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Surbhi Bharadwaj

GWWC Team

A persistent idea is that, if a problem is very large, one individual donor cannot make much of a difference. However, by using evidence and reason to ensure that their donations are effective, an individual donor absolutely can make a difference, even on large problems.

Can an individual donor really make a difference?

This article is part of a series addressing 

A persistent idea is that, if a problem is very large, one individual donor cannot make much of a difference. With more than a billion people living in extreme poverty, one individual's actions certainly are unable to end it, or to reduce its burdens by even one percent.

While it is easy to be distracted by looking at our impact on poverty in relative terms, it is our impact in absolute terms that matters. By using evidence and reason to ensure that their donations are effective, an individual donor absolutely can 

Not all charitable donations have the same impact. Donating to an ineffective charity might not make a big difference. However, when directed to a 

, even a small donation can have a surprisingly large impact.

For example, purchasing and distributing a single anti-malarial bed net costs around 

 and can protect two to three people for up to three years. If a donor gave $6,800 (10% of the U.S. 

 every year, they could fund the purchase and distribution of over 1,400 mosquito nets annually. This amounts to nearly 60,000 nets through their working life --- which can avert over 

 many charities that pursue similarly cost-effective solutions or research across cause areas. Our recommended charities pursue a range of work, including: providing 

 children to prevent parasitic infections, promoting 

 to reduce animal suffering, and researching 

These organisations provide incredible results for problems that may seem intractable at first. By supporting them, we can each have a great positive impact in the lives of thousands of people living in low-income countries at modest personal cost. Of course you cannot solve the problem on your own, but we shouldn't ignore the truly profound impact you could have. If we all donated a meaningful percentage of our income to the most effective charities, together we could have an enormous positive impact in the world.

 of like-minded people who are working to make the world a better place.

Common Concerns About Donating to Charity

Carlos Tkacz

I give because I have seen enough suffering. I have many things I do not need, and I wish to share my luck with others if possible. I also understand  --- and this is something I learned at a young age through my family --- that much of the good in my life was made possible by others. My parents raised me and so many others worked very hard so that I could have food, medical care, education, clothing, goods, etc. Given this reality, I find it impossible to reconcile the difference between (a) my quality of life and (b) the quality of life of others, whose labor I benefit from. I became a teacher to try to give back, and I give for the same reason.

Member Profile: Carlos Tkacz

This profile of Carlos Tkacz is part of the 

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

There are a few things that keep me busy: reading, writing, teaching, and rock climbing. Reading and writing have been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. I studied literature in school, but I have, in the last few years, made it a point to read more nonfiction as well --- from history and philosophy to science and social-issue focused works. I also write and self-publish science fiction.

For me, it is important that I continually try to stay flexible in mind and continue my own, personal education. I have found teaching to be a part of that process. I have worked with students of one sort or another for over a decade now, first as a kids' climbing instructor and guide, then as an elementary substitute teacher, and, most recently, as a community college instructor. I also spend much of my time climbing, specifically bouldering. This has taken me around the world, and I find the physicality of it to be a good balance to my more intellectual pursuits. Climbing has also taught me discipline, something that I find to be a very important tool in my life.

Tell us about your effective giving journey.

I was raised in a Christian church, though I am no longer a Christian and am not entirely happy with some of the service I conducted in that capacity (often motivated more by evangelism than altruism). Still, my experience as a Christian taught me that giving, either through work or money, can be a regular part of my life. I have since come to question the effectiveness of the work we did, but the broader lesson remained with me.

Later in my life, through interactions with the men who worked for my father, who is an immigrant, and through travelling and reading, I became aware of how much of my life depends on the labor and work of others. I learned that, often, those people's contributions to society are not properly recognized nor rewarded. Initially, my response was to try to minimize my economic involvement; I wanted to make as little money as possible throughout my life and to live as simply as possible. This is still something I hold to (for multiple reasons), but, as my academic interests have pushed me to continue my education, my earning potential has increased. I realized that, as a professor, I am going to make more than I personally need. Then 2020 hit. Through a combination of reading, thinking, and listening, I have found the effective altruism movement and have come to see my earning potential as an opportunity to help more.

What motivated you to give originally and what keeps you motivated now?

I give because I have seen enough suffering. I have many things I do not need, and I wish to share my luck with others if possible. I also understand --- and this is something I learned at a young age through my family --- that much of the good in my life was made possible by others. My parents raised me and so many others worked very hard so that I could have food, medical care, education, clothing, goods, etc. Given this reality, I find it impossible to reconcile the difference between (a) my quality of life and (b) the quality of life of others, whose labor I benefit from. I became a teacher to try to give back, and I give for the same reason.

