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Luke Freeman

Welcome to our 978 new pledges!

 (December 2020-January 2021) and want to welcome our new members: 513 of you who have taken The Giving What We Can Pledge and 465 who have taken a Try Giving pledge.

2020-2021 has been our biggest campaign yet. December was a record-breaking month with 261 new members of The Pledge and January broke the record for Try Giving with 267 new pledges.

As of the end of January 2021, our community now has 5,718 total members of The Pledge/Further Pledge and 961 active Try Giving Pledges! Together we've already donated over $219 million and pledged over $2 billion. We're so excited to see our community growing, and our members being so generous.

We've learned that one of the most common ways our new members found out about Giving What We Can is from their friends. Thank you to all of our current members who have been 

 right through to those everyday conversations.

Thank you so much for supporting us and encouraging others to give more and to give more effectively. These extra donations make a real tangible difference to lives. Because of you, there are more children safe from malaria, fewer animals suffering in factory farming, and more progress being made on preventing existential risks. This is just some of the impact you are all having.

A huge thank you again to everyone involved in our pledge campaign and to all our new members.

Your commitment to helping others inspires us.

If you are a new member here's a few important things you can do now.

Now that you've pledged to give, it's good to get into the habit of giving early. If it is financially viable for you, consider setting up a regular donation or using workplace giving -- that way it's easier to budget and you won't forget. If you're unsure about where to donate we've collated some 

 that you can read, or join us at our next 

We ask all of our members to record their donations in their 

. This helps you see what your money is achieving and whether or not you've met your pledge for the year. This is our main source of data for assessing the impact we are having, so it's really important we get as much information as possible.

We are all trying to do the most good we can by donating a significant portion of our income to effective organisations. This means we're part of a growing community all working towards a similar goal. If you need help with something, have questions, or want moral support, then you have our community to support you:

We've finished up the 2020 giving season with our biggest year on record! 1,787 new pledges, donated over $16 million, reached 5,000 members of The Pledge, reached $200M in all time reported donations, and $2B total pledged.

January 2021 Newsletter

We've finished up the 2020 giving season with our biggest year on record!

 (1,008 of The Pledge, 779 of Try Giving) and thank you to all of you who've continued to use your income to help improve the lives of others

We hit some incredible milestones in 2020: 

5,000 members of The Pledge, $200M in reported donations, and $2B pledged in total

If you've not yet reported your 2020 donations, we encourage you to do so.

Reporting using the pledge dashboard gives you a convenient way to track whether you're fulfilling your pledge. It also helps us understand how much and where our members are giving. Your personal donation records are private, but seeing everyone's donations in aggregate gives us a better sense of how much this community has accomplished!

Our 1,787 new members came from a wide range of sources, including 

, various podcasts, and referrals by friends and family (a great example of 

Famine, Affluence and Morality by Peter Singer

 which in turn inspired others to take a pledge (here are some ideas for 

how you can also advocate for effective giving

 who took new pledges, donated to effective charities, shared your effective giving stories, attended our events, and made an effort to learn more about effective giving. It has been so inspiring and heartwarming to see so many of you taking significant steps to make the world a better place.

: Effective Giving Open Forum (Europe/Americas)

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

why he decides to donate each and every month

how we are at an unprecedented time in history where we can do something about the abundance of suffering around us

why he took the Giving What We Can pledge

 is a new podcast series by 80,000 Hours.

Company Pledge member Ida Josefiina has launched 

, a digital community and email newsletter exploring the different forces shaping our societies and future.

how it's grown their group during the pandemic, and gave advice for growing your group too

The Centre for Effective Altruism has released their 

The Centre for Effective Altruism (CEA) is 

 from community members who may want to organize an in-person EA Global x (EAGx) conference in the second half of 2021.

 page has been updated for 2021 with inclusions from various charity evaluators, funds, and regranting organisations.

 email series that helps readers do the most good with their donations.

 as he becomes the richest person on Earth, and Vox's Kelsey Piper and Sigal Samuel 

 sparked discussion of effective philanthropy with responses from 

GiveWell released a report on a new standout charity: 

 (incubated by Charity Entrepreneurship) posted about their plans to improve lives through family planning initiatives.

