Apologies in advance if this response shouldn’t be here as I’m giving a slightly different type of answer.
I was feeling slightly reluctant to admit this, but I am not currently donating money and am instead saving/investing as much as I can, mainly because I am still highly uncertain about where to give.
Ever since first learning about EA my favoured cause area has gone from global health, to ending factory farming, to being quite unsure as I started to take long-termism more seriously. As it stands there are still a number of topics I want to (continue to) mull over including longtermism and its different types, cluelessness, suffering-focused ethics, and wild animal welfare to name a few. I am also uncertain if I want to give to an EA Fund, to organisations directly, or even to a long-term investment fund. Basically I’m pretty clueless!
If I had to give some money right now, I would probably give to the Global Priorities Institute because I have been very impressed with their work so far and I think further work has the potential to alter my views and those of the EA community at large.
I have taken the Giving What We Can pledge and fully intend to give a large chunk of my money over the course of my life, but I just feel I need to figure some things out before I start giving again.
I think that’s a reasonable position—the arguments for investing to give seem pretty strong to me—and that it makes sense to share it here :)
Perhaps the title should really be interpreted as “What are you doing with your altruistic budget in 2020 and why?” Some of those actions might not be strictly “donations”—e.g. giving to support a specific person to have an impact (without them being a registered charity), or investing to give later.
I think if I was investing to give with my GWWC 10%, I’d probably do so via a donor-advised fund, as that feels a bit more in-keeping with the pledge to me (as well as a bit more safe from value-drift). But that’s just my tentative view—I don’t see anything about this on GWWC’s FAQ, from a quick skim.
I think if I was investing to give with my GWWC 10%, I’d probably do so via a donor-advised fund, as that feels a bit more in-keeping with the pledge to me (as well as a bit more safe from value-drift)
That’s a very fair point about value drift. I still need to look into DAFs a bit more. The only reservation I currently have is that, to my knowledge, you can only give to charities from a DAF, and there are a lot of great giving opportunities that aren’t charities (GPI being one example).
As for being in-keeping with the GWWC pledge—I never interpreted the pledge as meaning you’re supposed to give at least 10% on a constant basis, but instead at least 10% over the course of your life. But I do accept the former strategy counters against value drift. I’m hoping to get back into frequent giving at some point in the near future!
EDIT: I’m wrong. The pledge FAQs says “The spirit of the Pledge is to donate on an ongoing basis, rather than letting “donation debt” build up over many years.” I can understand why they say this from a value drift perspective but as MichaelA says they don’t seem to address how best to “invest to give”.
If I recall correctly, in a Facebook thread in the GWWC group, Julia Wise indicated that she thought giving to a DAF would be in-keeping with the spirit of the Pledge, but (maybe) that just investing regularly with the intention of giving later wouldn’t be. But I may be misremembering, and I don’t know if this was codified somewhere, so maybe I/you/someone should reach out to Luke Freeman (who now runs GWWC) or start a public discussion about this.
“And why?” = Because you’re not sure about some relevant issues and are instead saving money to donate later
If only people who were donating answered this question, readers would get a skewed view of the community // how many people are saving to give later. I’m glad that isn’t happening!
Apologies in advance if this response shouldn’t be here as I’m giving a slightly different type of answer.
I was feeling slightly reluctant to admit this, but I am not currently donating money and am instead saving/investing as much as I can, mainly because I am still highly uncertain about where to give.
Ever since first learning about EA my favoured cause area has gone from global health, to ending factory farming, to being quite unsure as I started to take long-termism more seriously. As it stands there are still a number of topics I want to (continue to) mull over including longtermism and its different types, cluelessness, suffering-focused ethics, and wild animal welfare to name a few. I am also uncertain if I want to give to an EA Fund, to organisations directly, or even to a long-term investment fund. Basically I’m pretty clueless!
If I had to give some money right now, I would probably give to the Global Priorities Institute because I have been very impressed with their work so far and I think further work has the potential to alter my views and those of the EA community at large.
I have taken the Giving What We Can pledge and fully intend to give a large chunk of my money over the course of my life, but I just feel I need to figure some things out before I start giving again.
I think that’s a reasonable position—the arguments for investing to give seem pretty strong to me—and that it makes sense to share it here :)
Perhaps the title should really be interpreted as “What are you doing with your altruistic budget in 2020 and why?” Some of those actions might not be strictly “donations”—e.g. giving to support a specific person to have an impact (without them being a registered charity), or investing to give later.
I think if I was investing to give with my GWWC 10%, I’d probably do so via a donor-advised fund, as that feels a bit more in-keeping with the pledge to me (as well as a bit more safe from value-drift). But that’s just my tentative view—I don’t see anything about this on GWWC’s FAQ, from a quick skim.
That’s a very fair point about value drift. I still need to look into DAFs a bit more. The only reservation I currently have is that, to my knowledge, you can only give to charities from a DAF, and there are a lot of great giving opportunities that aren’t charities (GPI being one example).
As for being in-keeping with the GWWC pledge—I never interpreted the pledge as meaning you’re supposed to give at least 10% on a constant basis, but instead at least 10% over the course of your life. But I do accept the former strategy counters against value drift. I’m hoping to get back into frequent giving at some point in the near future!
EDIT: I’m wrong. The pledge FAQs says “The spirit of the Pledge is to donate on an ongoing basis, rather than letting “donation debt” build up over many years.” I can understand why they say this from a value drift perspective but as MichaelA says they don’t seem to address how best to “invest to give”.
If I recall correctly, in a Facebook thread in the GWWC group, Julia Wise indicated that she thought giving to a DAF would be in-keeping with the spirit of the Pledge, but (maybe) that just investing regularly with the intention of giving later wouldn’t be. But I may be misremembering, and I don’t know if this was codified somewhere, so maybe I/you/someone should reach out to Luke Freeman (who now runs GWWC) or start a public discussion about this.
Giving to a DAF is definitely within the spirit of the pledge and many members do this. We’ll be updating the big long FAQ page soon but in the meantime this is one of the FAQs on the Pledge page.
This is a totally reasonable answer.
“Where are you donating in 2020?” = Nowhere
“And why?” = Because you’re not sure about some relevant issues and are instead saving money to donate later
If only people who were donating answered this question, readers would get a skewed view of the community // how many people are saving to give later. I’m glad that isn’t happening!