Why did you take the Giving What We Can pledge?

I have long looked for a way to formalize my commitment to giving. I heard about the Giving What We Can pledge on Sam Harris's podcast, and it immediately made sense to me.

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

I care about education, income inequality, and the environment. For me, education has truly been a saving grace. Reading is what opened my world when I was young, and literature helped me make sense of that world. I do not think anything else could have been as effective. My education, both formal and personal, is what helped me escape the fundamentalist thinking I was raised to engage in. Income inequality is also important to me, though perhaps this is more of an emotional response to poverty. I simply find the differences in quality of life between the rich and the poor to be impossible to live with. Finally, the environment is very important to me. As a climber, I spend much of my time outside. Indeed, I have spent the last four years living outdoors in an attempt to have a closer relationship with nature.

Which organizations do you give to (and why)?

I give to the Long Term Future Fund and the Global Health and Development Fund on 

. I also donate some money to political organizations and art groups, and I offset my carbon emissions, but I do not count these in my pledge.

Not especially. I prefer to give my money to those who need it rather than use it for things I don't need.

Do you try to effect change in any other way?

I consider my teaching to be a social act, and I work hard to remember that I am not trying to influence my students. Rather, my job is to give them the tools they need to make the world they want. That said, I do hope they learn that the life of the mind is a special one and can be balanced with a life of adventure. I also have a small online presence in the climbing community. The climbing community is very focused on fitness and is becoming mainstream enough to start falling into some of the pitfalls of commercialization. I try, in my small way, to inspire others in the community to read more, give more, think more, and create more art. Finally, I think storytelling can be an important way to create cultural change, and so I try to tell stories with characters worth looking up to, and I am trying to move into 

What effective giving tips would you like to share?

I try to think of my giving the same way I think of my car insurance: it is necessary and automatic. I find this helps.

What suggestions do you have for other people considering the pledge?

I have a rhetorical trick I sometimes use on students who I think are nearing a place in their lives where they want to focus more of their efforts toward discovering what it means to live a good life. I tell them: there are essentially two ways of looking at your existence (I acknowledge the false dichotomy here, but explain this is just for rhetorical purposes). Either: (1) you were created by an intelligent being --- a god --- who, in its infinite goodness and wisdom saw fit to make you exactly as you are, or (2) you are the result of billions and billions of years of creative chaos, of trial and error, of life and death. Billions of years of unimaginable change and evolution have led to you, now. Either way you look at it, how amazing! How glorious! But now, I say, the question is this: what are you going to do with this incredible stroke of luck? What are you going to do in the short amount of time that the cosmos has somehow graced you with?

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

 have been very influential to me. This will sound silly, but Star Trek has also been an inspiration to me. I think stories matter. I am a latecomer to Trek, but its optimistic outlook for humanity has helped me to believe.

I would like to see a world in which our human activity can be conducted in a way that does not threaten the environment and other people.

" 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 

Julian Hazell

David Holmes

Income can vary dramatically between and within countries. Measures like GDP per capita, average income, median income, and Gini index are important to understand how best to allocate our resources to solve global poverty. 

Measuring global inequality: Median income, GDP per capita, and the Gini Index

Income can vary dramatically between and within countries. Measures like GDP per capita, average income, median income, and Gini Index are important to understand how best to allocate our resources to solve global poverty.

To determine where our charitable donations might be most effective, it is useful to think about how wealth, income, and poverty are distributed around the world. Measuring these things can be very complicated and still is the subject of ongoing research. In this post, we will compare a few of the most commonly used measures and point out some of the subtleties that can arise in the study of global poverty.

Wondering where your income ranks in the world?

The most widely used measure of global income distribution is GDP per capita. Gross domestic product, or 

, is the total monetary value of all the final goods and services produced within a country in a given year. GDP 

 is a country's GDP divided by its population. GDP per capita figures vary significantly across the world.

Figure 1. GDP per capita throughout the world

However, looking at each country's GDP per capita isn't the best way to understand how well a country is doing. Because GDP excludes activities that don't take place in markets, many factors can contribute to a country's GDP without affecting the quality of life of its residents. For example, damages caused by pollution aren't captured by GDP if nobody pays a price for them. Conversely, beneficial activities like housework or spending time with family do not get accounted for by GDP.

