Be part of a radical community fighting for a better world

In recent years, some of the biggest problems in the world have gotten worse. The decades-long decline in extreme poverty has slowed and is set to reverse by 2030. Factory farming continues to grow, with hundreds of millions of animals slaughtered every day. And for the first time in 50 years, there’s no treaty limiting US and Russian nuclear arsenals from expanding.

Research-backed, scalable, and innovative ways to make progress on these problems exist. What's missing is the funding.

If you're reading this, you'll likely graduate into the richest few percent of people alive. A giving pledge is how you turn that into something extraordinary.

Take the pledge

What is a giving pledge?

A giving pledge is a public commitment to give a percentage of your spending money and then income to organisations that can most effectively help others.

Every donation to a high-impact charity might feel small against the scale of these problems. But it makes an very real difference in the lives of the those it impacts.

And the variation between charities is enormous. The most effective charities can do over 100x more good with your donation than average ones. Where you give matters as much as how much.

The 🔸10% Pledge for students

It's not about giving away money you need right now. It's about deciding today what kind of person you want to be.

For students, it means giving:

1% of spending money while studying
10% of income once you begin earning

You make the pledge today and start small. As your income grows, your impact grows with it.

Take the 10% Pledge

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The 🔹Trial Pledge for students

Not ready for a lifetime commitment? Start by choosing:

Any percentage of your spending money (then % of income once earning)
Any duration between 6 months and 5 years

There's no pressure to carry on. But many people who try it find that giving effectively becomes an important part of how they see themselves.

Take the Trial Pledge

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Why start now?

Because the habits you build now are the ones that stick.

Imagine a friend told you they'd taken a job paying 10% less because it meant they could save lives and do an enormous amount of good in the world. You'd think that was an incredible decision.

That's what pledging as a student looks like. The increase in your disposable income when you get your first job is usually so large that whether it's 10% higher or lower feels the same. Students who pledge before earning an income consistently find that giving 10% once they're working feels easier than those who wait. It’s harder to miss what you never got used to.

And you don't need to wait until you're earning a big salary to be in a position to help others enormously. Look up the typical graduate salary for your degree and see where you'll likely land in the global income distribution. The answer will probably surprise you.

A movement that’s just getting started

You won't be doing this alone.

More than 10,500 of us from over 100 countries have taken a giving pledge. Together, we give over $80 million every year to the most effective charities in the world.

We’re working to build our community towards 1 million pledgers giving at least $3 billion annually. That's roughly 100x where we are today.

If we get there, it would enable the prevention of tens of thousands of deaths from preventable diseases every year, set us on track to end the needless suffering of animals in factory farming, and significantly reduce global catastrophic risks.

It would set a new social norm of significant, effective giving.

Students are at the heart of this. Many of our most committed, longstanding members first pledged at university. You're not joining something finished. You're joining something that’d building and could legitimately reshape our world.

Take the pledge

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Testimonial

"One of the best decisions I ever made"

When Lucas took the 🔸10% Pledge as a 17-year-old student, he wasn't earning any income. He started by donating around £10 per month, roughly 1% of his spending money.

Over time, as he picked up part-time tutoring work, he increased that amount. When he started his first full-time job, giving 10% felt natural. He’s never got used to having that money, so he never missed it.

More than the money, pledging changed how he thinks about his career, his spending, and what a good life looks like.

Taking the pledge led him to get involved with and meet many impact focused professionals leading to him co-founding a startup focused on book distribution in the nonprofit sector. Lucas joined the Giving What We Can 2 years ago.

Having already taken a pledge, once I got my first proper job, starting to give 10% of my income was easy. I just set it aside each month and hardly noticed it was gone. Since I had never gotten used to the extra 10%, I didn’t feel like I was sacrificing anything - which is part of why I think pledging while still a student is such a great idea.

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