Giving What We Can

 

Giving What We Can was founded as a giving society in 2009 by Toby Ord, an ethics researcher at Oxford, his wife Bernadette Young, a physician in training at the time, and fellow ethicist William MacAskill^[3][4][2] with the goal of encouraging people to give at least 10% of their income on a regular basis to alleviate world poverty.^[5] This is similar to Ma'aser kesafim (giving 10% of income) in Jewish tradition and zakat^[6] in Islam, but Ord said there was no religious motivation behind it.^[7] Ord cited writings from Peter Singer and Thomas Pogge about one's moral duty to give to the poor as inspiration for starting the organisation,^[8] and personally planned to give away everything above about $28,000 a year, the median after-tax salary in the U.K.^[9] His focus was on effective giving, meaning that he emphasised donations to charities which saved a maximal amount of life per donation amount.^[10] GWWC was launched with 23 members.^[9] People who joined signed a pledge to give away 10% of their income to any organisation they thought could best address poverty in the developing world, and could pledge more; there was no penalty for quitting.^[7] By the end of 2011 it had 177 members, mostly other academics, in five chapters including Oxford, Cambridge, Princeton, and Harvard.^[9][11]

By November 2011, the organisation was providing its members regular reports on what charities were most effective at addressing poverty in the developing world,^[9] and at that time was recommending a tropical diseases group and a de-worming group that each worked in Africa.^[12] Ord relied in part on research conducted by GiveWell, and also used the concept of the quality-adjusted life-year to gauge effectiveness of charities.^[13]

In 2011, a sister organisation at Oxford led by MacAskill and others called "High Impact Careers" was spun off from Giving What We Can. This organisation encouraged people to pursue high-paying jobs so they could give more money away.^[14][15][16] High Impact Careers was soon renamed to 80,000 Hours.^[17] In 2012 the two organisations incorporated the Centre for Effective Altruism as a nonprofit to serve as an umbrella organisation.^[4][18] In 2024, Giving What We Can became its own legal entity again.^[19]

In 2017, Giving What We Can stopped conducting original research but rather started to recommend to its members to follow the advice by charity evaluators such as GiveWell, Animal Charity Evaluators and Founders Pledge.^[20][21] Additionally, they recommend a list of individual charities that cover a wide range of causes including global poverty alleviation, animal welfare and the welfare of future generations.^[20]

Giving What We Can used to conduct research to determine which charities it would recommend for members and other people to support. It differed from other charity evaluators in terms of the importance given to metrics of charity performance. While evaluators such as Charity Navigator used the fraction of donations spent on program expenses versus administrative overhead as an important indicator, Giving What We Can solely focused on the cost-effectiveness of the charity's work.^[13][22] It believed that the variance in cost-effectiveness of charities arose largely due to the variance in the nature of the causes that the charities operate in, and therefore made evaluations across broad areas of work such as health, education, and emergency aid before comparing specific organisations.^[23] In practice, it recommended a selected few charities in the area of global health. Its work was therefore similar to that of GiveWell.^[12] In 2017, the Centre for Effective Altruism stopped conducting original research into giving opportunities based on significant overlap with organisations like GiveWell and the Open Philanthropy Project.^[21]

The shared ground of all Giving What We Can members is that they have committed to providing at least 10% of their income by signing "The 10% Pledge". Therefore, members often refer to themselves as "pledgers".

The 10% pledge is a voluntary and non-legal commitment to donate 10% or more of one's income.^[24] This figure is the minimum percentage and was chosen because it has a good balance. It is a significant proportion of income, in recognition of the importance of the problem and the need for real action. But it is also within the reach of most people in the developed world. Some members decide to go further and commit to donating 20% or even 50%.^[25]

Some members decide to go even further and perform the "Further Pledge".