Animal Charity Evaluators has released a 

comparison chart of its top recommended and standout charities

pledging to sell more plant-based meat and dairy

7 Big Wins For Farmed Animal Welfare In 2020

' Lewis Bollard tells the good news stories you might have missed about farmed animal welfare in 2020.

interviewed on the Hear This Idea Podcast

tracking attitudes to global catastrophic risks and international cooperation

the 21st century will be a crucial test of humanity's ability to manage a wide range of existential threats

develop improving institutional decision-making as a cause area

 within and beyond the effective altruism movement.

what longtermism recommend doing in all sorts of everyday situations

case for longtermism and provides supporting donation recommendations

Two critiques on strong longtermism were published on the EA Forum by 

 (each with many responses in the comments).

without cheap, safe, low-carbon energy sources at scale we are stuck between high greenhouse gas emissions and energy poverty

 effective altruism should focus more on climate change

critique of the new climate change charity evaluator Giving Green

A great way to multiply your impact is to simply tell people about effective giving. Here are just a few ways you can help advocate for effective giving:

 from your website, social media, blog, email signature

 about effective giving (e.g. at work or school, religious or community group, book or social club).

Report your donations with your pledge dashboard

 with Giving What We Can and effective altruism.

Discuss effective giving and effective altruism on the 

Do you have questions about the pledge, Giving What We Can, or effective altruism in general? Check out our 

This is the online edition of our January 2020 email newsletter (

John Yan

"To me, the pledge is a gesture of commitment and accountability that manifests that. I hope to look back on this as one of the proudest things I’ve ever done."

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

John Yan | People who give effectively

 is a way of taking something we believe and “making it official”. John Yan shared with us how this process happened for him, and why he thinks this was an important thing for him to do. You can 

read more about John's decision to pledge on his blog

The idea of wanting to help, and that there were people in need, wasn’t new for John. But like many of us, it took some time to work out how to integrate this into his life as an adult.

“When I was a boy, I dreamed of becoming a super-genius inventor. I’d become ultra-rich and then use all my wealth to help those who needed it the most. Then I grew up and learned Bill Gates already sort of did that.
I grew up some more and learned about 

, and all these adjacent organizations.
I remember feeling inspiration and joy knowing I wasn’t alone in this activism.
And yet, it wasn’t until after college that I started to make it a greater part of my life. I started consuming the literature - I read the books, listened to the podcasts, browsed the forums, and went to the meetups”

Nearly four years later, John has a comfortable, stable job. Looking back through the lens of his values he decided it was time to make a stronger commitment.

. But I still recognize that I’m more reciting the convincing points made by the effective altruism community than I am integrating it into my life. I could talk about living my values and flowery principles, but at the end of the day I saw taking the pledge as putting my money where my mouth is. I believe I can exchange a small bit of my own welfare for that of others, at a tremendous rate, and I believed this before I met anyone else that did.
To me, the pledge is a gesture of commitment and accountability that manifests that. I hope to look back on this as one of the proudest things I’ve ever done.”

" 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 

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

Marcus Daniell

Professional tennis player, Marcus Daniell, has taken the The Giving What We Can Pledge to give at least 10% of his income to effective charities.

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

On January 4th 2021, I pledged to donate 10% or more of my annual winnings to effective organisations for the rest of my life.

This decision wasn't completely out of the blue. I began my giving journey in 2015 with a small, tentative donation, then the next year I took a 

 to donate one percent. That felt really good, so the year after I donated five percent. Over the years I steadily increased that percentage until, in 2020, I founded 

 and donated over ten percent. And now we're here.

The more I look into the charity world the more I realise that I won the birth lottery just by being born in a first world country. Compared to the global standard I have been extremely privileged my whole life. It makes sense that I should give a small portion of my own earnings to those who need it so much more than I do.

I want to set a positive example. I have a fervent hope that many others, both athletes and the general public, will join me in whichever way feels right for them.

