I’m not super compelled by the arguments for only asking people to donate 1%, which strikes me as a trivial amount of money, especially in the context of (1) doctors’ and other healthcare workers’ salaries (in the US, physicians make $350k on average) and (2) the fact that 2⁄3 of the US population gives an average of 4% per year (I dunno how reliable this stat is, or how this rate compares to other countries, but I’m inclined to think that the 1⁄3 who don’t give will not respond to this initiative).
I understand not wanting to make the perfect the enemy of the good here, but I think the biggest risk of only asking people to donate 1% is inadvertently normalizing 1% as being a reasonable amount for healthcare workers to donate (I am still a trainee, and I comfortably donate way more than this! I also am a bit reticent to take the pledge myself, because I don’t want people to think that I only donate 1%/endorse donating 1%).
I think it makes most sense to target the healthcare workers who already donate some (and who on average likely donate >1% already), and I suspect the best thing to do would be to focus on (1) getting them to pledge a more significant amount than they’re already donating (5%?), (2) specifically encouraging them to give to charities that are supported by a lot of evidence (e.g., GiveWell’s Top Charities fund, rather than GiveWell’s All Grants Fund), and (3) focusing on health-oriented interventions (which most of GiveWell’s are already, but this would be good to highlight explicitly).
+1 I think it’s worth trying to push for a 10% pledge and see what kind of traction you get. Also curious if you’ve spoken to OFTW about their experience with the 1% pledge and churn rates etc.
Doctors in the UK (like the ones that set this up) earn way less that $350k a year in general. Junior doctors (which are the majority of the UK doctor workforce) are very poorly paid, I think many of my friends made something like £14/hour for the first few years after qualifying.
This is also generally true of US trainees (residents and fellows). For the non-US people, there’s 4 years of undergrad, 4 years of medical school, generally 3-5 years of residency, then an optional 1-3? years of fellowship for certain specialties.
On the other hand, I think Lilly is correct insofar as 1 percent would be a pretty meager ask for most US attendings, even in lower-paying specialties.
According to the first result in Google, doctors’ total pay, while significantly lower than the UK, is still significantly above the UK average, even for junior doctors. Their hourly rate is surprisingly low but that’s mainly because they work very long hours.
As a result, consultants’ basic NHS pay will be between £93,666 and £126,281, with average full-time NHS earnings likely to be around £143,100 once additional earnings are included to cover things such as on-call responsibility, medical awards, geographical allowances and additional activity.
For junior doctors, basic pay will be between £32,397 and £63,162, with average total full-time earnings likely to be around £41,300 for those in their first year of practice, and £71,300 for specialty registrars towards the end of their training (Table 1).
“Healthcare workers” includes nurses, and can encompass care workers and semi-skilled hospital workers on not much more than minimum wage, and I guess the figure may have been chosen to take into account that many of them may consider the nature of the work they do to be pretty altruistic already...
I do wonder whether a non-specific giving pledge is better than a low percentage though?
Thanks for all the considered comments. Some of these are definitely questions that we wrestled with and we are open to adapt and change if we feel that’s right.
This is out core promotional video so please have a look and circulate
1% vs. 5% vs. 10%:
This is a very challenging but important question and everyone is likely to respond differently to this depending on their specific perspective. For hardcore EA people (probably anyone reading this post) it may seem very low. - N.B. The Pledge is at least 1% and in the promotional content we highlight the additive benefits of donating more.
We also will aim to reconsult our member base to invite them to review their Pledge and increase it over the years
10% I have found anecdotally to be a real turn-off for people. In the UK right now there are ongoing strikes regarding doctor’s pay which I think have a good basis, but people do not “feel” like they have surplus.
5% is a feasible alternative, but we wanted to reach out to this most unfamiliar with EA, for whom I think even 5% seems a lot in current culture.
The risk of people fulfilling their moral obligation with a lower amount is a real issue to consider, but hard to balance against other pros of a lower buy-in/threshold to click/read on
Outcomes of the Pledge
We hope that for many this kind of EA-lite Pledge will be a gateway for people to encounter EA ideas and learn more about the philosophy, which is a gain that’s hard to quantify
Healthcare Workers only
This is not an attempt to make it “exclusive”, but this may be perceived this way by some.
So far, having a healthcare community focus has made it much easier to reach out to various medical associations and training programmes to spread the message.
We are quite a new organisation, primarily having outreach in the UK so far and hoping to expand over the next few years. We are making links in the US and Australia too. Our primary limitation is that we 3 co-founders are all working doctors ourselves doing this entirely in our spare time.
A midpoint approach (working hypothesis) could be to offer a lower standard pledge for GiveHealth (1%-5%) to appeal to a wider audience, but also mentioning the GWWC 10% Pledge in a few places and provide a link to it, similar to what AAC has done.
Normalising the 10% pledge often involves showing that others are already doing it. Therefore, it is important to ensure that when people pledge 1%, they are aware that there is a community (GWWC) that they can join, which pledges a higher amount (10%). I am very excited about this project and the potential to encourage a large number of healthcare professionals to give effectively. However, I would like to note that in GWWC’s most recent impact evaluation, we found that a small but significant percentage of our Trial Pledgers have gone on to take the 10% Pledge. This likely represents the majority of the value we provide through the Trial Pledge. I believe this could also be true for people taking a GiveHealth pledge if you also were to promote a 10% pledge, although I am uncertain about this.
I also agree with Vaidehi Agarwalla’s suggestion to reach out to OFTW and learn from their experience with the 1% pledge, including churn rates and other factors.
