Hello and thank you for visiting my Birthday Charity Fundraiser!

Some of you are visiting this site for the first time. Maybe you aren’t familiar with the philosophy of effective altruism and the movement behind it?

I thought about writing a description of effective altruism here. It was going to include references to statistical analysis and consequentialism. It was going to include stories about high powered heart-of-gold lawyers in expensive suits passing drowning children on their way to go volunteer at a soup kitchen. It was going to include reflections on the Bill and Melinda Gates Small Schools Initiative as a case study of the law of large numbers. It was going to include comments on the commensurability between the price of an insecticide treated bed net and the price of a bus ticket to an activism rally. It was going to include quotes from Peter Singer, Scott Alexander, Daniel Kahneman and probably Stuart Russell.

I was going to write this description. But it seemed preachy. And it went against my reason for setting up this page. I'm doing this for fun.

So ignore the assorted shibboleths above. I just thought it would be entertaining to donate my birthday to charity this year.

The money that goes into this fundraiser will be evenly split across the three charities below, which I have chosen for my own inscrutable reasons (they’re good, I promise). All donations are private, but I’ll keep a list of everyone who might have become aware of this fundraiser, and I’ll send a final update to let everyone know how much was raised at the end of the fundraiser period on April 15th.

You are encouraged to try to pressure into donating anyone that you think you can persuade or that you otherwise have leverage over. You can tell them I told you to do it. Look, I'll even admit it. I fully intend to use this page in the future to show off, and you have my permission to do so as well. Heck, the privacy thing isn't my choice. I want people to be proud of their donations. If you do donate, ping me on LinkedIn or send me an email telling me how much (if you want to). I'll still keep it private and I'll think you're awesome.

There is no explicit goal we're trying to meet here. The charities I’ve chosen represent three particularly underfunded areas. It is very unlikely our donations will reach the point of decreasing the marginal utility per dollar.

The donations through this portal are not tax deductible in NZ. I’ve tried. US, UK and Holland only. I know, it annoys me too. As an apology I will, on the last day, match 100% of the donations up to $500 NZ.

Uhh I will also do, for every dollar raised, one (1) press-up at a time of my choosing or whatever.

Happy Birthday everyone!