Founder Toby Ord further pledged to donate anything he earned over £20,000 a year, based on his conviction that he could live comfortably and happily on this income. This level of commitment is called "The Further Pledge". The member defines a basic annual income that they expect to live on. All income above this level will be donated to effective measures.^[26] Co-founder Will MacAskill is also among those who have made a similar pledge.^[27]

Because some people may be interested in GWWC but not yet ready to take the pledge, it is also possible to make a temporary commitment called "The Trial Pledge". This involves making a commitment to donate at least 1% of one's income for a specified period of time.^[28]

In 2020, GWWC launched the option for companies to also declare their commitment to donating to effective organizations. In this case, companies commit to donate at least 10% of their net profits to effective charities. By 2024, 49 companies had signed up.^[29]

By 2012 the group had 264 people from 17 countries.^[30] It surpassed 1,000 members in 2015^[3] and 5,000 members in 2020.^[31]

 

Since its inception in 2009 the Giving What We Can Pledge was signed by various prominent individuals:^[33]

• A. J. Jacobs – American journalist, author, and lecturer best known for writing about his lifestyle experiments
• Adam Swift – professor of political theory at University College London
• Alan Fenwick – professor of tropical parasitology at the Imperial College London, Founder of the Schistosomiasis Control Initiative (SCI)^[34]
• Amelia Gray – American writer
• Aviva Baumann – American actress
• Ben Delo – British mathematician, computer programmer, and entrepreneur, co-founder of BitMEX
• Ben Lester – British recording artist and multi-instrumentalist
• Bruce Friedrich – executive director of The Good Food Institute, a non-profit that received donation funding from Y Combinator
• Clare Gallagher – American ultrarunner
• Chris Anderson – Head of TED (conference)^[35]
• Derek Parfit – senior research fellow at the University of Oxford, visiting professor of philosophy at Harvard University, New York University, and Rutgers University
• Derek Thompson – American journalist and staff writer at The Atlantic
• Diana Fleischman – American evolutionary psychologist and senior lecturer at University of Portsmouth
• Dustin Moskovitz – American entrepreneur who co-founded Facebook, Inc. and Asana, and philanthropist who co-founded Open Philanthropy^[36]
• Dylan Matthews – American journalist, correspondent for Vox
• Ellie Chowns – housing and communities spokesperson and Member of Parliament for the Green Party of England and Wales
• Eva Vivalt – Canadian economist, assistant professor of economics at the University of Toronto and the founder of research institute AidGrade
• Janet Radcliffe Richards – professor of practical philosophy at the University of Oxford^[37]
• John Bohannon – American science journalist and scientist who is director of science at Primer, an artificial intelligence company
• Jonathan Blow – American video game designer, programmer and Twitch streamer
• José González – Swedish indie folk singer-songwriter and guitarist
• Kelsey Piper – American journalist and staff writer at Vox
• Ken Baumann – American actor, writer, publisher and book designer
• Leah Price – American literary critic
• Liv Boeree – television presenter and former professional poker player
• Marcus Daniell – Olympic tennis player from New Zealand with 5 ATP titles^[38][39] and founder of the organization High Impact Athletes
• Michael Greger – American physician, author, and professional speaker on public health issues and advocate for plant-based diets
• Michael Kremer – holder of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics, professor in economics and public policy at the University of Chicago
• Nir Eyal – professor of bioethics and director of the Center for Population–Level Bioethics at Rutgers University^[40]
• Peter Eckersley – Australian computer scientist, computer security researcher and activist^[41]
• Peter Singer – professor of bioethics at Princeton University, and laureate professor at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at the University of Melbourne
• Pilvi Takala – Finnish award-winning performance artist
• Rachel Glennerster – chief economist at the Department for International Development (DFID)
• Romesh Ranganathan – English actor, comedian and presenter
• Rutger Bregman – Dutch popular historian and author of four books on history, philosophy, and economics, including Utopia for Realists
• Sam Harris – American author, philosopher, neuroscientist, podcast host, and prominent atheist
• Thomas Pogge – Leitner Professor of Philosophy and International Affairs at Yale University, director of the Global Justice Program
• Toby Ord – senior research fellow at the University of Oxford's Future of Humanity Institute
• William MacAskill – associate professor in philosophy at the University of Oxford

• Giving What We Can
• "Centre for Effective Altruism, registered charity no. 1149828". Charity Commission for England and Wales.