Because a country's GDP doesn't necessarily reflect its citizens' welfare, it is often more useful to look at the actual incomes of people in a country to determine their wealth rather than the total amount of economic activity (GDP). If we simply calculated the total income of a country's population, countries with large populations would often appear wealthier than countries with smaller populations. And if we just looked at GDP per capita, we might neglect to account for the harmful effects of inequality. Therefore, we will generally look at the mean income (the total income of people in the country, divided by the population) or the median income (the middle value in the list of everyone's salaries written in sequential order).

For most countries, measures of income tell a very different story than the measure of GDP. One might imagine that the difference between mean income and GDP per capita is small, but these numbers often diverge. For example, the 2018 GDP per capita of the US was about 

 Because GDP accounts for not just consumption, but investments, net exports, and government spending, these numbers can be quite different. Since we're primarily concerned that people who live in extreme poverty don't have enough for basic necessities, it can be more useful to look at how much money they have to spend on goods and services in a given year.

Figure 2. Median income, GDP per capita, and inequality: Selected countries

Note: The size of each country's circle represents its Gini index.
Data source: The World Bank,

Perhaps you're convinced that income is more useful than GDP for understanding poverty — or at least that it's worth looking at. But should we use the mean income, the median income, or some other measure?

To understand the difference, let's look at a simple example:

Let's say the following list represents the annual incomes of a small island country with a population of five:

Ben: $10,000
Carlos: $20,000
Dora: $30,000
Erica: $40,000
Frances: $50,000

The total value of the islanders' incomes is $150,000 per year. By dividing this total by the number of inhabitants on the island (five), we can calculate a mean income of $30,000. The median income — the middle value in our ordered list of incomes — is also $30,000. So in this example, the mean and median incomes are identical because the distribution is symmetric. An equal number of islanders have relatively high incomes and relatively low incomes. But this is quite unrealistic: in the real world, there are a few extremely rich people and many more people living in extreme poverty.

Now let's imagine that two new people move to the island simultaneously: Alicia and Gerard. Alicia has an income of $0 because she has struggled to find employment for quite some time, whereas Gerard is a highly paid athlete. What would happen to the per capita income and the median income of the island?

Alicia: $0
Ben: $10,000
Carlos: $20,000
Dora: $30,000
Erica: $40,000
Frances: $50,000
Gerard: $100,000,000

The country's median income would stay the same because $30,000 is still the middle value in the ordered list. However, mean income would skyrocket to just over $14,000,000 — close to a 50,000% increase!

What would looking at that mean income number tell us? Not a whole lot, actually. The $14,000,000 figure is a useless descriptor of the financial wellbeing of the island's inhabitants (even Gerard, whose salary is many times this number). In contrast, the median is a more useful measure. Still, even the median fails to describe how well off the lowest income person on the island is.

Though somewhat less extreme, precisely the same issues arise when we study real countries. The distribution of annual household income in the US is very far from symmetric:

Figure 3. Household Income Distribution in the United States (2019)

Note: The gray bars at either end of the chart represent income brackets wider than $5,000.
Data source: US Census Bureau, 

What is important to note about the chart above is the shape of the distribution. The shape indicates that many households are on the lower end of the distribution. However, it has a long "tail," indicating that a few households have very high incomes. As we saw in the island example above, the relatively small number of higher incomes affect the mean, but not necessarily the median. As a result, the mean ($98,088) is higher than the median ($68,703). In cases like this, the mean income in a country might not be very representative of its average inhabitant.

With a mean household income of $98,088 and the fifth highest GDP per capita (and the highest total GDP) in the world, one could mistakenly assume that poverty isn't much of an issue in the US. It's important, therefore, to consider the way that wealth is distributed. Both the mean and median personal and household incomes in the US dwarf those of many other countries, a key point we will visit later when we compare inequality between countries.

Inequality within countries: The Gini Index

The difference between mean and median income suggests high levels of inequality. If we want to know more about inequality, maybe we should try to measure it directly. There are several different ways to do this. One of the most widely used is the 

In simple terms, the Gini Index is a measure of how equal a country's distribution of income is. It is a score between 0 and 1, where 0 represents perfect equality and 1 represents perfect inequality. Perfect equality means a country's total income is shared equally among its residents, whereas perfect inequality means a country's total income is owned by a single individual.

You can find a database of Gini indices, as well as the mean and median incomes and a range of other measures, 

. For example, you can see that South Africa is (by this measure) the most unequal country in the world with a Gini index of 

. On the other hand, it still has roughly twice the median income of Guinea ($1,620 versus $840). The Gini index measures inequality within a country but doesn't take into account the country's overall wealth.

