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Dominic Roser

Saving a life doesn't have to be a once-in-a-lifetime occurrance.

The drowning child on a Thursday evening

It happened on a mild summer evening. We were relaxing at the Marzili, Bern’s free swimming pool on the riverside. When I close my eyes, I can still see the boy’s eyes underwater — wide open.

Is he just playing and diving, or might he be drowning? I notice he is moving slowly. And he doesn’t emerge from the water to breathe! After some initial hesitation, I had no choice but to pull him out of the water. I shouted for help, and others took over. In retrospect, I am incredibly glad about my decision to take a closer look at the child. The boy was actually drowning – if I had waited longer, his short life might well be over now. To this day, I don’t know the boy’s name. I don't know who he is, where he comes from, or where he will be heading in life.

Extraordinary? Was the evening really extraordinary? After all, I am confronted with the same situation every evening. Every evening, countless children die whose names I do not know and whose lives I could save with very little effort. The costs of saving a life are 

 to be just a few thousand dollars – in the form of shifting some money from by bank account to one of the most effective charities. With a normal Swiss salary, I wouldn't even have to give up nice holidays, eating out, or a big place to live, and I could still give several children per year the opportunity to make something out of their lives rather than having to die. I could repeat the evening at the Marzili multiple times a year! Why not?

Yes, why not? The rescue in the Marzili definitely didn’t feel heroic. Rather, it seemed like the obvious thing to do (though I admittedly felt some initial hesitation about touching an unknown child). Neither did a sense of duty play a role. On the contrary, it still fills me with deep gratitude to know that the anonymous boy's life intersected with mine in this special way. Why, then, do we view donations as something particularly generous rather than taking them for granted? And why do we experience them as a burdensome duty rather than as a beautiful opportunity? If it’s so easy to achieve so much with our money, why should we hold back?

This is where the effective altruism movement comes in. One of the movement’s roots is the Giving What We Can pledge. I signed the pledge along with over 4000 others – it was one of the best decisions of my life. I have committed to keep at most 90% of my income and donate the rest.

Note, however, that how much I donate isn’t even the most crucial part of the pledge. Where I donate is even more important. By carefully selecting which charity to use for serving others, I can open the door to life to 10, 100, or even 1000 times more people than if I gave the money thoughtlessly. Such a careful selection means refraining from simply donating where it feels good, where administrative costs are low, or where I have a personal connection. Rather, it means donating where my financial resources will help as many people as possible. When it comes to finding out where money serves as many people as possible, the effective altruism movement has taught me to discard my prejudices and intuitions and to instead listen openly and humbly to the scientific evidence.

We often see donations of money as something cold, abstract, or even heartless in comparison to helping others in a direct and personal way (such as when I looked into the eyes of the drowning child). However, true love has few more powerful tools at its disposal than donations of money. Carefully chosen donations are my opportunity for making sure the Marzili evening doesn’t remain a one-off experience.

Alexandra Heller

"Real happiness needs to include all of us without exception."

Member Profile: Arvind Raghavan

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

I work in banking, specifically in treasury and trade solutions. My team helps corporations with their supply chain financing needs. After 11 years in Singapore, I recently relocated to London. I was really thrilled the visa clearance came just in time for me to attend EA Global — in fact, I went straight to EA Global within hours of landing in London.

This was my first time! It was incredibly inspiring to meet people from so many different walks of life. I spoke to folks in academia, earning to give, fieldwork, movement building, and from different cause areas. I tried to focus on cause areas I don’t normally gravitate toward. I have a somewhat marked pre-existing bias towards extreme poverty and climate justice (I think those are interrelated), so I tried to prioritize meeting folks working on other areas like nuclear policy and AI safety. I have to say I was mildly intimidated because I don’t have an academic background and I felt not as competent when discussing many topics, but people were very friendly.

Taking the pledge was a long journey; it didn’t come naturally or easily to me. It took me nearly 3 years to actually sign up after I first discovered it. I came upon Giving What We Can through my involvement in the Zen Buddhism community.

