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Grace Adams

November news: Sharing your 15th anniversary stories

To celebrate Giving What We Can’s 15th birthday over the last week, we’ve had so many people share their stories about GWWC and the 10% Pledge over the years.

”This community helps me feel that we can make big differences together. Even though the scale of problems in the world is huge, none of us are helpless. We can use evidence to find the best ways to help, and we can use our resources to put a dent even in big problems.

“I believe in a world where who you are born as and where you were born shouldn't decide your access to basic rights like food, water, and safety. Systemic change is necessary for a fair society, but in the meantime charity helps bridge the gap.”

“Although I didn't do it for selfish reasons, donating 10% of my income has given me sense of pride and achievement. No matter what else I do with my life, I have donated ten's of thousands of pounds to charities that are considered some of the most effective in the world.” 

”An idea that has always motivated me is the idea of the veil of ignorance — the basic concept being, how would you want society to be if you did not know who you would be in it? … The GWWC pledge was one of the first long-term charitable actions I took in this direction.”

You can read more stories all across our social media platforms. We’ve also gathered a bunch of them into an 

, which we think shows the remarkable and far-reaching impacts of the Pledge, both in the lives of those who take it and the world at large.

Finally, to cap off our fabulous celebration, we’re releasing a great new video where Giving What We Can founder Toby Ord tells the story behind the Pledge – from its founding to where it is now, and how much farther we can go. This might be a good one to share with the pledge-curious!

The story behind the 10% Pledge

And the year is not over yet! Pledge Week – the perfect time to pledge if you’ve been thinking about it for a while, but haven’t made the leap yet – starts on the 16th December, which is in just a few weeks!

Register for our virtual events below where you can ask any questions you have about Pledging! We’ll also be running virtual pledge signing events, so you can sign your pledge alongside others and meet new community members.

The end of the year is a great time to take action – and there are plenty of different pledge options to meet you where you’re at, and set you up to live your values in 2025!

Keep an eye out for our updated charity recommendations…

Next week, we’ll be officially sharing our 2025 charity recommendations – so you’ll be hearing from us soon enough! Until then, lots of great news below.

 of Giving What We Can, in a unanimous decision by the boards!

Here are some of our favourite responses from people who took a pledge last month:

What motivated you to take a pledge with Giving What We Can?

“The world is wonderful and worth defending. The world is awful with much room for improvement. I am a part of it, and will do my part.” 

“I believe in the power of effective donations to make a positive impact on the world's most pressing issues.” 

Brooke O’Connell from the United States

“ 'm aware of how fortunate I am relative to most people on earth, and want to effectively contribute to the betterment of life on our planet.” 

Tons of great events coming up this month and next!


Join GWWC Freiburg for a Giving Game on November 7 and help decide which charity to donate 1000€ to! You’ll get to meet the community in person and learn more about effective giving and how to identify which charities can do the most good. The group will head for a cosy drink at the Meihnachswarkt after the game.

November 27 at 7pm at Grünhof Belfortstraße.

Online: Leveraging Your Career Beyond Effective Giving – A Webinar from High Impact Professionals and Giving What We Can

In our second webinar with HIP, we’ll explore how you can leverage your career to go beyond your personal effective giving and create broader impact through professional influence featuring:

Corporate giving campaigns & donation-matching

Workplace initiatives to amplify social impact (and more!)

GWWC Vancouver: Giving Week 2024 Holiday Party

Join GWWC Vancouver for a festive evening of impact. The question of the night is, “If you had 10% of your income set aside for giving back, where would you give?” Get into the holiday spirit with Christmas and Hanukkah-themed snacks, and come discuss how to best make a real difference in the world! Please 

Saturday, November 30 from 6-9 pm GMT-7 at 1443 W 8th Ave, Vancouver, BC

Online: Have questions about taking a pledge? Join our Q&A sessions for Pledge Week

Join a group call to ask your questions and hear what other people are thinking about! Grace and James have been pledgers for many years themselves so can answer practical questions as well as provide details about the pledges we offer.

Monday, December 16 at London 6pm / Berlin 7pm / NYC 1pm / SF 10 am

Monday, December 16 at 8pm New York City / 5pm San Francisco,

Tuesday 17 at 12pm Sydney / 9am Singapore

Neither of those sessions work? Always feel free to reach out to us at 

Online: Ready to take a pledge? Pledge with others during our signing and celebration events!

