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Sam Harsimony

Giving sustainably helps ensure that philanthropy is a continuous, fulfilling part of your life. Considering that it can raise your contributions all while setting a good example for others, sustainable giving should be a priority for all altruists.

Why your charitable giving should be sustainable

Learning about effective altruism can be intimidating at first.

Given so many opportunities to make the world a better place, shouldn’t we invest all of our resources towards that goal? Even if it comes at the cost of our wellbeing, doesn’t the outsize impact of our actions justify giving it all we’ve got?

 her experience applying this mentality to her work at Open Philanthropy:

"It got to the point where — even though I cared a great deal about the work, loved my coworkers, and felt lucky to have the job — some days I just felt miserable. I wanted to run away, go live by the ocean, and never think about any of it ever again."

But fortunately, she came away from the experience with a better outlook.

"If we prioritize sustainable motivation — which means building a rhythm that works for you — we can remain motivated over the course of decades, rather than pushing ourselves hard for a few years in our twenties."

Though she was primarily focused on motivation at work, her point applies equally well to charitable giving. Many factors go into how to donate, but charitable giving should be sustainable in order to be effective in the long-term.

Donating should be something you can continue indefinitely as part of a healthy lifestyle — it must not incur large personal costs or risk burnout. In other words, philanthropy should be rewarding and should lend support to your pursuit of a good life.

Beyond the personal benefits, this approach to giving can increase your lifetime impact and help get others involved. Let’s look at why it can increase the effectiveness of your donations and how altruists can ensure that their giving is sustainable.

Giving sustainably increases your total impact

On a purely practical level, giving sustainably can increase your lifetime contributions to charity. Giving excessive amounts to charity risks causing financial distress or burnout. These events can cut future contributions to virtually zero, counteracting the benefit of giving more in the present. In the moment, it may feel like giving more increases your impact, but too much generosity can limit your ability to do good over the long term. Remember, what matters is your total impact over your lifetime, not the amount you give this year. Taking the long view necessitates a robust approach to philanthropy that will last for decades.

The good you do doesn’t end with your personal donations, inspiring others to give means that you can multiply your impact. Crucially, giving sustainably can encourage others to donate. If philanthropists give sustainably while living happy and fulfilled lives, others will be more inclined to follow suit. But if philanthropists suffer under the burden of their generosity, few will emulate them. Your altruism doesn’t occur in isolation, you are a role model for a particular approach to doing good. Taking a more inclusive approach to increasing total contributions means providing an achievable example so that others can follow in your footsteps.

"Nobody is perfect. This gives us license not to be perfect either. Instead of aiming for an impossible goal, falling short, and not doing anything at all, we set an arbitrary but achievable goal designed to encourage the most people to do as much as possible. That goal is ten percent." --- Scott Alexander, 

Nobody Is Perfect, Everything Is Commensurable

Perhaps paradoxically, giving sustainably starts with helping yourself. Simply put, if you cannot take care of yourself, you are not in a good position to help others. Ignoring your physical, mental, relationship, and career health is just as unsustainable as donating too much. Beyond promoting giving and maintaining donations long term, your happiness is just as important as the happiness of those you seek to help. A person who focuses on charity at the cost of making themselves miserable is counteracting some of the good they do. As Julia Wise 

, the importance of self-care can often be lost on younger altruists:

"But younger people in particular seem to struggle with the balance of self-care and altruism. Often after I speak to a student group, someone will tell me they wonder if they're wrong to spend money traveling to visit far-away friends or buying things for the mother that scrimped to send them to college. It's hard to think of a better recipe for burnout than distancing yourself from friends and family! No, I don't recommend cutting out this kind of thing if you want your passion for helping others to last more than a few years."

Giving sustainably also entails giving regularly, which has several benefits.

First, giving regularly can serve as a consistent reminder that your actions are having a positive impact, which can improve your long-term motivation. The warm glow that comes with doing good can help reinforce the habit.

Second, regular donations remind others about the importance of charity and demonstrate your commitment to philanthropy. This goes hand-in-hand with the goal of promoting altruism to other people.