In Buddhism, the concept of giving or generosity (dāna in Pali) is very important. It’s one of the ten perfections that practitioners try to cultivate. We are to continually ask: “How can I give?” which includes giving of our wealth, but also our time, resources and careers. However, I always felt I was donating in a rather ad hoc and reactive way, typically following news of some calamity. It didn’t seem wholehearted. I was looking for motivational resources when I came across the Giving What We Can website. The message was so simple: “Give 10% of income.” It was a no-brainer. I first tried giving $100 consistently per month, and then gradually increased that when I realized it wasn’t so difficult. I’m now at 11.5% of income.

Giving has made little difference to my quality of life. If I can save so many lives with no noticeable change in my own, I should probably do it. Besides, for all my involvement in social justice issues, if I don’t share the biggest source of my privilege — my wealth — how can I claim to profess solidarity?

. It is immensely compelling that for just a couple of thousand dollars, we can save a life.

I give an additional 1.5% to mindfulness communities. I think Zen is very relevant today, when a lot of things can keep us busy but don’t necessarily translate to meaning or connection.

There is some discussion within Effective Altruism about expanding moral concern as a high-impact cause area, which resonates strongly with me. My Zen community is deeply engaged in social justice issues. One of our five mindfulness trainings is the practice of “True Happiness.” We try to contemplate how the happiness or suffering of other beings is also our own happiness and suffering. Real happiness needs to include all of us without exception.

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

I feel frustrated with the frequent lack of understanding in developed nations of just how much worse other parts of the world have it. I especially find apathy for climate change shocking, given the contribution of rich nations to this chaos. As the global affluent, I think we have a responsibility to redress extreme poverty and climate injustice.

In the last year, I have also been increasingly concerned about catastrophic threats like nuclear conflict or pandemics. They’re massively neglected, and all it takes is one catastrophe to cause immense suffering.

Absolutely. I make my contribution annually, not monthly. So it’s a one-time massive payment when I do my finances for the year. Every time, I hesitate. I don’t have too many material aspirations, but I do think it would be nice to save up more for a house or further studies. However, I always feel really good once I’ve made my donation — like I’ve done something I can be truly proud of.

Also, it’s useful to remind myself: had my salary been 10% lower in a parallel universe, would I even have known the difference? Would I have been 10% less happy? I doubt it.

Do you try to effect change in any other way?

Mostly through community building. I was involved in the EA community in Singapore shortly after they had started it. It was so new, it sometimes felt like just a bunch of outsiders hanging out at bars and discussing fascinating topics. But it’s been heartening to see the community grow there over the years.

I focused mainly on spreading awareness of the Giving What We Can pledge and engaging with kindred organizations by introducing them to key ideas like cost-effectiveness.

First, I hope that extreme suffering and catastrophic risks are curbed (that’s going to take us a while). Second, I hope we consciously steer ourselves as a civilization away from things that feel worthwhile but are superficial. All our incentive structures today push us to chase material affluence or professional status — but those turn out to be artificial sweeteners. More intelligence won’t help us here, because it doesn’t guarantee wisdom. Thirdly, once we’ve done [the first two], we can dig in and explore reality. I have a strong affinity towards the virtue ethics schools. Once we’ve reduced catastrophic risk, once we’ve removed extreme poverty, I think we will realize what really drives us is the quest for meaning and understanding.

Have any books or documentaries or articles or studies significantly changed the way you see giving?

I can’t remember who said it, but I remember reading a Zen aphorism once that went, “Money does not belong to you. Money belongs to society.” And I had a lovely “aha” moment that’s stuck since. I’d recommend Zen writing to anyone, especially books by Thich Nhat Hahn. My favorites are 

I have a deep admiration for the Stoics, in particular the exhortations by Marcus Aurelius and Seneca to look deeply and honestly at ourselves. We can’t control most of reality, but we can direct our minds to respond wisely and help where we can.