It is perhaps more important to consider inequality between countries. Yes, countries such as the US have cases of poverty (at a level that can be shocking given how wealthy the country is overall). Still, both the prevalence and the severity of poverty in the US is drastically lower than it is in many other countries. And thanks to the internet, we can send donations to those on the other side of the globe with a few clicks. In order to be as effective as possible, a global perspective must be taken — that way, we can be sure we are finding (and, more importantly, funding) the best opportunities to do the most good with the resources we have.

The differences in median incomes between countries can be stark. For example, the United States has a median income of 

 for all of its citizens (including children, retirees, and others who are not part of the labour force) and a much higher 

 for those who are working. Even $19,296 is enough to put one well into the wealthiest 99% in some countries. In the Central African Republic (CAR), one of the world's poorest countries, 65% of the population lives on less than $700 per year. If you earn the median US salary, it is likely that 

 in the CAR are richer than you — perhaps only a thousand or so people. That number is minuscule when you consider the fact that the country has a population of about 4.5 million people — more than the population of Los Angeles! Could you imagine being among the richest 0.02% of people in a city as big as LA?

You might be thinking that, while the claims in this post are true, they ignore the cost of living differences between low-income and high-income countries. Indeed the cost of living is much cheaper in the Central African Republic than in the US. Perhaps you can think back to a time you visited a large, expensive city like New York or London. Contrast this with a trip you made to a much less expensive city — a warm holiday you took in Southeast Asia, for instance. While it's true that the cost of living varies between countries, the $700 income figure already takes cost-of-living variation into account using a calculation called purchasing power parity, or "PPP."

PPP is an economic metric used to compare the prices of goods and services in different locations with different costs of living. It works as a sort of exchange rate by calculating how much a given amount of money could buy in different places. PPP is calculated using the ratio between the prices of a basket of goods (think of the typical things you buy, like food, clothing, electronics, rent, etc.) in two different countries.

For example, imagine a (heavily simplified) basket of goods containing the following items: a laptop, a 1 kg bag of lentils, a wool sweater, and a bottle of wine. Each basket costs the following in the US and Mexico:


Laptop: $500 USD
Lentils: $2 USD
Sweater: $40 USD
Wine: $10 USD


Laptop: 20,000 pesos
Lentils: 80 pesos
Sweater: 1600 pesos
Wine: 400 pesos

In this example, the PPP exchange rate is 40 pesos for every one dollar (quite far from the actual exchange rate of approximately 20 pesos for every one dollar).

The extent of poverty in countries like the Central African Republic can be hard to comprehend for those who live in high-income countries. What does the concept of purchasing power parity mean for someone with a $700 USD income in the CAR? It means that the cost of living has already been taken into account. That $700 figure (equivalent to $1.90 a day, which is a standard measure of poverty) is based on what $700 can buy in the US. Imagine living in the US on $700 per year. How soon would you run out of money for the bare essentials, like food, clothing, and shelter? The answer is quite quickly, as many people in low-income countries do. This is precisely why people in wealthy countries can do so much good in the world through highly effective donations to individuals who need them the most.

Your money can buy happiness for others, and at a huge discount!

These statistics are not just a morbid look at how little others have. They can be an encouraging reminder that you have a tremendous opportunity to make a difference in the lives of others, even without a significant sacrifice.

 by two economists suggests that doubling your income, whether you make $1,000 annually or $100,000, raises your happiness by roughly the same amount.

 (published in 2021), the author used a smartphone app to periodically ask a large sample of people with varying incomes how they felt throughout the day. It arrives at a similar conclusion to the 2013 study.

So, $35,000 can raise the happiness of one person earning $35,000 by the same amount as it can for 50 people who earn $700 annually. That difference is staggering, especially because other global health interventions, such as insecticide-treated mosquito nets and parasitic worm medication, can be as much as 

, a cofounder of Giving What We Can and a leading figure in the effective altruism movement, explains this idea with an analogy in his book 

"Imagine a happy hour where you could either buy yourself a beer for five dollars or buy someone else a beer for five cents. If that were the case, we'd probably be pretty generous — next round's on me!"

with each dollar spent, those who live in wealthy countries can expect to do at least one hundred times as much to benefit those in low-income countries than to benefit themselves

Poverty — what causes it, how to measure it, and how to solve it — can be remarkably complex. There is no one size fits all measure we can use. What is important to understand from this article is that a single metric doesn't necessarily tell a complete picture and that different measures should be used in different circumstances. And when thinking about what you can do in light of global poverty, think of two key questions:

Am I in a position to help others with my resources?