Making a commitment public like this is a powerful way to hold oneself accountable. Now that I have told the world what I intend to do I expect to be called out if I don't do it.

I have been inspired by philosophers like 

 movement, who donate everything they earn above a living salary. Those two have had truly gargantuan positive impact as a result of their actions, speeches, and writing. I hope to add to their legacy.

Donating 10% of your income sounds scary, but it's really not scary at all. I don't need a fancy car or an expensive watch or even an extra barista-made coffee each day to be happy. Donating that 10% is not going to decrease my happiness, but it is going to make thousands of lives a whole lot better.

I strongly believe that those in the nonprofit world should walk the talk. I wouldn't expect anyone to donate or pledge if I wasn't donating or pledging myself.

Community. I am joining over 5,500 other 10% pledgers on 

, and knowing that I am just one person in a multitude of givers makes me hopeful for the future of this planet and its inhabitants.

I take deep pleasure in knowing that every success I have in my working life will ultimately end up saving or changing lives.

If you are interested in taking the pledge please do reach out to me. Even a 1% pledge is a beautiful life move that will benefit so many, including yourself. You can reach me at 

originally posted on the High Impact Athletes blog

 by Marcus Daniell, the founder of High Impact Athletes.

 is a meta-charity that channels donations to the most cost-effective, evidence-based, and impactful nonprofit organisations in the world. HIA harnesses the wealth and social influence of high-profile athletes to both spread the word about effective giving, and to create an ever-growing snowball of donations starting from the athletes themselves and growing amongst their followings.

Ben Chugg

2020 has been a challenging year. However, we are at an unprecedented time in history: we can do something about the abundance of suffering around us.

When unprecedented times meet unprecedented opportunities

For many, 2020 has been a challenging year.

The global disruption wrought by the pandemic has caused loneliness, estrangement, and sorrow. We have witnessed death and injustice, poverty and sickness. It is a rare person who has been untouched by tragedy. And yet, while the pandemic has brought some of the world's suffering into sharper focus, it also reminds us of the tremendous progress we have made.

We are at an unprecedented time in history: 

We can do something about the abundance of suffering around us

For most of our story, our ability to eradicate poverty, cure disease, and save lives was devastatingly limited. We were hostages to our environments, our biology, and our traditions. Finally, trusting in our creativity, we began to develop powerful ideas on how to improve life.

 to reduce animal suffering in factory farms. We've created democratic institutions to protect the vulnerable and reduce conflict.

Naturally, our progress has not always been smooth and has required the dedication of peoples and cultures worldwide. But our efforts are highlighted in the drastic 

. These are all staggering feats of human ingenuity.

The world is getting better, and with this progress comes an incredible opportunity --- an opportunity to do an amount of good heretofore unimaginable. A life can be saved for 

, and dramatically improved for just a few hundred. By donating to 

reduce the needless suffering of animals;

The collective ability to increase flourishing at such scale is new and something to cherish.

Of course, like all our knowledge, our ideas of how to best help the world are flawed. Our reasoning is prone to error, our methods prone to failure. But it is from our mistakes that we learn and improve.

By donating to effective causes, volunteering for effective charities, or dedicating your career to solving our world's problems, you can help continue the tradition of incremental improvement. You can help to grow our collective knowledge, thereby handing the next generation a slightly better world.

As we reflect on the year, let us remind ourselves of this opportunity before us. While we should not ignore ongoing suffering, nor forget the ones we've lost, we can be grateful that there are reliable ways to help and to mitigate similar tragedies in the future. So far this December, over 300 people have 

pledged to donate a portion of their income to effective charities

. Witnessing them take this opportunity is inspiring. Let's join them and help bring about an increasingly better world.

"Finally the horizon seems clear again, even if not bright; finally our ships may set out again ... the sea, our sea, lies open again; maybe there has never been such an 'open sea'." - Nietzsche

Juan Magasich

Giving What We Can member Juan Magasich explores why he decides to donate each and every month.