Third, like with most habits, repetition is key. Donating on a regular schedule makes philanthropy a consistent part of your life and it becomes easier to maintain over the long term. Just think about how much easier it is to stay active when you make a weekly commitment to exercise.

Fourth, spreading your giving out over regular intervals makes it easier to adapt financially. Frequent donations directly impact your budget more than a large payment deferred years into the future. This immediate feedback can help you adjust the amount you give and ensure that it is compatible with your lifestyle.

Why giving effectively can help you stay motivated

Giving effectively is also an important part of giving sustainably. Many people find giving to cost-effective charities incredibly meaningful. The sheer number of lives that can be improved through effective donations is excellent motivation to continue giving. Finding impactful causes you are truly excited about is the best way to make philanthropy rewarding, making it that much easier to stay consistent.

Julian Hazell

Mentioning the Pledge in your LinkedIn summary is an easy way to encourage others to give effectively. Here's why you should mention effective giving in your summary, and how you might go about doing so in practice.

Why you should mention the Pledge in your LinkedIn summary

Mentioning the Pledge in your LinkedIn summary is an easy way to spread the word. Here's why you should do it, and how you might go about doing it in practice.

One of the first things that people tend to do when they want to learn about someone in a professional context is look them up on LinkedIn. As such, it could be highly impactful for you to mention your commitment to the pledge on your LinkedIn profile. Including the pledge could also make your LinkedIn summary much stronger, authentic, and convincing. More importantly, it could also encourage others to give effectively.

Strengthens people’s first impression of you

Allows you to put your best self out there

It follows that sharing your dedication to the pledge might be a great way to communicate to others what you find important in the world. It could also show people what your personality is like beyond your work achievements and professional experience.

There can sometimes be tremendous benefits to being public with our actions. Beyond the direct value of charity, it is important to think about the knock-on effects of encouraging others to be generous. Think about it this way: pledging to donate 10% of your income throughout your working life can positively impact the lives of many others. But you can substantially increase your contribution to the world just by convincing one other person to join you in taking the pledge!

Remember, ideas cannot spread unless we share them.

We are social creatures that rely on others for cues on what we ought to do (a phenomenon known as ‘social proof’). Being an “early adopter,” argues Luke Freeman in a 

 for Giving What We Can, can “normalise the path forward for others” to start dedicating time and money to solving the world’s most pressing problems.

The natural urge to conceal our altruism can be appealing. Telling others about our preferences, ideals, and passions can be scary (especially if it risks us coming off as boastful or pretentious). But it is sometimes needed in order to create a cascade of social change. This change will never happen — or if it does, it will happen far too slowly — if we give in silence. So let’s speak up when we can.

Here are some things you might wish to mention in your summary:

How the pledge relates to your career goals

How the pledge has improved your own wellbeing

What charities/cause areas you’re passionate about

Basic information on effective altruism/cost effectiveness

Beyond my career, I’m passionate about finding (and funding) the most effective charities in the world. I’m part of an international community of people who’ve pledged at least 10% of their income over the course of their careers. The Giving What We Can community has over 7,000 members and has pledged in excess of $2.5 billion to the world’s most effective charities. If you’re interested in learning more about the Pledge or if you have any questions, do not hesitate to reach out to me anytime to chat about it.

5 years ago, I signed the Giving What We Can Pledge, which involves giving 10% of my income to the most effective charities over the course of my career. Taking the Pledge has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. If you’re interested in learning about how you can make a tremendous impact in the lives of thousands of others over the course of your career, I encourage you to check out givingwhatwecan.org to learn more about the Pledge and effective charitable giving.

Did you know that the most effective charities in the world can sometimes be as much as 100 times more effective than average charities? For example, estimates by GiveWell, a charity assessment organization, claim that $4,500 in donations towards long-lasting insecticide nets to prevent malaria will save a child’s life on average. Due to the tremendous potential for impact that these charities offer, I’ve pledged to donate 10% of my annual income over the course of my career to the most effective charities as a member of an organisation called Giving What We Can. If you’d like to learn more about why I took the Pledge, please reach out anytime to chat with me about it.

