Recommitting to Giving: A Personal Update

[frankieaw]

TL;DR: I took the 🔸10% Pledge in 2016 and haven’t kept to it consistently. I’ve decided not to pay the backlog donations, and instead to recommit fresh from today, with simple systems to keep me on track. Sharing this for transparency and in the hope it may be helpful to others

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Why I’m posting

In 2016, as a university student, I took the Giving What We Can 10% Pledge. I made my pledge publicly, and my social media profiles show the 🔸10% Pledge badge. For integrity’s sake, I want to be equally public that I fell short—and explain how I’m handling that going forward.

What happened

Over time I lost track of my giving while navigating some challenges in my health, personal and work life, and I stopped donating. I also didn’t keep to the “1% while unemployed” principle. In total, I’ve given about half of what I pledged since 2016.

Looking back, I think giving annually rather than monthly played a part in my falling short — a few times I reached December and realised I’d already spent what I’d meant to donate. So I was accumulating ‘pledged donation debt’, which made it harder to keep up.

There were also moments when I told myself that using funds to sustain myself (e.g., trying mission-aligned work with lower pay or no pay; dealing with health challenges) might be “indirectly effective.” That may have been partly true, and partly motivated reasoning. Either way, the result is that I didn’t meet the commitment I publicly made.

I’m sorry for displaying the 🔸10% Pledge badge while not living up to it.

Going forward

I’ve decided to wipe the slate clean on the backlog rather than trying to repay historic shortfalls, and to recommit from today. For me, this best balances two aims:

• Keeping the spirit of the pledge (giving regularly and meaningfully from what I have), and

• Avoiding shame/​punishment that could make me disengage further.

I recognise reasonable people may disagree or do this differently. If you think I’m being too lenient on myself, I understand that view. I’m sharing this because I value transparency, not because I think this is the correct approach.

I’m recommitting, with systems I hope will help me keep up this time. What will this look like, concretely?

• Restart today. I’m officially ‘recommitting’ to giving 10% of my income until I retire (1% of spending money while not earning).

• Automate. I’ll set up a recurring donation or use payroll giving (if available), so I won’t forget.

• Monthly donations. No more end-of-year lump sums (to reduce the chance that I already spent the money!)

• Plan better. I’ll pay more attention to financial planning, budgeting for my post-donation salary.

• Claim Gift Aid*. Carefully understand when Gift Aid is applicable and claim when appropriate. (Gift Aid counts towards the pledge.)

If you’ve been in a similar situation, I hope this post helps you to know you’re not the only one! And if your conclusion differs from mine, that’s okay.

Thanks for reading.

*Gift Aid is a UK scheme that lets charities claim an extra 25% on donations from taxpayers, at no extra cost to the donor.

[OllieBase]

Starting afresh seems like the right move here, and I think it’s super commendable to share that you’re re-committing.

I have the same problem when it comes to end of year donations, and that prompted me to move to monthly donations (even if the idealized version of me would save accordingly and then make bigger donations more thoughtfully EOY).

Also:

In total, I’ve given about half of what I pledged since 2016.

This is still a lot of money, and a lot of good. Giving 5% of your income to charity for almost 10 years is a hugely generous and selfless thing to do :)

[Davidmanheim]

The way I managed this in the past was having a separate bank account for charity, and splitting my income when I was paid, then making donation decisions later—often at year end, or when there was a counterfactual match, etc.

[Rebecca Herbst]

A vulnerable post like this was well worth sharing. I’m sure it wasn’t easy to open up about this, but I bet many others can relate. I like the idea of re-committing vs. trying to make up for years of backfall—which may likely lead to more stress and an “all-or-nothing” mindset that may cause you to circle the drain.

I think your point about donating monthly and making your giving more of a consistent habit is important. When it comes to planning, have you considered any other resources to keep up the habit? Some simple ideas that could help:

1. Set up your recurring donations in parallel with the timing of your paycheck. This way you can ensure you meet your donation goals before you spend all your income.

2. Put a reminder on your calendar once a month to make the donation, or to check the donation has been made. You could pair this alongside anything else you already do once a month e.g. when review your monthly spend, when you pay your rent, when you change your bedsheets, or whatever it is that you do consistently. That way the habit is tied to a habit you already have.

3. Take a deeper look at your finances to determine whether the 10% pledge is truly feasible for you. If it’s not, that’s perfectly fine, just adjust to a level that feels more reasonable. You may also find that simply getting a better handle on your finances makes donating feel easier and more natural. To help with this, I recommend tracking your spending regularly using a tool like Monarch Money or Lunch Money. This will not only give you a clear view of your overall spending but also help you see your donations each month.

[Vasco Grilo🔸]

Thanks for sharing, Frankie!

If you’ve been in a similar situation, I hope this post helps you to know you’re not the only one!

I guess there are many people in a similar situation. Below are GWWC’s estimates for the fraction of 10 % Pledgers recording their donations across time. The fraction fulfilling the 10 % Pledge is higher because not everyone reports their donations, but I think the numbers below still suggest a meaningful fraction of pledgers are behind on their pledge.

[Davidmanheim]

Yeah, now that I’m doing payroll donations I have not been recording the data. I guess it would be good to fill in the data, for EDIT: GWWC’s records?

[Vasco Grilo🔸]

Hi David. Yes, I think GWWC would appreciate that! I guess you meant GWWC’s records, not GiveWell’s.

[Julia_Wise🔸]

Related, from another member: https://​​forum.effectivealtruism.org/​​posts/​​Y5HggjkG5ZPSv3arM/​​how-i-missed-my-pledge-and-how-i-m-fixing-it

[Benevolent_Rain]

Just to add my personal experience, if you might be planning direct work, especially entrepreneurship and/​or might want to have children—a personal runway has served me well. Not sure if this is stretching the “giving 10%” too far, but you could mentally consider it donated and in case you don’t need it later, you can donate it then. I think at least 12 months of runway at your anticipated future expenses might be the right level (so not a student expense, but if you might want children, accounting for all related expenses). Another situation that could make donations more challenging is if you move cities/​countries for your job and thus might incur extra expenses from travelling to see loved ones. Especially with things getting weird geopolitically and with AI, I think now might be a good time to consider “donating to flexibility”. That said, I think more strict donation pledges are highly commendable but for me it has meant I operated with lower runway than might have been ideal.

[Davidmanheim]

Strongly both agree and disagree—it’s incredibly valuable to have saving, it should definitely be prioritized, and despite being smart, it’s not a donation!

So if you choose to save instead of fulfilling your full pledge, I think that’s a reasonable decision, though I’d certainly endorse trying to find other places to save money instead. But given that, don’t claim it’s charitable, say you’re making a compromise. (Moral imperfection is normal and acceptable, if not inevitable. Trying to justify such compromises as actually fully morally justified, in my view, is neither OK, nor is it ever necessary.)

[Benevolent_Rain]

I like the idea of just accepting it as moral imperfection rather than rationalizing it as charity — thanks for challenging me! One benefit of framing it as imperfection is that it helps normalize moral imperfection, which might actually be net positive for the most dedicated altruists, since it could help prevent burnout or other mental strain.

Still, I’m not completely decided. I’m unclear about cases where someone needs to use their runway:

A. They might have chosen not to build runway and instead donated effectively, and then later, when needing runway, received career transition funding from an effective donor.

B. Alternatively, they could have built runway and, when needing it, avoided submitting a funding request for career transition and instead used their own funds — probably more cost-effective overall, since it reduces admin costs for both the person and the grantmakers.