, classics of Samurai literature. Those warriors were intense, to put it mildly. But boy did they have perspective. Their writing is replete with near-constant reminders of death, how transient this life is, and our immense potential for pursuing meaning. “Think lightly of yourself and deeply of the world,” as Miyamoto Musashi enjoins.

How do you see earning to give versus other ways of making an impact?

Earning to give to charity is the easiest step we can each take right away. Whatever else we’re doing, we can save lives right away with very little impact on ourselves. Some of us may be inspired and go on to pursue direct work in a high-impact cause area, and that’s fantastic. But for many, that’s likely not going to happen. So it’s absolutely important to continue promoting a culture of giving. We may not do everything we set out to, but we can each do what we can.

" 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 

Julia Wise

Celebrating 10 years of Giving What We Can!

Giving What We Can is celebrating our ten-year anniversary today!

Since November 2009, we’ve grown from 23 members to more than 4,000. Together, we’ve donated more than $125 million to effective charities, and have pledged over $1.5 billion.

Here's what membership has looked like over that time:

 about the beginnings of Giving What We Can.

Some excerpts from that talk, starting with a philosophy essay assignment:

One of these essays I did, I looked at the list of topics and saw this interesting topic about global poverty. . . . It had never been that central to me, and I had a couple of weeks just looking at these questions, and I had to really confront them. . . . It made me think, yeah, I should do this, I should make this a central part of my life. I made a commitment to donate most of my money over my life and to live on a limited income.

In 2006 I decided I needed to set up some kind of organization to help other people do this too. People had contacted me saying, ‘I want to join you in doing this’ and I needed some way of getting that to work. I had the idea for an organization that would involve both giving more and giving more effectively, but I didn’t have all the pieces.

I met finally a really kindred spirit. . . . with Will present, things really rocketed along.

We weren’t sure what the reception would be. . . . a lot of people thought, this is never really going to take off, is it? They were excited to talk to me, and they thought it was an interesting idea, but they kept saying, no one’s really going to do this, are they? We had 23 people at that point, our founding members who’d taken this 10% pledge.

More people wanted to join. I got to the dining table and started sending out forms to people . . . our membership started growing very rapidly.

A really amazing moment was when I was in Seattle at a meeting where we were rethinking the disability-adjusted life year, the DALY, and changing the definition and improving it. And I noticed at that meeting of about 20 people, about one-quarter of the people who were making this decision were Giving What We Can members. It’s both a grassroots movement but it also has a lot of support from people who are really at the heart of cost-effectiveness and priority-setting in the world.

Both these things I find really humbling, to see how much it’s grown . . . how many people have joined, willing to actually put their money where their mouth is in terms of helping the world.

Some photos from the launch event 10 years ago:

To all our members, whether you’ve been with us for a decade or have just joined: thank you. We’re inspired to know that you’re out there, putting your values into action. We look forward to many more years with you!

Member Profile: Insa Maennel

I am a research assistant and Ph.D. student in law at the University of Osnabrück in Germany. Currently, I am also pursuing a Master’s degree in European Law and Global Affairs in the Netherlands.

 and found out how much we can change by giving to the right organizations. The decision to specifically join Giving What We Can gradually materialized when I was around 23 and about to graduate. I wanted to commit to my ideals and get used to the idea of giving 10% before I started my first job and actually had more money to spend. Honestly, I also did it because I wanted to make sure I wouldn’t chicken out when my first paycheck came in. By now, it feels pretty normal to give 10%, but it really was a process for me. Of course, I could have donated by myself, but I liked the idea of genuinely committing to it and doing it together with others who share the same ideals.

. Since I have had trouble with tax deductions for some organizations (like The Good Food Institute), I am going to switch to German organizations in the future so that I can include the tax deductions in my giving.

I find it very easy if it is automatically deducted from my bank account. I find it more difficult if I have to make the choice each time.

Animal issues are the ones closest to my heart, and I also care a lot about climate change. Since factory farming is not only gruesome in itself but also hugely contributes to climate change, it makes sense for me to support animal rights activism.

