That’s wonderful news. I imagine your financial advisor will talk to you about when and how to donate the stock, so I’ll just share a couple of considerations about what charities:
-One charity or multiple charities? On the one hand, committing to give to one charity at a time forces you to be quite rigorous with your evaluation, and making larger donations would probably reduce the difficulty of donating your stocks. On the other hand, some people like to “diversify” their donations by giving to multiple organisations, some riskier and some better established. But if you think of yourself as part of the EA community, you can think of the community’s donations as being diversified, so perhaps you’re free to just donate to one charity.
-Restricted or unrestricted donation? 99% of the time I recommend just finding an organisation you trust enough to give an unrestricted donation rather than telling the organisation what to do. The exception might be in a very large organisation that has one very good program and a bunch of average programs. Hopefully you can stick with unrestricted.
-Donating in a lump sum or over time? One million dollars is a lot of money, but probably small enough that most charities could handle receiving it all at once. But you might feel better giving your money to a charity over 5 or 10 years, or seeing certain milestones achieved before releasing more money (as above, ideally you’d find a charity you trust so you don’t need to make them jump through hoops). There also might be tax or logistical reasons for donating over time.
-Keeping to a well-known charity or betting on something new? As suggested below, the EA funds could redistribute your money, or you could donate to a GiveWell or Animal Charity Evaluators top charity. You might be able to find an even more impactful and cost-effective option if you’re willing to look at less established charities, charities that could have a large positive impact but could have no impact (“hits-based giving”), or charities in areas that haven’t been evaluated in the past. If you have time, I’d recommend choosing a charity you know is high-impact as your “charity to beat” and then comparing other options to that charity. For example, the charitable foundation Open Philanthropy compares all of their spending to GiveDirectly—they want to make sure all their charitable giving is at least as impactful as giving it directly to someone in extreme poverty.
That’s wonderful news. I imagine your financial advisor will talk to you about when and how to donate the stock, so I’ll just share a couple of considerations about what charities:
-One charity or multiple charities? On the one hand, committing to give to one charity at a time forces you to be quite rigorous with your evaluation, and making larger donations would probably reduce the difficulty of donating your stocks. On the other hand, some people like to “diversify” their donations by giving to multiple organisations, some riskier and some better established. But if you think of yourself as part of the EA community, you can think of the community’s donations as being diversified, so perhaps you’re free to just donate to one charity.
-Restricted or unrestricted donation? 99% of the time I recommend just finding an organisation you trust enough to give an unrestricted donation rather than telling the organisation what to do. The exception might be in a very large organisation that has one very good program and a bunch of average programs. Hopefully you can stick with unrestricted.
-Donating in a lump sum or over time? One million dollars is a lot of money, but probably small enough that most charities could handle receiving it all at once. But you might feel better giving your money to a charity over 5 or 10 years, or seeing certain milestones achieved before releasing more money (as above, ideally you’d find a charity you trust so you don’t need to make them jump through hoops). There also might be tax or logistical reasons for donating over time.
-Keeping to a well-known charity or betting on something new? As suggested below, the EA funds could redistribute your money, or you could donate to a GiveWell or Animal Charity Evaluators top charity. You might be able to find an even more impactful and cost-effective option if you’re willing to look at less established charities, charities that could have a large positive impact but could have no impact (“hits-based giving”), or charities in areas that haven’t been evaluated in the past. If you have time, I’d recommend choosing a charity you know is high-impact as your “charity to beat” and then comparing other options to that charity. For example, the charitable foundation Open Philanthropy compares all of their spending to GiveDirectly—they want to make sure all their charitable giving is at least as impactful as giving it directly to someone in extreme poverty.
For some non-EA further reading, here’s a report I really liked looking at how charities prefer to work with major donors like you: https://cep.org/portfolio/crucial-donors-how-major-individual-givers-can-best-support-nonprofits/?fbclid=IwAR2XZ3nSTWvg0_nqLevFVGTCYNL_PGHrDzq5xhm368W_E_YxiRIzWyNbGaQ