Taking a pledge is a big milestone – to celebrate the occasion, come along and take a pledge at the same time as others. You’ll get to meet other new people in the community too!

Pledge Signing and Celebration with James:

Thursday, December 20 at 6 pm London / 7pm Berlin / 1pm NYC / 10am San Francisco

Pledge Signing and Celebration with Grace:

Thursday, December 20 at 8pm New York City / 5pm San Francisco

Friday, December 21 at 12pm Sydney / 9am Singapore

​Turn Donation Admin into a Celebration!

​Doing donation admin can feel like doing taxes: Calculating your yearly income, deciding how much to give, comparing the cost-effectiveness of charities, figuring out tax implications, and logging it all somewhere... not exactly fun.

​Let's make it the wholesome event it should be: Doing the donation admin together with like-minded people, sharing and celebrating your favorite charity, all while snacking on some vegan bites.

Friday, December 6, from 17:30 - 21:00 CET at 

Online: Giving Tuesday for Animals: How Can 10% Make a Huge Impact for Animals

 Executive Director) and Lauren (Founder & CEO of 

s) for a fireside chat this Giving Tuesday on how pledging a portion of your income to effective charities can significantly help animals. They’ll discuss how pledging can complement and enhance a career in animal advocacy, the funding needs of the animal welfare movement, and the impact of individual pledges. They’ll also answer your questions – submit one when signing up or bring one to the call!

Tuesday, December 3, from 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM EST

GWWC Newsletter: November 2024

Michael Townsend

How I feel about my GWWC Pledge

I took the GWWC Pledge in 2018, while I was an undergraduate student. I only have a hazy recollection of the journey that led to me taking the Pledge. I thought I’d write that down, reflect on how I feel now, and maybe share it.

I saw respected people wear suits, and I watched (and really liked) shows like Suits.

I unreflectively assumed I’d end up the same. The only time I would reflect on it was to motivate myself to study for my upcoming exams — I have memories of going to the bathroom as a 17-year old, looking at myself in the mirror, and imagining being successful. I imagined the BMW I might drive, the family I could provide for, and the nice house I could own. A lot of this was psychologically tied up in aspirations to be in great shape.

I was bullied a bit in primary school and early high-school. Whether because of that or not, I unconsciously craved being respected. And respected people wore suits.

Despite what I assumed I would become — what I was actively working to become — I wasn’t 

unreflective. On an intellectual level, I found it really strange knowing that the people around me earned so much that even a fraction of their earnings amounted to 

 — and not just some of the worst-off families, but probably for 

I sat with this cognitive dissonance for a while, and sometimes grappled with it. Over time, I gradually thought that I’d have to do something like donate to charities (I assumed only the “good ones”, and was happy to kick the work of finding those “good ones” down the road). I didn’t know how much I should give or what felt like “enough”, but 10% seemed fair. I think at this point, effective altruism hadn’t been coined — I’m pretty confident I’d never heard anything about it. Obviously, I didn’t donate anything. I was 17 and worked at McDonald’s.

In early university, I didn’t really know who I wanted to be

At this stage, I had radically different and inconsistent conceptions of what I wanted from life.

Just taking my career ambitions as an example:

Sometimes I wanted to be a police-officer (definitely because I watched 

I even considered joining the military (probably because I watched Band of Brothers — but also because there was a program I could have applied to that would involve the Australian military paying for my degree and giving me something like $40k AUD a year).


But mainly, I assumed I’d be a lawyer. I didn’t really have a good reason for this (beyond liking debating and having good enough grades). Mind you, at this stage I didn’t want to be a 

. I identified as very left-wing, against greed and the system, so I’d become a criminal barrister.

While all this was happening, I was watching every science/educational channel that could hold my attention, and listening to every podcast about moral philosophy, economics, and psychology that I could find. It was pretty standard stuff for someone with those interests: Sam Harris, Very Bad Wizards, Veritasium and the like. I also studied philosophy and was utterly convinced that moral realism was true (I now doubt that), Peter Singer was right (...I still largely think this) and that consciousness was interesting but hella confusing (still confused). This more intellectual side of me was now certain I needed to give 

10% to effective charities, if not much more. But I was free to think this because I basically had no money and still worked at McDonald’s.