My end of month: Reflections on donating

It is the end of the month, so for me, it is the time to go over my income and expenses (a possibly futile way of telling myself that I have control over these kinds of things). I look over my major monthly expenses quickly, so it isn't too painful to contemplate, and, of course, I check out my salary. Then, I review other payments, like monthly lessons, loan fees, and, for almost two years now, my monthly pledged contribution to effective charities. I am generally a cautious guy, so every time I make the payment, I find myself asking the question: why?

Reaching adulthood is a difficult transition. It means worrying about what you eat, drinking those eight daily glasses of water, and so many other things that weren't concerns when you were younger. Also, money becomes an actual issue. Once you are making your own money, there seem to be two directions you can take. The first one is to spend, to "live the good life"- go out to nice restaurants, indulge your hobbies, and so on. On the other hand, you can also save money, hopefully in a smart way. The question behind these two aspects, really, is how can I use my money well?

For spending, the answer was quite clear for me: I will spend what I actually can, and on what I actually want to. Truth be told, for me there are not too many things I actually want to buy. It always comes down to the question "is it really worth it?", and the answer, quite often, is "no, it is not."

What about saving? When I first ventured into the jungle of adulthood, and still sometimes today, there were well-meaning, if slightly irritating, friends and family members who would remind me of the importance of putting my money to work. In my bank account, my cash was comfortably sleeping, not bothering anyone, working as a backup cushion but it was not being "useful." They urged me to take a more active approach to managing my money, citing term deposits, mutual funds, and the like. But for me, to be frank, the idea of making money to make more money for money's sake didn't really appeal either. I delayed researching investment options. After all, what I made was already enough for me, and I was managing to save a healthy amount each month.

A few years ago there was an author who really caught my attention, so I looked him up on the TED website (I am a nerd who likes spending time on sites like Quora, Ted, and other blogs). It was 

a short speech about something called "effective altruism"

Peter Singer: The why and how of effective altruism

Singer opened his talk by citing a UNICEF statistic that 69,000,000 children die every year due to preventable diseases. He then asked the audience directly: the moral question here is can we do anything about it? And he answered that question with an emphatic yes, as long as we reflect on how to do it effectively. This comment caught my attention, for I always associated altruism, first, with purely good intentions, and second, with some sort of a general occupation or full-time profession that was distant from my job as a litigant lawyer. But Singer argued that it is not just an issue of pure will and good intentions, nor a full-time job. He said there also has to be some thought about the how.

With these ideas in mind, I realized there were new possible answers to the questions I asked as I became an adult. In a first approximation, it had seemed that what I did with my money was an individualistic question - the question about "how can I use my money well?" appeared to be "how can my money be the most useful to me?" As I became aware of 

, though, the question became both simpler and more complicated: "how can my money be the most useful?"

"How can my money be the most useful" is a profound question. So let's say that I have $100 to spare monthly. I could spend it on a fine jacket that I really like, or on a new lens for my camera. I could take my girlfriend out for a (really!) nice dinner, or invite my brothers and parents for a meal. Any of these options would be nice, for me. But wouldn't that same money be better-spent on a vaccine for a child that cannot afford it, preventing a fatal infection? We can change the examples, but the question remains: how can my money be the most useful?

I started by describing my end-of-month routine (though it is usually more chaotic than the way I present it here!), and the thoughts that come along with it. Even though, every month, I continue to ask myself the same questions about how to spend my money, I continue to donate a portion of my salary. I want to acknowledge, though, that I keep asking myself about why I give, and that it is a difficult question to answer, much more difficult than the paragraphs above suggest. I want to acknowledge, too, that the framework I described depends on whether a person can afford these kinds of choices. Not everyone has the luxury I have to make the choice to give. It all starts from the point of individual abundance; otherwise, it is just not possible.

There are other questions that trouble me, too:

Blog

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

When unprecedented times meet unprecedented opportunities

My end of month: Reflections on donating

December 2020 Newsletter

What charity should you donate your stimulus check to?

The behavioural science of donating to charity: Why we sometimes fail to do the most good we can, and what can be done about it

How does change happen? The power of social proof in behaviour change & successful movement growth