Do you try to effect change in any other ways?

I talk about EA in general to friends and acquaintances and try to educate people about plant-based diets in a positive way if they seem interested. I was part of a 

 in the city where I studied. I also try to be positive and warm to others. So, the usual -- smile at strangers, be nice to everyone you meet, listen to people.

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

The problem I encounter is that even if you’re not judgmental, people will judge themselves and think you’re judging them even if you’re not. What I feel is the easiest way is if you actually know quite a few vegans and learn by observing them that it’s actually pretty simple to live as a vegan. This is how I became vegan. But “spend a lot of time with me and you’ll learn how easy it is” is a difficult strategy to implement on the street.

Have any books, documentaries, articles, or studies significantly changed the way you see giving?

, and later I joined a local group and learned more about EA that way. I also read the 

Member profile: Jo Duyvestyn

Jo Duyvestyn is a Research Assistant at the 

, a research program at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. This not-for-profit aims to protect the global community from mosquito-borne diseases such as Zika, dengue, and chikungunya by introducing a bacteria that reduces the rate of viral replication in affected mosquitoes. After they are released into the wild, the mosquitoes with the bacteria reproduce with and replace the natural mosquito population.

While the bacteria appears to be effective, the World Mosquito Program doesn’t know exactly how it works. So Jo and her team are working to discover the mechanism behind the viral inhibition, and she’s happy with how her job aligns with her EA values.

Outside of work, Jo often uses ideas from 

 to put things in perspective. Reflecting on a particularly bad day, she writes: “My bike tire was flat, my drink bottle leaked in my bag, our house flooded in the weekend and is now very stinky… But on the bright side, I'm not blind, soon at least 10 other people won't be either [thanks to the work of organizations like 

], and I'm on track for the year with my Giving What We Can Pledge.”

I chatted with Jo to learn what drew her to take the Giving What We Can pledge, the issues she cares most about, and how she thinks about charitable giving.

I joined almost immediately after I learned about 

. I was doing some research into morality and ethics (which I had never delved into before) and I came across 

. That same day, I was talking to my boyfriend about it, and particularly about Giving What We Can because the idea stuck with me. I thought, “It makes so much sense, why doesn’t everyone do this?”

Having just started full-time work, I suddenly had this income that I never had before as a student, and though I was excited about that, it was clear to me I could live happily on less. I told him, “After I pay off my student loan, I’m going to take that pledge.” And almost at the same time, I realised that actually, that’s probably what everyone says — “After I do this, after I pay off the mortgage, after the kids are through school...” — so I pledged that same night. My involvement around EA grew from there.

I think inequality in the world is what motivates me, and is why I'm drawn towards global poverty charities. I just think it’s not right that we have all this money and others don’t and there’s no reason for it (maybe it’s a childish view of the world but maybe I just never accepted that grown-up mantra of "life is unfair, so get used to it"). I don’t understand how people can think it’s more important to have nice things than to be spending their time and money on reducing suffering that we all know exists. I know I'm not doing everything, that I could do more — and I’m learning to find my balance with that. But one of the things I struggle with is seeing people be so extravagant and wasteful when it comes to money, and not valuing it for what it could mean to someone else.

I like the idea of being more rational about my giving, and I’ve definitely done that since joining GWWC, though I think emotions still play into my cause area preference somewhat. In spite of all the very strong arguments and the knowledge that my brain can’t even comprehend all its biases, I still find it harder to care as much about suffering in the future knowing that there’s suffering now.

I guess the other thing that concerns me is that not everyone gets it, not everyone clicks to EA ideas like I did. As soon as I heard about EA, I said, “Oh, this makes so much sense, it’s so obvious.” I wish the whole world could think this way, or that I could understand the difference between people who don’t get EA and the ones that do.

How do you track your contributions vs. your income?