Outside of my passion for software engineering, one of my interests is effective philanthropy. I pledged to donate 10% of my income over the course of my career to highly effective charities about 7 years ago by taking the Giving What We Can Pledge. Giving What We Can is an international organization and community of over 7,000 members who’ve pledged more than $2.5 billion to the world’s most effective charities. If you’re interested in learning about how much potential you have to positively impact the world, I encourage you to check out givingwhatwecan.org to learn more about the community and the Pledge.

Additional articles on the benefits of being public

Why you should be public about your good deeds

Social change happens one person at a time, so start multiplying your impact!

Henry Howard

Henry, a junior doctor from Australia, shares why he took The Giving What We Can Pledge alongside what causes he's passionate about, and what his vision for the future is.

Member Profile: Henry Howard

We recently spoke with Henry Howard from Australia. He shared with us his effective giving story, including what motivates him to give, what issues he cares about the most, and his vision for the future.

Tell us about yourself. What keeps you busy, and what makes you tick?

I work as a junior doctor in Australia. I want to help the people who need it most, and I want to do it in a way that's effective. I hope I can remind others around me that we can think beyond just ourselves.

I'm interested in the intersection of medicine and computing. I think creativity and entrepreneurship can solve problems, and I want to create tools that improve patient care by solving some of the problems I've seen in my time as a doctor. I hope I can be involved in creating useful new technologies while generating money for charity along the way.

Tell us about your effective giving journey.

I was raised to believe that the goal of life is to make the world better for everyone, not just ourselves.

While looking into how I could be most useful for the world, I discovered the ideas of effective altruism through Peter Singer and his organisation The Life You Can Save. I was attracted to the idea that charities that focus on neglected issues like malaria, schistosomiasis, malnutrition, and vaccine-preventable disease are several times more cost-effective than the usual charities I saw advertised on TV. I then started taking part in fundraising activities during medical school to raise money for effective charities.

When I finally started earning a salary in my first year working as a doctor in 2021, I decided to dedicate 50% of my first year's income to charity. I wanted to make a statement on how much even junior doctors could give if we really wanted to, without sacrificing much of our own quality of life. I gave $53,441.51 (AUD) to charities during my first year of work. It was deeply fulfilling: my donations likely saved many lives and improved many more, and I hope I inspired others to think about using their privilege to help those in need.

I took the 10% Giving What We Can pledge at the start of 2021. I plan to give 10% of my income for the rest of my life.

Why do you give? What motivated you to give originally?

I'm driven by the inequality I see in the world. So much of a person's quality of life depends on where a person is born and who their parents are. I think this is the moral crisis of our time. I want to use my luck in the birth lottery to give back to people who haven't been as lucky as me and make the world a more equal-opportunity place.

Through practicing medicine I can help people, but through giving part of my income to charity I can help maybe 100 times as many people. Giving part of my income to charity just makes sense. It helps people through the work of those charities, it inspires others, it encourages a culture of selflessness and trust, and it's deeply fulfilling to me.

I often think about what our descendants will believe were the mistakes of our time. I think the inequality of opportunity in the world is something they'll shake their heads at. I want to do everything I can to help.

Why did you take the Giving What We Can pledge?

Making a clear statement about giving is important. It normalises giving among those around you, and it gets people to think about issues they might not otherwise think about. Signing the pledge is a clear statement that I'm willing to give up a little to make the world a lot better. The fact that 7,000 other people have signed this pledge sends a message that if we do decide to give, we're not alone.

What are the issues in the world that you care most deeply about?

The median daily wage in Madagascar is about US$1.12 a day. The median daily wage in Australia is about US$49. Doctors make a lot more than that. The circumstances of our birth determine almost everything about our quality of life.

Which organizations do you give to (and why)?

I gave to a large number of organisations over 2021. I gave the most to those highly cost-effective, evidence-based charities targeting neglected issues like malaria, parasitic worm infection, and malnutrition. I also give to local charities, journalism, the arts, and to social movements, all of which are valuable causes, and many of which have impacts that are difficult to quantify.

