The Nonlinear Library EA - My lifelong pledge to give away 10% of my income each year (and where I donated in 2023) by James Özden
Feb 13, 2024
17:25
Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: My lifelong pledge to give away 10% of my income each year (and where I donated in 2023), published by James Özden on February 13, 2024 on The Effective Altruism Forum.
Note: Cross-posted from my blog. There is probably not much new here for long-time members of the EA community, some of whom have been giving 10%+ of their income for over a decade. However, I thought it might be interesting for newer EA Forum readers, and for folks who are more left-wing/progressive than average (like me), to see what arguments are compelling to someone of that worldview.
In November 2022, I took the
Giving What We Can pledge to give away 10% of my pre-tax income, to the most effective charities and opportunities, for the rest of my life. I'm very proud of taking the pledge, and feel great about finishing my first full year! I wanted to share some thoughts on how it's been for me, as well as some concrete places I donated to.
Broadly, I feel like I've been committed to doing the most good (
whatever that means) for several years now, but it took some time for me to get going with my donations. One big factor is that I haven't been earning too much, especially when I was working full-time with Animal Rebellion/Extinction Rebellion, where people used to get paid between £400-1000 per month. Otherwise, I thought it would be a significant financial burden, even when my salary increased, that would make it difficult for me to build a financial safety net.
But primarily, it's a reasonably big commitment, so I think taking some time to stew on it can be useful.
Despite this, I've been surprised by how quickly the Giving What We Can (GWWC) pledge has become a part of my identity. Now, I'm so happy that I've pledged, and feel amazing that I'm able to support great projects to improve the world (you can tell because I'm already preaching about it - sorry not sorry).
Importantly, I don't think donating is the only way for people to improve the world, and not necessarily the most impactful. But, I don't see it as an either/or, but rather a both/and. Simply, I don't think the decision is whether to dedicate your career to highly impactful work OR dedicate your free time (or career) to political activism OR donate some proportion of your income to effective projects.
Rather, I think one can both pursue a high-impact career and give a lot, as donating often gives you the ability to have a huge impact with relatively little time investment. Tangibly, I've probably spent between 5-10 hours to donate around £3,000 this year, which I think will have a lot of positive impact with a relatively small time investment on my side (this was helped partially with the use of
expert funds and my prior knowledge in a given area, but more on that later).
However, I want to speak about some of the key points that convinced me to give 10% of my income for the rest of my life, namely:
I am better off than 98% of the world, for no great reason besides that I grew up in a wealthy country, and it is a huge travesty if I don't use some percentage of this luck to help others.
Donations can have very meaningful impacts on the issues I care about, often far more than other lifestyle choices I might be already making.
I think the world would be a much better place if everyone was committed to giving some of their income/wealth, and there's no reason why it shouldn't start with me.
(If you just want to see where I donated to in 2023, skip to the bottom).
Why I decided to take the pledge
Most people reading this are in the top 5% of wealth globally, and we should do something about it
As someone who has been fairly engaged in progressive political activism, I often hear lots of comments attributing some key problems in the world, whether it's climate change, inequality or poverty, to the richest 1%. However, I think most peopl...
Note: Cross-posted from my blog. There is probably not much new here for long-time members of the EA community, some of whom have been giving 10%+ of their income for over a decade. However, I thought it might be interesting for newer EA Forum readers, and for folks who are more left-wing/progressive than average (like me), to see what arguments are compelling to someone of that worldview.
In November 2022, I took the
Giving What We Can pledge to give away 10% of my pre-tax income, to the most effective charities and opportunities, for the rest of my life. I'm very proud of taking the pledge, and feel great about finishing my first full year! I wanted to share some thoughts on how it's been for me, as well as some concrete places I donated to.
Broadly, I feel like I've been committed to doing the most good (
whatever that means) for several years now, but it took some time for me to get going with my donations. One big factor is that I haven't been earning too much, especially when I was working full-time with Animal Rebellion/Extinction Rebellion, where people used to get paid between £400-1000 per month. Otherwise, I thought it would be a significant financial burden, even when my salary increased, that would make it difficult for me to build a financial safety net.
But primarily, it's a reasonably big commitment, so I think taking some time to stew on it can be useful.
Despite this, I've been surprised by how quickly the Giving What We Can (GWWC) pledge has become a part of my identity. Now, I'm so happy that I've pledged, and feel amazing that I'm able to support great projects to improve the world (you can tell because I'm already preaching about it - sorry not sorry).
Importantly, I don't think donating is the only way for people to improve the world, and not necessarily the most impactful. But, I don't see it as an either/or, but rather a both/and. Simply, I don't think the decision is whether to dedicate your career to highly impactful work OR dedicate your free time (or career) to political activism OR donate some proportion of your income to effective projects.
Rather, I think one can both pursue a high-impact career and give a lot, as donating often gives you the ability to have a huge impact with relatively little time investment. Tangibly, I've probably spent between 5-10 hours to donate around £3,000 this year, which I think will have a lot of positive impact with a relatively small time investment on my side (this was helped partially with the use of
expert funds and my prior knowledge in a given area, but more on that later).
However, I want to speak about some of the key points that convinced me to give 10% of my income for the rest of my life, namely:
I am better off than 98% of the world, for no great reason besides that I grew up in a wealthy country, and it is a huge travesty if I don't use some percentage of this luck to help others.
Donations can have very meaningful impacts on the issues I care about, often far more than other lifestyle choices I might be already making.
I think the world would be a much better place if everyone was committed to giving some of their income/wealth, and there's no reason why it shouldn't start with me.
(If you just want to see where I donated to in 2023, skip to the bottom).
Why I decided to take the pledge
Most people reading this are in the top 5% of wealth globally, and we should do something about it
As someone who has been fairly engaged in progressive political activism, I often hear lots of comments attributing some key problems in the world, whether it's climate change, inequality or poverty, to the richest 1%. However, I think most peopl...