I make monthly recurring donations through 

, which is an organization here that lets us give tax-deductible donations to the top recommended GiveWell charities, and then I also make other donations. I started using MyGiving when it was on the Giving What We Can page, but now I’ve been keeping track of it myself.

My 10% comes directly out of my paycheck into a [bank account I've set aside for giving], and then I make donations from there. I do get motivated by talking to other Giving What We Can/EA members and discussing, “How close are you? Have you hit your 10%?”

. I give a large proportion there, letting them distribute funds as they see fit. I also give a percentage to CEA, and usually allocate a portion each year on things like Giving Games or as matching money for fundraisers that our local groups do.

I’ve occasionally thought about the savings I could have. There are a few articles online about giving now vs. giving later, but they pretty much say to give now. I’ve never really wished I had it for myself — psychologically I never see it as money that’s mine anyway and I know I couldn’t value it the same way as the people it ends up with. I guess also that giving part of my money away has made me more conscious of the money I do spend. I think I would have not been so aware of my spending without the giving. I don’t really buy new stuff anymore. It’s money that I never had so I don't ever see it as money that I need.

Do you ever talk to people outside of the EA community about EA?

I talked to my family first. They found it strange (maybe a little irresponsible, like shouldn’t I be saving for being a grown-up and getting a house or whatever?), but now my parents and my grandfather donate instead of giving me money and are really accepting, and I think they see the happiness I get from this community.

At the local EA group, we’ve had meetups about how to talk about EA. One of the things mentioned was, “You never really know the impact you have.” I've had people that I broached the subject with and felt they ignored it, but then the next year I got notified by 

 saying that those friends had donated nets for my birthday, or I got asked a question by someone about my advice on cause areas or where to donate. Despite the fact that I felt the conversation hadn’t had an impact, it had.

, I started researching more online, following blogs, reading 

, and though I can’t think of any pinpoint examples right now, I’m very certain they all impacted the way I think, like the framing of giving as an 

, I think because she has a really passionate and motivating way of really simply sharing all the key ideas of EA, an optimistic outlook.

I like podcast interviews, for example Sam Harris with 

). I don’t know how any of them specifically changed my behavior, but I know they all help coordinate or deepen my thoughts a little more.

, really helpful when I was new, and first wrapping my head around spending money when every $4 buys a malaria net. You just need to split your money into money for giving and money for yourself, and still let yourself have ice cream.

I think being a part of the EA community is really important in order to have people to talk to who have similar ideas. I’ve found the community has helped me shape some of my thoughts that weren’t fully articulated: when you talk to people, you can understand more about your own values. I found 

 events really valuable to attend the times I’ve been. I was a panelist last year and made good friends through that. I think that’s been pretty important for me to stay motivated with my pledge and keep up to date with EA stuff. Another thing that seems to come up, at least in our group, is being around other EAs is a way to not get frustrated by people who don’t get it. And I like being reminded that there’s emotional reasons that people are part of EA. There’s so much emphasis on the head part, and the rationality defines this movement, but we don’t need to be cold-hearted or robotic—what motivates people is the heart.

Member profile: Mathias Kirk Bonde

I’m a computer science student at Copenhagen University and work for IBM as a consultant.

I was introduced to Effective Altruism through 

 in eighth grade, about six or seven years ago. I interpreted it mostly as a wacky idea. “Helping other people, wouldn’t that be crazy?”, not giving it much further thought than that. Years later I began donating to AMF and by accident stumbled upon a Danish fundraiser on their webpage. That’s how I was introduced to the 

I decided to attend one of their events, and to my surprise I discovered there was an entire community of people who were keen on doing it seriously. I immediately felt at home. I spent the following year actively participating in their events and getting to know the international EA landscape. I took the pledge to signify for myself that I was serious about the community and wanted to dedicate myself fully to it.