Some people aren't supportive of giving. They believe that giving is ineffective, or that it's a way to make others feel guilty, or that it's too depressing to think about the world's problems, or that we have no moral obligation to think about the world's problems.

Giving in the face of discouragement can be difficult. I listen to feedback very carefully. I've never heard a convincing argument for why we shouldn't give to charity.

Do you try to effect change in any other way?

People who embody kindness, trust, generosity in their day-to-day life are what make the world go round. I try to embody these attributes every day. I also think very carefully about how I can use my career to create positive change in the world.

What effective giving tips would you like to share?

I found that donating through The Life You Can Save allowed me to claim many donations as tax-deductible. Many organisations aren't tax-deductible in Australia. This let me give more to charity than I might have otherwise.

Make noise about your donating. Giving quietly is very noble, but giving loudly spreads the word, normalises giving, and agitates positive social change. Advertising your giving can feel obnoxious and indulgent, but it also probably leads to the best outcomes.

What suggestions do you have for other people considering the pledge? Make sure you understand your budget. I track every cent I've earned or spent for the past 5 years. This let me tell very easily how much I could afford to give.

I dream of a world where a person's success is based on how creative and hard-working they are, not on what country they were born in and who their parents are.

" series which profiles a selection of the Giving What We Can community. The Giving What We Can is a community of people from all walks of life, with different perspectives and motivations for giving – all united by their desire to make a significant commitment to use their income to effectively helping others. Read more 

 to help inspire others to give more, and more effectively.

For more information about Giving What We Can we recommend you check out our 

Adriana Saso-Graves

Adriana shares why they took The Giving What We Can Pledge alongside some tips for how to get started on your very own effective giving journey.

Member Profile: Adriana Saso-Graves

We recently spoke with Adriana Saso-Graves from Saint Paul, Minnesota. They shared with us their effective giving story, including their journey to effective giving, what motivates them to give, and what organisations they give to.

Tell us about yourself, what keeps you busy, what makes you tick.

I am a 22-year-old recent graduate of Macalester College. I received my BA in Philosophy and am now working towards developing a career in data science and machine learning, which will hopefully allow me to earn to give while also working at the cross-section of ethical AI and animal rights. I consider myself, above all else, a lifelong learner. I believe strongly that we should continuously better ourselves and engage ourselves in a community that will hold us to the standard that we are capable of achieving.

My effective giving journey began about 2 years ago when I took an ethics course to complete my philosophy degree. I, like many other students, was introduced to EA and utilitarianism during my studies. During the COVID pandemic, I received payments from HEERF (Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund) designed to support students from low-income backgrounds. They were very generous payments and I began to set aside, for the first time in my life, a decent amount of savings. I paid off my credit card debt. I didn't feel so financially insecure. I realized that it was ludicrous to take and keep all of the HEERF funds that I was being given.

I live in the Twin Cities and during the unrest following the murder of George Floyd, I used whatever amount I arbitrarily designated as “extra” to directly support Black peers, or sent them to mutual aid funds in the Twin Cities. As the unrest died down some, I realized that while I was mostly content with the way that I had spent my extra funds, I was also seriously considering how I would have used it if I had kept it and if I could have spent it better. I realized that even in my days of economic insecurity I could definitely spare at least $10-15 per month.

So I set up $5 automated payments to Feed My Starving Children, an organization that delivers nutritionally complete, vegan meals for $0.25 USD to children in need. I also set up small, recurring payments to AMF. My history with financial insecurity had prevented me from signing the pledge, despite the fact that I have known of its existence for some time. I have known what it's like to have to make it an entire month with $8 in your bank account (yes, just $8, and nothing in savings).

I also just went to Starbucks with a $10 gift card and bought a quadruple shot large soy latte and the total came out to $8. To be clear, I'm not ashamed of this purchase. The latte was delicious and the gift card was, well, a gift. But it occurred to me that there were many ways in which I could revamp my budget and increase my giving if I really committed to it. I haven't been in a position where I only had $8 to my name in over 4 years. I went home and calculated "How Rich Am I" and realized I was in the top 94% globally and I knew then I needed to sign up.