More importantly, my best friend, Kieran, was constantly and forcefully insisting I try to be a better person. It often wasn’t fun. I didn’t like hearing about the harms associated with many careers that seemed appealing to me, how unethical the meat I consumed was, or how morally bankrupt the inequality in the world was. These conversations contributed to a slow but steady change in my identity, from someone who was happy to unreflectively pursue whatever it was I wanted (whether or not I knew what that was) to someone who aimed to reflect on what I valued, and pursue that.

. He talked about the Giving What We Can Pledge, and GiveWell. I was completely on board, and shortly after, I took my first step and began donating $50 a month to GiveWell charities. At the time, this might have actually been 10% of my income.

I recall agonising over the decision theory — should I split my giving, or give it all to AMF (which GiveWell said was the best at the time). On the one hand, I wanted to do the most good. On the other hand, there was considerable uncertainty about which charity was actually best — if I just gave to one, it was less likely any of my money would go to the best one.

I decided to split my giving (though I realised later that 

Two years later, I think I watched Derek Parfit give a talk. Or maybe it was that I listened to another Sam Harris podcast. In any case, I remember that immediately after, I opened my browser, signed the Giving What We Can Pledge and upped my GiveWell donations accordingly.

I want to reflect on how it feels, five years in. It’s probably easier to start with what it doesn’t feel like:

Warm fuzzies (it’s rewarding in a way, but I feel better after doing a big favour for a friend or stranger than I do donating)

A conscious choice (I spend extremely little time thinking about how much to give — 10% feels mandatory, and if I think I can spare giving more, I do)

Difficult (I find things like waking up early, going to the gym, or meal-prepping far harder)

like anything? I have a similar attitude to giving as I do paying taxes — of course it’s something I have to do, and of course it’s the right thing to do. The money does so little for me compared to what it could do for others.

GWWC members’ attitudes towards their giving

 I sometimes feel a bit sheepish, maybe even like a bit of an 

 to feel warm fuzzies, to be viscerally horrified by the state of the world and to regularly think about and care deeply for the beneficiary. I sometimes do, and I want to lean into this when I can, but when I try to be honest with myself, these motivations don’t resonate with me as much. For me, it’s more like paying a sort of tax — but more convenient.

Part of this is that I live, and continue to live, a ridiculously privileged life compared to many, and I don’t really resonate with the identity of an especially moral and altruistic person. While I might sometimes pat myself on the back, I don’t think I should. If someone ever compliments me on being generous, I have no idea how to respond.

I wonder how many other Pledgers feel this way.

I expect platitudes like “everyone’s journey is different” is in fact the wise attitude to have here.

The most important thing is that we don’t accept living in a world where every few hours enough children die from malaria to fill up a Boeing 737. That billions of factory farmed animals suffer in torment so horrible we would rightly put someone in jail if they did it to one of a select few animals we decided to care about. And that all of humanity’s progress might prematurely come to nothing, at our own hands.

Giving 10% of your income to the most effective solutions to these problems is part of not accepting that. I think more people — including most people reading this — should 

But there are many ways to act with integrity, or more generally be of good character. And there are many good motivations for taking the Pledge. For some, it may be a useful commitment device to act as they believe they should, even if it’s psychologically difficult. For others, it might be an act of compassion towards the beneficiaries they want to support. For me, it was a part of a personal journey of wanting to do the right thing, and giving up some of my more vain motivations.

Either way, taking the Giving What We Can Pledge was among the most important decisions I ever made. I don’t like speaking for others, but at least on this point, I’m sure most Pledgers feel the same.

Sjir Hoeijmakers

GWWC's new recommendations and cause area funds

Giving What We Can's new fund and charity recommendations

These recommendations are the result of our recent 

Our research team hasn’t evaluated all impact-focused evaluators, and evaluators haven’t looked into all promising causes and charities, which is why we also host a variety of other promising programs that you can donate to via 

We're also thrilled to announce the launch of a new donation option: Giving What We Can cause area funds.

 These funds offer a convenient option for donors who want to be confident they’ll be supporting high-impact giving opportunities within a particular cause area and don’t want to worry about choosing between top-rated funds or having to manually update their selections as our recommendations change. 

You can set up a donation to one or more of these funds, and we’ll allocate it based on the best available opportunities we know of in a cause area, guided by the evaluators we've evaluated. As the evaluators we work with and their recommendations change, we’ll update accordingly, so your donations will always be allocated based on our latest research.