If so, how can I use my resources to help others 

If you live in a high-income country, there is a good chance that the answer to the first question is a resounding "yes." By 

 to donate 10% of your income throughout your career (regardless of whether you're extremely wealthy or not) you can save many lives and improve the wellbeing of thousands of others, all without significant cost to yourself. Imagine what it would feel like to save a child's life, say one that is drowning in the ocean. That moment would stick with you for the rest of your life — you would rightfully be called a hero! But what if you could save lives every single year? Well, you might be able to do just that, especially by thinking carefully about income inequality and the power of your donor dollars.

Find out how rich you are compared to the rest of the world with the "

 to learn more about economic inequality.

donating to the world's most effective charities

Countries by GDP per capita (PPP), mean income (PPP), median income (PPP), Gini Index, and % below poverty line

You can filter and rank countries listed by GDP, income and poverty metrics using the interactive table below. All income values are in 

The median GDP per capita (PPP) of the world's countries is $12,609 (halfway between Bhutan at $12,356 and Mongolia at $12,862).

The US has the sixth highest GDP per capita (PPP), fourth highest mean income, and fifth highest median income.

One hundred and twenty-one countries are lower than the US on the Gini Index (meaning they have greater equality).

In the US, <1% of the population are living below the international poverty line ($1.90 per day).

 that 703--729 million people live below the international poverty line.

The per capita GDP of the United States is $65,298 (current $Int, PPP).

The highest GDP per capita is Luxembourg at $124,591 (current $Int, PPP).

The lowest GDP per capita country is Burundi at $785 (current $Int, PPP).

The highest median income country is Luxembourg at $31,377 (current $Int, PPP).

The lowest median income country is the Democratic Republic of	Congo at $549 (current $Int, PPP).

The global GDP per capita, or world GDP per capita, is $17,811 (current $Int, PPP).

The five countries with the highest GDP per capita are Luxembourg ($31,377), United Arab Emirates ($27,017), Norway ($25,273), Switzerland ($25,788), United States ($25,332).

This article is a followup to a 2016 blog post on giving and global inequality written by 

Income can vary dramatically between and within countries. Measures like GDP per capita, average income, median income, and Gini index are important to understand how best to allocate our resources to solve global poverty.

We all have the potential to do a substantial amount of good in the world. One way to do good is by donating to effective charities. This post covers some of the reasons why donating is so important: (i) charity helps people who need it, (ii) giving to charity promotes donors' wellbeing, and (iii) charity can help make the world a fairer place.

Why should we donate money to charity?

Almost everyone in the world appreciates the value of charity to some degree. In fact, many popular religions 

, such as the practice of tithing (giving 10% of one's income) in Christianity and Judaism, Zakat (typically giving 2.5% of one's wealth) in Islam, and Dāna (the general concept of generosity and charity) in Buddhism, Hinduism, and Sikhism.

Beyond the seemingly universal inclination we have towards donating to charity — or, more generally, to doing the right thing — why should we donate? What are some specific reasons why charity should be an important part of our lives? Merely thinking that charity is important is one thing, but it is crucial to bridge the gap between intention and action if we are to help those who are in need. 

In this article, I provide three key reasons why charity is a necessary ingredient for making the world a better place: 

It is effective at helping people in need.

It can make the world a much fairer place overall.

Three reasons why we should donate to charity

Global poverty, the mistreatment of nonhuman animals, and other social injustices cause so much suffering in the world. For those of us who are relatively well-off, what responsibility do we have (if any), to improve conditions for those less fortunate? What does it take to "do good" or to be a good person? These questions concern not just ivory-tower philosophers but many of us who place a crucial importance on discovering the ingredients necessary to live ethical, happy, and fulfilling lives.

One individual who has thought deeply about these kinds of questions is 

. Singer is widely considered to be one of the 

 movement's key intellectual forebears. In 1972, he wrote an essay titled 

, where he argued that "If it is in our power to prevent something bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance, we ought, morally, to do it." Singer's ethical arguments have influenced so many others because of their sheer simplicity and how cohesive they are as a framework for thinking about what it means to live an ethical life.

Blog

Can an individual donor really make a difference?

Member Profile: Carlos Tkacz

Measuring global inequality: Median income, GDP per capita, and the Gini Index

Why should we donate money to charity?

February 2021 Newsletter

My journey to help fight suffering

Welcome to our 978 new pledges!

January 2021 Newsletter

Why I took the Giving What We Can Pledge - John Yan

Olympian Marcus Daniell takes the Giving What We Can Pledge and founds High Impact Athletes