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Ozy Brennan

Visualizing Donations

When I donate money to charity, I try to visualize the effects of my donations.

It’s easy for donating money to not make you very happy. You write a check and you don’t get to see the consequences of your actions. It isn’t as viscerally rewarding as, say, talking to a friend who’s been through a bad time or helping someone move or setting up two people on a date– even though donating money can have a positive effect hundreds of times larger than those actions.

Therefore, when I make a donation, I try to make the consequences of my donation very very salient.

I’ve found several advantages to the practice of visualizing my donations. Most obviously, it increases my sense of life satisfaction and pride in my accomplishments and increases my motivation to donate in the future. However, I’ve also found that it aligns my system 1 better with my system 2 when I’m thinking about my values. “I consider saving a child’s life to be about as good as doubling that child’s income” is very abstract, and my intuition doesn’t have a lot to say about it. If I imagine a parent holding their alive child, and a person who can afford an iron roof and enough food, my intuition has very strong opinions about both of these situations. Through this method, I connect my donations with all parts of my brain, instead of just the ‘explicit verbal thinking’ part.

Some charities are easier than others to visualize. GiveDirectly is particularly easy to visualize, because of 

. I can scroll through GDLive and take credit for cash transfers up to 83% of the value of my donation (the rest goes to overhead). The life-saving GiveWell charities are also particularly easy to visualize: you can divide your donation by the cost per life saved and get an estimate of how many children you’ve saved.

Life-improving global poverty charities other than GiveDirectly, animal charities, and existential risk charities are harder to visualize. The GiveWell cost-effectiveness spreadsheet suggests that deworming is about 

, so if you donate to a deworming charity you can do the GiveDirectly Live thing but multiply your donation by ten.

Animal charities and existential risk charities are more difficult to motivate. I suggest studying what the charity you’re donating to does, coming up with some reasonable thing that your donation is buying, and then following the chain of how it winds up improving the world. For example, a ten thousand dollar donation to the Good Food Institute might pay for an eighth of the salary of a person specializing in outreach to startups, and they identify funding opportunities for cultured meat startups, and that makes it more likely that cultured meat is developed.

I think it’s important, when you visualize, to make sure that a larger donation gets you a more rewarding visualization. 

People do not in general do this on their own

. If your donations save five children’s lives, then you should make a particular effort to imagine five separate children that you saved and give yourself credit for each of them.

I haven’t explored this personally, but I’m interested in thinking about ways to bring the effects of my donations to mind more often. For example, I’ve considered making a collage of the benefits that come from my donations: a picture of a child for each child’s life saved, an iron roof for each GiveDirectly-cash-transfer-equivalent increase in consumption, a chicken for each donation equivalent to a year of veganism, a criminal for each person saved from the US justice system, a star for each appropriate unit decrease in the chance of human extinction, etc.

Does anyone else have any thoughts on how to make the effects of one’s donations more ‘real’, or other methods to increase warmfuzzies from donations and align warmfuzzies with effectiveness?

Image Copyright Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation from The Simpsons "And Maggie Makes Three"

Luke Freeman

"Purely by luck, I have had health, modest wealth, and opportunity, while many others don't."

Member Profile: Heather McLaughlin

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

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

I am a retired teacher. Because I still really enjoy it, I volunteer in several local primary schools, taking music groups (marimbas and percussion, recorders, choirs, ukulele playing). These days I swim for fitness in the sea and enjoy playing the violin and other instruments in various local groups.

I've always felt very fortunate to have been born when and where I was, and into a family that was interested in learning, traveling and meeting people from around the world.

Tell us about your effective giving journey.

When I first began working, I sponsored children through World Vision and PLAN International. I continued to do that for 30 years. In my last years of teaching, I supported Oxfam by firstly participating in and then organising large schools concerts which would raise around $25,000 each year. My personal donations were aimed at reducing poverty and improving health options.

In September 2012, I took the Giving When We Can pledge and have been supporting some of GiveWell’s top recommended charities, such as AMF, Evidence Action, and GiveDirectly.

I'm motivated to give because of the simple fact that purely by luck, I have had health, modest wealth, and opportunity, while many others don't.

Why did you take the Giving What We Can pledge?

Giving What We Can provides a clear way to structure my donations and keep track of what I do. I also really appreciate being part of a large worldwide group of people who share many of my concerns.

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

Poverty alleviation. Health and hunger amelioration. Contraception availability. I also care about climate change and the environment.

Against Malaria Foundation, Evidence Action, Give Directly, Schistosomiasis Control Initiative, Living Goods, Fred Hollows, Oxfam, UNICEF, UNHCR.

I noted 'until retirement' in the Pledge, but so far, 5 years after finishing paid work, I find I have been able to keep on giving. Many years I have managed 14% - so no, I guess I don't find it difficult to give.

Do you try to effect change in any other way?

I have run a 'Giving Game' (and hope to do more), given talks on Effective Altruism and microcredit, organised local fundraising concerts, and have been involved with lots of online activity (such as petitions).

Lending and re-lending each month through Kiva.org (microcredit) is another big part of my life, which complements for me actual donations through GWWC. Choosing $25 loans each day and connecting with others around the world through lender teams is a great pleasure: I am co-captain of 'Paying it Forward', and also the 40,000-member Atheist+ team. Stories and updates of borrowers give human faces to my personal 'doing good, better' activity."

It is also important to me to have my financial affairs doing good rather than harm in the world, e.g. superannuation in ethical funds (I'm very happy with 

What effective giving tips would you like to share?

