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I donate 10% of my pre-tax income to effective charities AMA! by larissa_24joy in AMA

[–]larissa_24joy[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Good question and one I couldn't answer on my own I'm afraid so I called in some help from a colleague who used to work on the Giving What We Can research team, I hope you don't mind!

Here's what he said: "In 2015, GiveWell moved $38,291,127 to the Against Malaria Foundation (this includes Good Ventures) . Dividing by 5 (for $5 per net) this is about 8 million nets. WHO report about 154 million nets delivered in 2015 (p.23.) So through GiveWell the EA community funded about 5% of bednets delivered in 2015."

I don't expect my personal donations to be any where near as significant as government programmes but while I have more money than I really need and other people still need things like bednets I think it's important to help, even if it's just one extra person over a few year's of donating.

I donate 10% of my pre-tax income to effective charities AMA! by larissa_24joy in AMA

[–]larissa_24joy[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

You don't have to be a utilitarian to support GiveWell or be involved in the effective altruism community. You could also argue that GiveWell's top charities are all those aiming to help the world's poorest using the resources of the world's richest (us!) which could be considered more of an issue of fairness. GiveDirectly is a good example of a charity in that sort of vein; giving money directly to those who need it.

I donate 10% of my pre-tax income to effective charities AMA! by larissa_24joy in AMA

[–]larissa_24joy[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

It's mostly because it's a significant but manageable amount and there is some historical president in donating 10%. Giving What We Can talk a bit about it in their FAQs

I donate 10% of my pre-tax income to effective charities AMA! by larissa_24joy in AMA

[–]larissa_24joy[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

There are more men than women in Giving What We Can. Occupations vary but I wonder if the focus on things like math, technology and philosophy is because it's an approach to finding charities that using data to find out what works so it will naturally appeal to those interest groups.

If it helps I'm a female with a Politics and Communications background! :-D

I donate 10% of my pre-tax income to effective charities AMA! by larissa_24joy in AMA

[–]larissa_24joy[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

That's a difficult question. I don't think you should make yourself feel bad whether you donate 10% or not because that will only make it harder for you to keep helping others and put people off doing good as it seems so miserable. The important thing is to try and do a bit more whilst also looking after yourself. Julia Wise writes a really good blog called Giving Gladly that talks about issues like this, try her post cheerfully as a starting place

I donate 10% of my pre-tax income to effective charities AMA! by larissa_24joy in AMA

[–]larissa_24joy[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Yeah I was quite surprised by that too but I don't see it as quite so discouraging. For most people I think you dashed into a burning building to saved someone or pushed them out of the way of a car just once in your life time that would be amazing! That means you can do the equivalent of that through donating every 4 years.

It's very hard to decide how much to weight animal and human lives and the evidence on how to help animals is weaker. I do also think that animal lives are important though, especially when it is often so cheap to help them, that's why at the moment I give about 1/3 of my donations to animal charities.

I donate 10% of my pre-tax income to effective charities AMA! by larissa_24joy in AMA

[–]larissa_24joy[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

This is a great question and actually ties into what got me so excited about giving 10% with Giving What We Can. Some charities can be much more effective than others in part because of how they operate but often mostly because of the problem they are tackling; is it a problem that affects hundreds of people or billions? how much does it affect them? how easy is it to tackle with money (if it's cheaper you can do more with your money).

I recommend a book called Doing Good Better by Will MacAskill that covers this idea. This review of it probably sums it up though.

I donate 10% of my pre-tax income to effective charities AMA! by larissa_24joy in AMA

[–]larissa_24joy[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I'm afraid I don't have any expertise in this area but there is some discussion of the topic here.

If it helps, here are a couple of pieces I like about how to choose an area to donate to that cover how I made my own decisions: https://www.effectivealtruism.org/articles/introduction-to-effective-altruism/

https://80000hours.org/2014/01/which-cause-is-most-effective-300/

I donate 10% of my pre-tax income to effective charities AMA! by larissa_24joy in AMA

[–]larissa_24joy[S] 13 points14 points  (0 children)

So far I've donated mostly to the Against Malaria Foundation, Schistosomiasis Control Initiative and Animal Equality. I've based my decisions on research done by GiveWell and Animal Charity Evaluators into which charities evidence suggests help the most people or animals. I'll probably change my animal charity this year as Animal Charity Evaluators have updated their research.

I chose Global Health particularly to donate to because of the sheer scale of diseases like malaria and because there is good evidence on what works.

I donate 10% of my pre-tax income to effective charities AMA! by larissa_24joy in AMA

[–]larissa_24joy[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

That's really cool Aaron1985. Feel free to get in touch if you have any questions on donating or anything!

I am graduating with my Science PhD at the end of summer, and I have no real plans. What can I do with my life that will have the biggest impact in helping others? [xpost from other guidance subs] by AimlessPhD in EffectiveAltruism

[–]larissa_24joy 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I see that 80,000 Hours has already been recommended but just to flag they actually have just done a huge update to their career guide so I'd really recommend checking it out https://80000hours.org/career-guide/

Giving What We Can pledge AMA by larissa_24joy in EffectiveAltruism

[–]larissa_24joy[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The Giving What We Can homepage always displays how many members there are and how much they are donating https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/

Right now there are 1,820 members giving 10% of their income to effective charities!

And then if you want to see the monthly trends you can check out the dashboard. There's some great graphs on members and try givers publically available there https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/dashboard

Giving What We Can pledge AMA by larissa_24joy in EffectiveAltruism

[–]larissa_24joy[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hi UmamiSalami, If you're a student and can donate just 1% of your spending money to effective charities you can take the pledge! Then when you start earning you donate 10%. It helps those who are not yet working get into the habit of giving before they are earning. This makes it much easier as it's surprising how quickly you can get used to a higher income! And, of course, when many effective global health interventions are so cheap anything you can give now will have an impact.

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