I like the general idea, but a bit of feedback:
I’m not super compelled by the arguments for only asking people to donate 1%, which strikes me as a trivial amount of money, especially in the context of (1) doctors’ and other healthcare workers’ salaries (in the US, physicians make $350k on average) and (2) the fact that 2⁄3 of the US population gives an average of 4% per year (I dunno how reliable this stat is, or how this rate compares to other countries, but I’m inclined to think that the 1⁄3 who don’t give will not respond to this initiative).
I understand not wanting to make the perfect the enemy of the good here, but I think the biggest risk of only asking people to donate 1% is inadvertently normalizing 1% as being a reasonable amount for healthcare workers to donate (I am still a trainee, and I comfortably donate way more than this! I also am a bit reticent to take the pledge myself, because I don’t want people to think that I only donate 1%/endorse donating 1%).
I think it makes most sense to target the healthcare workers who already donate some (and who on average likely donate >1% already), and I suspect the best thing to do would be to focus on (1) getting them to pledge a more significant amount than they’re already donating (5%?), (2) specifically encouraging them to give to charities that are supported by a lot of evidence (e.g., GiveWell’s Top Charities fund, rather than GiveWell’s All Grants Fund), and (3) focusing on health-oriented interventions (which most of GiveWell’s are already, but this would be good to highlight explicitly).
+1 I think it’s worth trying to push for a 10% pledge and see what kind of traction you get. Also curious if you’ve spoken to OFTW about their experience with the 1% pledge and churn rates etc.
Doctors in the UK (like the ones that set this up) earn way less that $350k a year in general. Junior doctors (which are the majority of the UK doctor workforce) are very poorly paid, I think many of my friends made something like £14/hour for the first few years after qualifying.
I earn about $15/hour and donate much more than 1%. I don’t think it’s that hard to do this, and it seems weird to set such a low bar.
This is also generally true of US trainees (residents and fellows). For the non-US people, there’s 4 years of undergrad, 4 years of medical school, generally 3-5 years of residency, then an optional 1-3? years of fellowship for certain specialties.
On the other hand, I think Lilly is correct insofar as 1 percent would be a pretty meager ask for most US attendings, even in lower-paying specialties.
According to the first result in Google, doctors’ total pay, while significantly lower than the UK, is still significantly above the UK average, even for junior doctors. Their hourly rate is surprisingly low but that’s mainly because they work very long hours.
“Healthcare workers” includes nurses, and can encompass care workers and semi-skilled hospital workers on not much more than minimum wage, and I guess the figure may have been chosen to take into account that many of them may consider the nature of the work they do to be pretty altruistic already...
I do wonder whether a non-specific giving pledge is better than a low percentage though?
Thanks for all the considered comments. Some of these are definitely questions that we wrestled with and we are open to adapt and change if we feel that’s right.
This is out core promotional video so please have a look and circulate
1% vs. 5% vs. 10%:
This is a very challenging but important question and everyone is likely to respond differently to this depending on their specific perspective. For hardcore EA people (probably anyone reading this post) it may seem very low. - N.B. The Pledge is at least 1% and in the promotional content we highlight the additive benefits of donating more.
We also will aim to reconsult our member base to invite them to review their Pledge and increase it over the years
10% I have found anecdotally to be a real turn-off for people. In the UK right now there are ongoing strikes regarding doctor’s pay which I think have a good basis, but people do not “feel” like they have surplus.
5% is a feasible alternative, but we wanted to reach out to this most unfamiliar with EA, for whom I think even 5% seems a lot in current culture.
The risk of people fulfilling their moral obligation with a lower amount is a real issue to consider, but hard to balance against other pros of a lower buy-in/threshold to click/read on
Outcomes of the Pledge
We hope that for many this kind of EA-lite Pledge will be a gateway for people to encounter EA ideas and learn more about the philosophy, which is a gain that’s hard to quantify
Healthcare Workers only
This is not an attempt to make it “exclusive”, but this may be perceived this way by some.
So far, having a healthcare community focus has made it much easier to reach out to various medical associations and training programmes to spread the message.
Nestling the Pledge within a professional body/community has precedent with other giving Pledges (https://reg-charity.org/ https://www.highimpactathletes.org/ ) and we think this has value
We are quite a new organisation, primarily having outreach in the UK so far and hoping to expand over the next few years. We are making links in the US and Australia too. Our primary limitation is that we 3 co-founders are all working doctors ourselves doing this entirely in our spare time.
Really appreciate all of your input and we’d be delighted to hear from anyone by email info@give-health.org or alastair.yeoh@give-health.org if you’d like to be involved.
Thanks,
Dr Alastair Yeoh
Co-founder GiveHealth
A midpoint approach (working hypothesis) could be to offer a lower standard pledge for GiveHealth (1%-5%) to appeal to a wider audience, but also mentioning the GWWC 10% Pledge in a few places and provide a link to it, similar to what AAC has done.
Normalising the 10% pledge often involves showing that others are already doing it. Therefore, it is important to ensure that when people pledge 1%, they are aware that there is a community (GWWC) that they can join, which pledges a higher amount (10%). I am very excited about this project and the potential to encourage a large number of healthcare professionals to give effectively. However, I would like to note that in GWWC’s most recent impact evaluation, we found that a small but significant percentage of our Trial Pledgers have gone on to take the 10% Pledge. This likely represents the majority of the value we provide through the Trial Pledge. I believe this could also be true for people taking a GiveHealth pledge if you also were to promote a 10% pledge, although I am uncertain about this.
I also agree with Vaidehi Agarwalla’s suggestion to reach out to OFTW and learn from their experience with the 1% pledge, including churn rates and other factors.