There’s also a selfish motivation for doing it. Before joining the Effective Altruism movement, I would see all the suffering and injustice in the world, knowing that I was living in the wealthiest part of the world, had been given every opportunity one could ask for, and was doing nothing to help. “It’s just a drop in the ocean,” I would tell myself, riddled with guilt, because I deep down knew I wasn’t doing my part. When I started giving, that guilt completely disappeared. No TV or other purchase could make up for the peace I gained through giving.

I am currently donating most of it to the Effective Altruism Funds through the Giving What We Can 

 — that’s all the tracking that I need. I do my best to write in donations I make outside of EA Funds as well.

. I specifically decided that, while I can easily spend hours upon hours researching where to give, there are already people spending all their time on this. I put full trust into the people who have been managing them; I’ve met them at conferences and I sincerely believe they will do a better job than I will.

I value future and present life equally so I probably skew towards making sure that future humans exist in a world worth living in. But I also make sure I’m also giving to charities that are trying to do good now. If you stop caring about animal lives and global poverty, it’s going to be a hard sell to others that you’re doing the most good by donating your money to all these weird things that are not obviously important. I think it’s essential that we spend at least part of our donations on causes that anyone would find undoubtedly good.

. We try to do outreach with the typical community-building stuff. If you convince even one person to join the cause, and she/he is as capable as yourself, you have effectively doubled your impact.

I am vegan, which is funny because I used to rather dislike vegans. But then I joined the Danish Effective Altruism community and basically every one of them were vegan. I thought, “There’s no way that every one of these people, whom I agree with on basically everything, happen to all be wrong on this.” The fact that animals suffer is hard to care about when you’re eating meat. You cannot eat meat and truly acknowledge the suffering you’re causing at the same time. It’s one or the other. Only months after quitting did my empathy for animals come to the surface.

Is there any change you most hope for in the world?

I’d really like to see a culture of niceness and giving in the West. In Danish society, it’s all too common to view oneself as the victim: “Maybe society is too capitalistic or maybe not capitalistic enough, but one thing is for certain—it’s definitely those other guys’ fault.” I’d like to see us adopt a mindset of cooperation and eagerness to help where we can rather than viewing ourselves as fighters against a perceived tyranny.

Have you ever talked to anyone about Giving What We Can?

Many times, but it’s not something I ever try to sell. It easily comes across as self-righteous. Instead it’s better to be a person who is successful and enjoying life; people will start wondering why. You can start by doing rather than telling. Telling people what they should do will not work. Pushing your values onto others only breeds resentment.

Looking apart from the typically recommended books, one book that I took much from is 

 by Ayn Rand. I think many people will find Ayn Rand’s idolization of the individual problematic. I mean, the villain is a guy who donates money to the poor and the hero is somebody who sabotages the construction of a low-income housing project. Not exactly EA stuff. But the book made it blatantly apparent to me how much time and energy I spent conforming to others’ worldviews. 

 helped me become my own person, rather than someone whose self-worth rests upon validation from others. If you have a nagging thought of “am I good enough?”, maybe this book is for you.

Stories of people suffering have also changed my perspective. It’s nice to say, “look, one million people die of this every year,” but I would never relate to it on a deeper level. Reading one person’s story of experiencing these terrible situations, that will inspire me to be a better person and help, while reading yet another set of statistics won’t inspire much action. Ideally statistics should be more meaningful than the story, but I’m not a perfectly rational person and I think pretending to be can lead you astray.

There’s no secret that the EA community is not that diverse, but there’s no reason it couldn’t be. Trying to put an emphasis on diversity could be really healthy. I don’t see why my parents couldn’t do Giving What We Can, yet they don’t. We could do a lot of good done by spreading it to people. You don’t have to be interested in the AI destruction of the world to be involved.

Blog

The drowning child on a Thursday evening

Member Profile: Arvind Raghavan

Celebrating 10 years of Giving What We Can!

Member Profile: Insa Maennel

Member profile: Jo Duyvestyn

Member profile: Mathias Kirk Bonde

Member profile: Catherine Low

A new president of Giving What We Can

A successor to the Giving What We Can Trust

Looking back at the career of Professor Alan Fenwick