The Giving What We Can pledge doesn’t make any mention of a time period (other than your working years) over which you must give the pledged percentage of your income:
For people earning a regular income, the Pledge commits you to giving at least 10% of your pre-tax income, until retirement, to the charities you believe will do the most good in the world.
If I were interpreting this as a legal contract, I would consider it fulfilled if someone donated nothing for their first forty working years and made it up by donating most of their salary in their last ten years. That would clearly go against the spirit of the pledge, but my point is that the pledge seems to allow for flexibility in when you give.
I don’t think that you would have violated your pledge by giving less than your pledged percentage in a given year owing to a large one-time expense, so long as you make it up in subsequent years.
The Giving What We Can pledge doesn’t make any mention of a time period (other than your working years) over which you must give the pledged percentage of your income:
If I were interpreting this as a legal contract, I would consider it fulfilled if someone donated nothing for their first forty working years and made it up by donating most of their salary in their last ten years. That would clearly go against the spirit of the pledge, but my point is that the pledge seems to allow for flexibility in when you give.
I don’t think that you would have violated your pledge by giving less than your pledged percentage in a given year owing to a large one-time expense, so long as you make it up in subsequent years.