Our content and design teams have been working hard to revamp our 

, so you can more easily find and donate to the charities and funds that align with your values. We encourage you to check them out, give us feedback, and share with your friends (we've made some 

 (Supports high-impact opportunities across global health and wellbeing)

 (Seasonal Malaria Chemoprevention Programme)

 (Supports high-impact opportunities to improve animal welfare)

’s corporate campaign work (Corporate campaigns for chicken welfare)

 (Previously the “Longtermism Fund” — name change to be reflected on our website tomorrow) (Supports high-impact work on reducing GCRs)

 (Supports high-impact work on reducing GCRs)

As always, we value your feedback, so if you have any questions or comments, please leave them in the comments section here or under our recent post on our 

The 2023 Giving What We Can Donor Lottery is now open

 is now open with a block size of $100,000 USD!

Interested in donor lotteries? We suggest you read our 

 to understand the concept better. Here's a quick summary:

A donor lottery gives you a chance to direct a larger sum of money while keeping your own donation amount the same. For example, you could donate $1,000 and have a 1% chance of directing a $100,000 pot.

If you win, the larger sum makes it worthwhile to spend more time deciding where the money should go. This extra time can lead to better decisions and greater impact, without changing the amount you were planning to donate in the first place.

Because of this, we believe donor lotteries are one of the most effective ways for smaller donors to give, provided you're comfortable with the approach.

Winners also get advised by our team and may be introduced to other experts or experienced grantmakers to make the most informed decisions possible.

It’s best to enter a donor lottery if you or someone you trust will actually commit time to think more about where to allocate the funds if you win.

You can enter anonymously (your name will only be shared with relevant members or our team).

 10 January 2024 at 12:00 PM UTC. New entries will not be accepted after this time.

Any payments not confirmed by Giving What We Can after this time will not be accepted as entries.

 of this date will be used to select the NIST beacon entry from which the winning lottery number is derived.

Enter the lottery by making a donation to the 

We are looking for new funders to act as a benefactor and backstop funds for future lotteries. We will likely open up bigger pots if we are able to find enough funding. If you are interested in providing backstop funds please 

For more in-depth information about the lottery process (including the important terms), please see our 

Today, we are launching the option to factor wealth into your pledge with Giving What We Can.

Giving What We Can has a new pledge option!

Until now, Giving What We Can has focused on income as the main way of contributing through a pledge. However, we recognise that some people's personal financial resources don't exist as income — they exist as wealth. Adding an optional wealth component to the Giving What We Can Pledge allows those who have significant wealth to give in a way that better reflects their resources, aligning with our overall mission of helping people from all walks of life meaningfully commit to using a portion of their financial resources to help others.

This optional wealth component of the Giving What We Can Pledge involves choosing to give the greater of 10% of income or a custom percentage of wealth each year. As such, those choosing to add the optional wealth component to their Giving What We Can Pledge will still be donating an amount that is at least equivalent to 10% of income, if not more. 

We think this option will be most suitable for those who are in the top few percent of wealth holders globally, and we continue to recommend the Giving What We Can Pledge for most people earning a median salary in high-income countries. To get personalised guidance on the type of pledge you might consider based on how your income and wealth compares to the rest of the world, check out our pledge recommendation tool.

We've also taken this opportunity to redesign our 

, and we're very excited about the brand new look and feel as well as some improved functionality (such as letting people share their motivation publicly)!

, which is a public commitment to donate at least 10% of your income (or a custom percentage of wealth!) to the most effective charities in the world, we also have three other giving pledges:

 Donate at least 1% of income for any period you choose (with the option to also factor in your wealth when calculating your pledge amount)

: Donate all income above a specified living allowance

Want to include wealth as part of your pledge?

If you have an existing Giving What We Can Pledge or Trial Pledge, you can fill out our 

 to request us to update your pledge in our systems.

Why pledge at all if you are already giving regularly?

, but today, I’ll just cover one important point:

Taking a public giving pledge helps inspire others.

On a personal note, before I took a pledge, I scrolled through the list of others that had already done so, looking for reassurance in the thousands of names that appeared. Seeing the many people who had committed gave me a clear message: 

Blog

GWWC Newsletter: November 2024

How I feel about my GWWC Pledge

GWWC's new recommendations and cause area funds

The 2023 Giving What We Can Donor Lottery is now open

Giving What We Can has a new pledge option!

Compassion at scale: Bringing effective giving to high schools

July Newsletter

June Newsletter

Rapid progress in AI: A call to action and what you can do

Che bello! Charity Elections continues to go global