Mostly it's the realization that almost nothing I could pay for with 10% of my income would outweigh the utility it could have for another person, especially when donated to an effective organization/charity. Granted, I do not have children and only have 2 cats, and my immediate family and I are in good health.

If I make $937 after taxes every 2 weeks making $15/hour, I often think about what I can do with that extra $187 per month. Groceries? Eating at my favorite plant-based restaurant? A new pair of running leggings and a book? That $187 can buy between 62.3 and 93.5 malaria nets (assuming the cost estimate is between $2-3 per net). Annually that's around 1,000 malaria nets for people who desperately need them.

Alternatively, that's 748 meals for children suffering malnutrition if I donate it to Feed My Starving Children (in other words, over 2 years of providing a nutritionally complete meal daily to a starving child). If I do that monthly, that's 8,976 meals, or 24.5 years' worth of daily nutrition. Is there anything right now that would be a better investment? If so, how? If I was in need of a malaria net or if I was suffering malnutrition and starvation, what choice would I hope for?

Sure, that $187 might help me feel more comfortable or hopeful about my future if I were to put it away in savings, but it helps someone else feel exponentially more comfortable or hopeful about theirs, considering that if I were ever in a place where $187 would make a huge difference in my life, I know that within a number of years my government, my family, and my friends would probably help me figure out how to get back on my feet. And there are millions of people for whom that sort of socio-political infrastructure does not exist.

I took the pledge because I know that whatever amount I donate will go farther for someone who lives in a country where $1 USD has much higher purchasing power. One may think that this could have an undesirable effect, in that someone could limit their giving since they might think that they don't need to give much to have a sizable impact. I, however, find it's the complete opposite for me. Giving as much as I can AND knowing how far my donations can go highlights the importance of giving to effective charities. What are the issues in the world that you care most deeply about?

There are so many issues that I care deeply about, but among the biggest are animal rights and climate change (big intersection there), as well as global poverty (perpetuated by issues related to malnutrition and universal basic income), and access to reproductive choice including birth control (for male and female individuals) and abortion.

 - They’re highly cost-effective and work on a cause that has a clear path to impact.

 - They’re a religious-based organization that does not perform missionary work. They bring stability to children/communities who are lifted out of malnutrition.

 - They provide direct funds to individuals living in extreme poverty.

 - They have a strong commitment to animal rights and a strong rating on 

On occasion, sure. My career just got started and I make $15 an hour. In many metropolitan areas, this is the socially accepted or legal minimum wage. At times, I worry about slipping into the kind of financial insecurity that I have experienced previously, and I fear that donating will limit the full expanse of financial freedoms I have. I’ve found that often it's been the opposite, however. Realizing that I do have extra funds to spare and having seen the ways in which I am able to prioritize other things makes me feel much more eager to increase my income to do more good, but also makes me feel more satisfied with my current financial situation. Although at times, yes, there is a little voice in the back of my head that says "why can't we just wait until we are making $XX,XXX per year?" which is the same voice that says "why can't we just go to the gym tomorrow instead?" It's a stupid voice and I choose not to listen to it. Just because I can't have the impact I want to right away, it's certainly a bigger impact than I would have if I didn't give.

Yep! I volunteer at a local farmed animal sanctuary, I volunteer with the Humane League, and I also volunteer packing meals at Feed My Starving Children. In addition, I am working with my partner on an animal rights campaign and I am also working on opinion pieces related to topics of effective altruism, animal rights, and veganism.

If you're at all hesitant, I would set up a monthly recurring donation of $5 and see if you notice it missing. If you can't commit to 10% of your income, try 5% or even 1% and scale up when you have extra funds. If finances become a struggle, think of ways you can be involved in organizations that don't make as much money. Donating your time can sometimes not be as effective as donating your funds, but if you can convince others to donate their funds, that's no small accomplishment. If you can do both, that’s fantastic.

Have you found anything to be helpful in talking to people about effective giving?

