some of the most effective in the world.” - Lovkush Agarwal, Pledger since 2014

”An idea that has always motivated me is the idea of the veil of ignorance — the basic concept being, how would you want society to be if you did not know who you would be in it? … The GWWC pledge was one of the first long-term charitable actions I took in this direction.” - Joey Savoie, Pledger since 2012

You can read more stories all across our social media platforms. We’ve also gathered a bunch of them into an anniversary story compilation, which we think shows the remarkable and far-reaching impacts of the Pledge, both in the lives of those who take it and the world at large.

Finally, to cap off our fabulous celebration, we’re releasing a great new video where Giving What We Can founder Toby Ord tells the story behind the Pledge – from its founding to where it is now, and how much farther we can go. This might be a good one to share with the pledge-curious!

Pledge Week is coming up!

And the year is not over yet! Pledge Week – the perfect time to pledge if you’ve been thinking about it for a while, but haven’t made the leap yet – starts on the 16th December, which is in just a few weeks!

Register for our virtual events below where you can ask any questions you have about Pledging! We’ll also be running virtual pledge signing events, so you can sign your pledge alongside others and meet new community members.

The end of the year is a great time to take action – and there are plenty of different pledge options to meet you where you’re at, and set you up to live your values in 2025!

Keep an eye out for our updated charity recommendations…

Next week, we’ll be officially sharing our 2025 charity recommendations – so you’ll be hearing from us soon enough! Until then, lots of great news below.

With gratitude,

Grace & the Giving What We Can team

P.S. Some extra exciting news - Sjir Hoeijmakers was selected as the new Global CEO of Giving What We Can, in a unanimous decision by the boards!

Motivations for Pledging

Here are some of our favourite responses from people who took a pledge last month:

What motivated you to take a pledge with Giving What We Can?

• “The world is wonderful and worth defending. The world is awful with much room for improvement. I am a part of it, and will do my part.” Anders Sandberg from Sweden
• “I believe in the power of effective donations to make a positive impact on the world's most pressing issues.” Brooke O’Connell from the United States
• “ 'm aware of how fortunate I am relative to most people on earth, and want to effectively contribute to the betterment of life on our planet.” Philip Ashton from Malawi

Upcoming Events

Tons of great events coming up this month and next!

November

GWWC Freiburg: Giving Game

Join GWWC Freiburg for a Giving Game on November 7 and help decide which charity to donate 1000€ to! You’ll get to meet the community in person and learn more about effective giving and how to identify which charities can do the most good. The group will head for a cosy drink at the Meihnachswarkt after the game.

November 27 at 7pm at Grünhof Belfortstraße.

Please RSVP here.

Online: Leveraging Your Career Beyond Effective Giving – A Webinar from High Impact Professionals and Giving What We Can

In our second webinar with HIP, we’ll explore how you can leverage your career to go beyond your personal effective giving and create broader impact through professional influence featuring:

• Advocacy strategies to inspire others
• Corporate giving campaigns & donation-matching
• Workplace initiatives to amplify social impact (and more!)

Thursday, 28th November from 5 pm UTC. Register here to attend on November 28, and/or read more about the webinar series here.

GWWC Vancouver: Giving Week 2024 Holiday Party

Join GWWC Vancouver for a festive evening of impact. The question of the night is, “If you had 10% of your income set aside for giving back, where would you give?” Get into the holiday spirit with Christmas and Hanukkah-themed snacks, and come discuss how to best make a real difference in the world! Please RSVP here.

Saturday, November 30 from 6-9 pm GMT-7 at 1443 W 8th Ave, Vancouver, BC

December

Online: Have questions about taking a pledge? Join our Q&A sessions for Pledge Week

Join a group call to ask your questions and hear what other people are thinking about! Grace and James have been pledgers for many years themselves so can answer practical questions as well as provide details about the pledges we offer.

Pledge Q&A Session with James:

Monday, December 16 at London 6pm / Berlin 7pm / NYC 1pm / SF 10 am

Register

Pledge Q&A Session with Grace:

Monday, December 16 at 8pm New York City / 5pm San Francisco,

Tuesday 17 at 12pm Sydney / 9am Singapore

Register

Neither of those sessions work? Always feel free to reach out to us at community@givingwhatwecan.org

Online: Ready to take a pledge? Pledge with others during our signing and celebration events!