I try to mention 'getting the best bang for your buck' if people start talking about donations. I then encourage anyone at all interested in the concept to consider donating to effective organisations. Sometimes I try to suggest pledging even 1% of income through Try Giving.

What suggestions do you have for other people considering The Pledge?

Just do it! Try whatever seems feasible to get into the habit.

I would love to get other older people involved in the concept of donating a specified percentage of income to effective organisations. I would love to meet others who have taken the Pledge. I would love to see a broad-based group of people committed to effective giving.

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

Peter Singer: "The Life You Can Save" and "The Most Good You Can Do"

Muhammad Yunus: "A World of Three Zeros".

I also recommend the video by Hans Rosling "

" that shows the vast improvements which have been made.

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

Having leaflets and support information on hand; telling positive stories that show THERE IS HOPE.

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

I have really appreciated articles by Julia Wise on her personal life and thoughts.

" 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

Introducing Luke Freeman as Head of Giving What We Can!

Earlier this year, CEA began the process of searching for new leadership for Giving What We Can in order to add capacity and focus. I’m so pleased to say that Luke Freeman is coming on to lead Giving What We Can!

I’ve been honored to lead Giving What We Can since 2017, but I knew it deserved more time and attention than I could give it, even with help from others at CEA. I’m really glad to be able to pass GWWC into Luke’s capable hands, and excited to see how it will grow and develop. In particular, Luke will be working on transitioning GWWC back to operating more independently of CEA, while continuing to receive operational and financial support from CEA. I’ll be continuing my work on community health at CEA.

The first time I remember meeting Luke was when I was leading a workshop on “Making EA groups more welcoming” at EA Global. Most people were there to learn and absorb, but Luke stood out because he was sharing ideas based on what his home group (EA Sydney) was doing to better welcome new members. As I’ve seen him work on other projects over the last few years, I’ve seen that’s typical of him. He’s proactive, always looking for ways to improve things, and a deeply kind and friendly person.

Luke comes with a history of leadership for EA Australia and the EAGx Australia conference, as well as a rich work history in startups and digital marketing.

I hope you’ll join me in welcoming him warmly! Now over to Luke.

G’day from Sydney, Australia – I’m Luke Freeman, the new Head of Giving What We Can.

I am grateful to Julia, the CEA team, board, volunteers, and members who have all played significant roles in spreading the ideas of giving more, and giving more effectively.

Giving What We Can has been a meaningful part of my life since I took the pledge in 2016 (and engaged with the ideas even earlier), and I’m honoured to dedicate my next chapter to motivate people to give more, and more effectively. Effective giving is a way that many people can have an outsized impact. I also believe that creating a culture of effective giving expands our moral circle and increases the number of people taking tangible actions to effectively improve the world.

I grew up engaged with campaigns such as the 40 Hour Famine and Make Poverty History. In 2011, I discovered the charity evaluator 

, which led me to learn more about effective giving, effective altruism, and Giving What We Can. I’ve spent the last 15 years working in marketing and technology roles (most recently leading 

, a startup aiming to improve social science), and I have volunteered on projects like 

, and the Global Shapers Community. I once 

lived on a food budget of less than $2/day for a month

I’ll be meeting with the community, gathering feedback and ideas, and reviewing what’s been done to date. This will help me to put together a plan for growing the pledge and supporting current members.

Giving What We Can is a community endeavour. Our success is defined by taking action and being the change we want to see in the world.

In that light, here’s how can you help:

 to relevant influencers (e.g. podcasters, journalists, corporate social responsibility managers, highly effective charities)

 (Sunday 10:30am BST / 11:30am CEST / 3pm IST / 5:30pm SGT / 7:30pm AEST)

 (Saturday 4pm PDT / Saturday 7pm EDT / Sunday 9am AEST)

I’m so thankful to all of you who have made this community so special, and I look forward to continuing on this journey with you!

Please don’t hesitate to reach out by emailing 

Toby Ord's book released: "The Precipice"

, founder of Giving What We Can, has a new book out today! 

The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity

. The audiobook, narrated by Toby, will be available on March 24.

Matthew van der Merwe, who helped with the book, writes:

You can buy it on Amazon now, or at theprecipice.com/purchase

You can download the opening chapters for free by signing up to the newsletter at 

Talk about it with your friends and family, or share quotes you like on social media

If you enjoy it, consider writing a review on Amazon or Goodreads

The Precipice is a landmark book that provides a new way of thinking about our time.



We live during the most important era of human history. In the twentieth century, we developed the means to destroy ourselves - without developing the moral framework to ensure we won't. This is the Precipice, and how we respond to it will be the most crucial decision of our time.



Oxford moral philosopher Toby Ord explores the risks to humanity's future, from the familiar man-made threats of climate change and nuclear war, to the potentially greater, more unfamiliar threats from engineered pandemics and advanced artificial intelligence. With clear and rigorous thinking, Ord calculates the various risk levels, and shows how our own time fits within the larger story of human history. Can we protect the legacy of the hundred billion who have come before us, and secure a future for the trillions who could follow? What can we do, in our present moment, to face the risks head on?



A major work that brings together the disciplines of physics, biology, earth and computer science, history, anthropology, statistics, international relations, political science and moral philosophy, The Precipice is a call for a new understanding of our age: a major reorientation in the way we see the world, our history, and the role we play in it.

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.

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.

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.

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.