My internal definition is “take a job (or build a business) so that you donate more than you otherwise would have” [1]. It’s too minimalist a definition to work in every case (it’d be unreasonable to call someone on a $1mn salary who donates $1000 “earning to give”, even if they wouldn’t donate anything on $500k), but if you’re the sort of person who considers “how much will I donate to charity” as an input into their choice of job, then I think the definition will work most of the time.
There probably needs to be a threshold amount donated for “earning to give” to be applied in an EA context, but I don’t see the need for a progressive percentage scale for higher-income earners. If you’re giving 10% of $1mn, then you’re doing a lot more than me and my higher percentage of a lot less.
[1] That needs a bit of pedantic re-writing for it to perfectly match what I mean. e.g., I consider myself earning to give because if it wasn’t for my pesky conscience, I’d negotiate a reduced salary for a four-day work week. It’d still be basically the same job, just a different contract… anyway I don’t think this sort of pedantry is important here.
My internal definition is “take a job (or build a business) so that you donate more than you otherwise would have”
I think that’d have to be “in part so that you donate more than you otherwise would have”. And it doesn’t capture people who’d have taken their jobs anyway, like several EtG-ers in finance. But this is nitpicking—it’s a pretty good definition.
My internal definition is “take a job (or build a business) so that you donate more than you otherwise would have” [1]. It’s too minimalist a definition to work in every case (it’d be unreasonable to call someone on a $1mn salary who donates $1000 “earning to give”, even if they wouldn’t donate anything on $500k), but if you’re the sort of person who considers “how much will I donate to charity” as an input into their choice of job, then I think the definition will work most of the time.
There probably needs to be a threshold amount donated for “earning to give” to be applied in an EA context, but I don’t see the need for a progressive percentage scale for higher-income earners. If you’re giving 10% of $1mn, then you’re doing a lot more than me and my higher percentage of a lot less.
[1] That needs a bit of pedantic re-writing for it to perfectly match what I mean. e.g., I consider myself earning to give because if it wasn’t for my pesky conscience, I’d negotiate a reduced salary for a four-day work week. It’d still be basically the same job, just a different contract… anyway I don’t think this sort of pedantry is important here.
I think that’d have to be “in part so that you donate more than you otherwise would have”. And it doesn’t capture people who’d have taken their jobs anyway, like several EtG-ers in finance. But this is nitpicking—it’s a pretty good definition.