One can claim Gift Aid on a donation to the Patient Philanthropy Fund (PPF), e.g. if donating through Giving What We Can. So a basic rate taxpayer gets a 25% “return” on the initial donation (via gift aid). The fund can then be expected to make a financial return equivalent to an index fund (~10% p.a for e.g. S&P 500).
So, if you buy the claim that your expected impact will be 9x larger in 10 years than today, then a £1,000 donation today will have an expected (mean) impact of £11,250, for longtermist causes (£1,000 * 1.25 * 9)[1]
Therefore I think the question of:
“donate now and claim gift aid” OR “invest then donate later”
“donate now and claim gift aid” OR “donate to (e.g. PPF) now and claim gift aid, for the PPF to invest and then donate later”
(I.e. I think gift aid considerations don’t favour one option over the other)
Of course, one may reasonably disagree on giving now vs giving later—this is a much more messy question, and one that I won’t attempt to answer here.
I’m not sure about paying into an organisation’s fund.
I think that conditional on giving later, the PPF is a better option than individually taking an “investing to give” approach (roughly for reasons described here)
(disclaimer: I work on the operations side of the PPF)
A £1,000 donation becomes $1,250 for a basic rate taxpayer. Over 10 years, expected impact will increase by 9x (using the Investing to Give report model’s mean estimate)
Using the same logic for global health or animal welfare, your expected (mean) impact from a £1,000 donation in 10 years would be £2,625 (£1,000 * 1.25 * 2.1x) and £5,250 (£1,000 * 1.25 * 4.2x).
Note however that no “PPF equivalent” for global health or animal welfare currently exists, AFAIK
Great question!
One can claim Gift Aid on a donation to the Patient Philanthropy Fund (PPF), e.g. if donating through Giving What We Can. So a basic rate taxpayer gets a 25% “return” on the initial donation (via gift aid). The fund can then be expected to make a financial return equivalent to an index fund (~10% p.a for e.g. S&P 500).
So, if you buy the claim that your expected impact will be 9x larger in 10 years than today, then a £1,000 donation today will have an expected (mean) impact of £11,250, for longtermist causes (£1,000 * 1.25 * 9)[1]
Therefore I think the question of:
“donate now and claim gift aid” OR “invest then donate later”
...can be reframed as:
“donate now and claim gift aid” OR “donate to (e.g. PPF) now and claim gift aid, for the PPF to invest and then donate later”
(I.e. I think gift aid considerations don’t favour one option over the other)
Of course, one may reasonably disagree on giving now vs giving later—this is a much more messy question, and one that I won’t attempt to answer here.
I think that conditional on giving later, the PPF is a better option than individually taking an “investing to give” approach (roughly for reasons described here)
(disclaimer: I work on the operations side of the PPF)
A £1,000 donation becomes $1,250 for a basic rate taxpayer. Over 10 years, expected impact will increase by 9x (using the Investing to Give report model’s mean estimate)
Using the same logic for global health or animal welfare, your expected (mean) impact from a £1,000 donation in 10 years would be £2,625 (£1,000 * 1.25 * 2.1x) and £5,250 (£1,000 * 1.25 * 4.2x).
Note however that no “PPF equivalent” for global health or animal welfare currently exists, AFAIK