Taking a pledge is a big milestone – to celebrate the occasion, come along and take a pledge at the same time as others. You’ll get to meet other new people in the community too!

Pledge Signing and Celebration with James:

Thursday, December 20 at 6 pm London / 7pm Berlin / 1pm NYC / 10am San Francisco

Register

Pledge Signing and Celebration with Grace:

Thursday, December 20 at 8pm New York City / 5pm San Francisco

Friday, December 21 at 12pm Sydney / 9am Singapore

Register

Amsterdam Donation Party

​Turn Donation Admin into a Celebration!

​Doing donation admin can feel like doing taxes: Calculating your yearly income, deciding how much to give, comparing the cost-effectiveness of charities, figuring out tax implications, and logging it all somewhere... not exactly fun.

​Let's make it the wholesome event it should be: Doing the donation admin together with like-minded people, sharing and celebrating your favorite charity, all while snacking on some vegan bites.

Friday, December 6, from 17:30 - 21:00 CET at Effective Altruism Netherlands

RSVP

Online: Giving Tuesday for Animals: How Can 10% Make a Huge Impact for Animals

Join Stien (ACE’s Executive Director) and Lauren (Founder & CEO of Animal Advocacy Careers) for a fireside chat this Giving Tuesday on how pledging a portion of your income to effective charities can significantly help animals. They’ll discuss how pledging can complement and enhance a career in animal advocacy, the funding needs of the animal welfare movement, and the impact of individual pledges. They’ll also answer your questions – submit one when signing up or bring one to the call!

Tuesday, December 3, from 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM EST

Register here

News & Updates

GWWC

• Sjir Hoeijmakers was selected as the new Global CEO of Giving What We Can, in a unanimous decision by the boards!
• James and Lucas of the GWWC team recently visited Suvita, a charity that incentivises child immunisation in India. You can read all about their visit – and Suvita’s amazing work – in their post: “A visit to Suvita in India”
• We published several articles on our blog, including:
  • The “Progressive Pledge”, in which 10% Pledger Philip Popien shares a unique approach to pledging whereby he gradually increases his pledge percentage in line with increases in his salary.
  • An updated version of “Can money buy happiness: A review of new data” which examines the data on money and happiness along with the takeaways for charitable giving
  • A pledge story by Effective Giving Global Coordinator and Incubator Lucas: How Peter Singer’s ideas transformed my life
  • The virtues of virtue signalling, a pledge story by Martin Jacobson, in which he talks through his hesitations to give publicly and why he eventually concluded the benefits were worth it
  • Taking the 10% Pledge whilst living in an informal settlement, an interview with Tom Delaney about his experience growing up as an Australian in an informal settlement in North India, and how this influenced his decision to take the 10% Pledge.

Community

• 10% Pledger Michael Dello-Iacovo posted a brilliant YouTube video called Finding Purpose by Living on $29k USD & Giving Away the Rest. Watch it if you’d like to get inspired and hear some ins and outs of how Michael lives comfortably and truly happily while donating all the income he earns above the threshold he chose for himself – to charities that make a real difference.
• If you donate at least $5,000 to charity each year or plan to make a large lump sum donation greater than $20,000, you’re eligible for free coaching with Yield & Spread, a not-for-profit personal finance course and coaching service run by 10% Pledger Rebecca Herbst. (And for those who don’t meet the “free” criteria but still want coaching, 100% of Yield & Spread’s profits go to The Life You Can Save!) To learn more about Yield & Spread, you can also watch the recording of our interview with Rebecca from last year.
• 10% Pledger Gemma Paterson recently hosted a panel event at her workplace, Ernst and Young, featuring charity innovators speaking about best practices towards doing good in an evidence-backed, cost-effective way. The panel featured speakers from GiveWell, AIM, Giving What We Can and FarmKind. Read her reflections here.

Cause areas

Animal Welfare

• The Humane League UK is running a match funding appeal from November 25 to December 3. They have a match funding pot of £40,000. You can donate here and find out more about THL’s funding needs and how it would use these donations in this EA Forum post.
• Wild Animal Initiative (WAI) has launched a seminar series for wild animal welfare researchers titled “Wild Animal Lives through a Welfare Lens.” This is a collaboration with the Royal Veterinary College and the Zoological Society of London’s Institute of Zoology. It will introduce early-career scientists to topics in wild animal welfare over the coming months.