Sometimes I like to ask people what's the dumbest thing they ever spent $20 on. Or if they remember the last time $20 fell out of their pocket and what effect it had on them. Was it a bummer? Probably. Would it have made them feel better to have given that $20 intentionally to an effective charity? Almost always.

Are there any other concrete ways that Giving What We Can has helped you?

I feel a lot more grateful generally speaking. I want to avoid the idea that we should always feel grateful just because others may have it worse, but thinking about the ways in which it could be worse does make you realize all the ways in which things are genuinely good. When I have a bad day, I usually come home and take a shower with hot water, have a nutritionally sufficient meal, and I can take a nap in my bed in my decently safe neighborhood. For most of human history, it has not been this easy to have your needs met.

For many of us, it can be hard to articulate what exactly matters to us and why. But getting to the root of what we really care about can often have surprising implications for where we should donate.

This design thinking technique can make you a more effective giver

Think about the most important cause to you — maybe it’s climate change, criminal justice reform, gender equality, or education policy, for example.

Why do you care about this cause in particular?

Now think about another cause that is important to you, but not quite as much as the previous one. Why isn’t it as important as the first cause? What’s the difference?

For many of us, it's hard to articulate what exactly matters to us and why. But getting to the root of what we really care about can often have surprising implications for where we should donate. In fact, figuring out what you truly care about could be one of the most important steps you take to increase your impact.

Here’s a framework that might simplify this introspection for you.

There’s a technique commonly used in design thinking that can help you better understand what you really care about.

 works by getting to the core of a problem by repeatedly asking “why” to understand cause-and-effect. It’s particularly useful because it can allow you to fix the root cause of a problem, not just something that is merely a symptom.

 Because we are receiving negative reviews about our delivery speeds.

 Because delivery times have nearly doubled in the past three months.

 Because our order-fulfilment system has had issues.

Why has our order-fulfilment system had issues?

 Because there is an error in the backend system.

Why is there an error in the backend system?

 Because we didn’t ask our software engineers to check the system when we changed our cloud-computing provider.

 The software engineers check the system and find that an important piece of software was not set up on the new cloud-computing servers when the switch was made. A note is made to ensure this software is set up next time the servers are changed.

This technique is not just useful for figuring out what is causing your software to fail — It can also help you become a more effective giver.

Here’s how you can apply it to the cause you thought about at the beginning.

Applying the five whys technique: homelessness in Vancouver

I grew up in Vancouver, a city with extreme affluence and staggering poverty. Vancouver is the kind of city where jogging at a brisk pace for 10 minutes can take you from a $4 million condo to one of the poorest postal codes in the entire country (yes, country). This area, called the Downtown Eastside, is rife with people experiencing homelessness (and often addiction) right in the middle of the streets.

It’s nearly impossible to visit the Downtown Eastside without feeling a tug at your heartstrings — one that tells you to drop everything you’re doing so you can help these people, no matter what it takes. I felt that pull as a kid. I still do. But upon thinking about other ways I could do good, it wasn’t clear to me whether I should instinctively follow that pull, no matter how much I felt the urge to do so.

The five whys technique can help make sense of the feelings and intuitions I had as a kid. Let’s apply it to homelessness to see if it can shed light on where I should focus my charitable resources.

 Homelessness is bad, and I want to fix it.

 Because people experiencing homelessness are still people, and nobody should have to struggle like that.

Why should nobody have to struggle like that?

 Because all people fundamentally deserve to live happy lives.

Why do people deserve to live happy lives?

 Because nobody should have to live a life of suffering, regardless of who they are, what they look like, or where they live.

Why should nobody have to live a life of suffering?

 Because if we can use our resources to prevent suffering, we should, no matter who it is.

Blog

Why your charitable giving should be sustainable

Why you should mention the Pledge in your LinkedIn summary

Member Profile: Henry Howard

Member Profile: Adriana Saso-Graves

This design thinking technique can make you a more effective giver

Company Pledge Profile: Carpenter & Co

High schoolers were given over $8,000 to donate to charity. Here's what they chose.

December 2021 Newsletter

Why we're in the best position to do good in history

Effective Giving Day 2021: Maximising your charitable impact