How did Giving What We Can start?

The idea of Giving What We Can came to Oxford philosopher Toby Ord after he was inspired by ethicists such as Peter Singer to pledge a significant proportion of his income to effective charities.

In November 2009, Toby and fellow Oxford philosopher Will MacAskill launched Giving What We Can, an organisation dedicated to creating a culture where people are inspired to give to the world’s most effective charities. The pair concluded that a tremendous amount of good could be done by carefully combining the head and the heart to analyse and compare charities based on how effective they are at helping others.

Giving What We Can was one of the first communities in a growing network of like-minded organisations focused on effective altruism, the project of using evidence and reason to figure out how to best help others, and taking action on that basis.