Global Health and Wellbeing

• It took New Incentives six years to enrol its first 2 million infants, a milestone they reached in Sep. 2023. Just 13 months later, they have helped protect 2 million more infants from preventable diseases. They have also introduced a completion incentive for caregivers who bring their child in for all six routine immunisation visits.
• GiveWell’s re-evaluation of GiveDirectly concluded that direct cash transfers are 3 to 4 times more cost-effective than they previously estimated. This reassessment incorporates new evidence highlighting the program's positive impacts on local economies, consumption, and child mortality.
• Malaria Consortium published its latest Impact Report and Trustee’s Report and Annual Accounts detailing the stories, numbers, and impact behind the programmes they deliver alongside the communities they work with.
• Lead Exposure Elimination Project (LEEP) is hiring for a Program Consultant in Indonesia. LEEP is seeking a dynamic generalist based in Indonesia with fluent English and Indonesian and excellent communication skills. Find out more and apply here.

Global Catastrophic Risk Reduction

• Open Philanthropy published news about how grantees Nobel Prize winner David Baker and his colleague Neil King are leveraging artificial intelligence to develop more effective, universal vaccines.
• Open Philanthropy is looking for an experienced leader to manage its Global Catastrophic Risks (GCR) portfolio. The new Managing Director of GCR will have the unique opportunity to lead a rapidly growing portfolio that directs several hundred million dollars annually towards high-impact strategies that address some of the most pressing threats facing humanity. The application deadline is next Sunday, December 1. Learn more and apply here or submit a referral here.

Evaluators, grantmakers and incubators

• GiveWell is hosting a virtual Fireside Chat with CEO Elie Hassenfeld and two Senior Researchers on Tuesday, 3 December, at 7 pm UTC. They will offer insights into GiveWell’s work, what drives their decisions, what makes the work hard, what they could be wrong about, and the impact GiveWell strives to make. Register here.
• GiveWell also launched a page on Metaculus to solicit external feedback on its research predictions. Metaculus will periodically post forecasts about GiveWell’s research and grants for the public to make their own predictions. The deadline for comments is December 1 and there will be $2,250 in prizes awarded by Metaculus and other contributors for insightful comments on a select group of forecasting questions. Read more in their blog post.
• Ambitious Impact (AIM) (formerly Charity Entrepreneurship) is hosting a virtual event on Thursday, December 5 from 5 – 9 pm UTC. Join to hear from 40+ founders covering their successes and challenges from the last year as they have scaled, pivoted, or just begun. AIM will also share updates on its expansion to new programs and paths to impact. Register here.
• AIM also announced the launch of four brand new charities from the autumn cohort of the Charity Entrepreneurship Incubation Program. Read more here.
• Animal Charity Evaluators (ACE) has announced its 2024 charity recommendations – organisations it believes can do the most good with additional donations.
  • ACE is hosting an Ask Me Anything (AMA) Event on November 19 from 8 – 10 am PT so you can ask about its 2024 charity recommendations and the selection process. You can also ask your questions beforehand by commenting on this post. To participate, create a FAST Forum account and return to the Forum at the start, where you will see ACE’s post pinned.
• Giving Green released its top climate nonprofit recommendations for 2024-2025, focusing on eight philanthropic strategies. These include advancing energy transitions in low- and middle-income countries and scaling demand for carbon dioxide removal and solar radiation management governance. Six top nonprofits were named, with additional grants planned for 20+ organisations through the Giving Green Fund.
• Rethink Priorities (RP) has developed several tools to help philanthropists connect their values to their donation decisions. RP is offering a tutorial webinar for our GWWC community on December 2, at 5 pm UTC. Senior Researcher Arvo Muñoz Morán will help you create giving portfolios based on your risk preferences and show you how to allocate resources under uncertainty. RSVP here to attend and receive the recording.

Thank you to all pledgers who posted on social media to celebrate our 15th year anniversary with us! While the official anniversary week has ended, we'd of course still love to hear your stories about the pledge — favourite memories, what the pledge means to you, or even your hopes for the future. Tag us so we can re-share them with our whole community!