I might be underthinking this but to me the 10% pledge is only about acknowledging that I earn significantly above the minimum wage in the region and hence giving up on 10% will likely not have a significant effect on my wellbeing.
Then for factoring in the tradeoffs related to direct work, a starting point I could think of so far is if funding would be available to cover them. If you think about it, you decided to take a tradeoff to pursue a direct work opportunity. You could have also just kept earning and started donating the difference to a fund. Now imagine someone else comes with a funding application to the same fund. This other project has the exact same expected returns as your direct work project. The only difference is that this other project requires funding. Assume that the amount required is the same as the difference youâd donate. You might see where this goes. The two projects are equivalent from the fundâs perspective (for each project to get done the fund is worse off by X money). This meansâif I did not mess it upâyou taking the tradeoff for the project is at least as good as donating the difference to the fund (assuming the fund would be happy to trade off this amount of money for the project you are doing).
So Iâm not sure if taking a tradeoff like this would technically count for the pledge, but I think the result would be at least as good as donating the difference to a given fund. And so far I assumed that this is what matters.
(Note that I also had a likely not too successful attempt of writing up this idea from a different perspective)
I believe GWWC do include âincome you have sacrificed to do direct workâ in their pledge. (Correct me if Iâm wrong, GWWC folks.)
Although, of course, your main argument (which I endorse) would still be trueâyouâd almost certainly still be earning substantially above the minimum wage in your region, and could most probably still give up 10% of your income, without materially affecting your wellbeing. So itâs a bit debatable if you should then feel like youâve âfulfilled a pledgeâ by doing direct work at a lower salary.
(Excuse the brevity, typing on my phone). The spirit/ânorm is:
Choosing a lower paying job for impact reasons (regardless of how high that impact may or may not be) â pledged donation
Voluntary pre-tax donation (to an org that meets the pledge criteria) via payroll giving or other means = pledged donation
Voluntary pre-tax donation (to an org that meets the pledge criteria, where you also happen to work) via payroll giving or other means (e.g. writing to say please pay me $ less than is on my contract for Y period) = pledged donation
#3, but artificially inflating your salary (eg, you offered me X but can you say you offered me Y) â pledged donation
#3, but the donation doesnât meet the pledge criteria (eg âI asked GiveDirectly to pay me less than my contract but I truly believe that The Humane League is the best thing I could be donating to right nowâ.) â pledged donation
TL;DR Spirit of the pledge: If a voluntary pre-tax donation/âsalary sacrifice can be the means for which someone fulfils their pledge if itâs basically a different way of transacting a voluntary donation.
Like if you owe a friend $20 and then you use your card to pay for $100 for a dinner for the both of you it might be easier for him to just pay you $30 (instead of him paying you $50 and you then giving him $20).
The distinction is important because (a) itâs good to encourage people to make high-impact career trade offs, but (a) GWWC isnât/âshouldnât be about starting to track all of peopleâs impact decisions in one place and converting all volunteering and lower (or hypothetically lower based on glancing at Glassdor) paying jobs into $ so you can then donate less actual dollars. Itâs about recognising if youâre in a relatively well off financial position and voluntarily using your available financial resources to help others as effectively as you can.
Allowing some flexibility for means of donation (eg stock transfer, salary sacrifice, payroll giving) where itâs simpler or more tax efficient is better than saying it always has to be cash, but getting into the game of hard to measure non currency counterfactuals is a slippery slope that would undermine the advantages of a simple common norm.
Similarly if someone were to donate $10k of stock that they had good reasons to believe was about to lose half its value (i.e. knowing itâd only be worth half as much to themselves or the charity) and then it subsequently did lose half its value before the charity could liquidate it, then it would be in the spirit of the pledge to think about that as a $5k donation (regardless of what the taxman thinks). (Although the kind of donor thatâs donating large amounts of stock and is very bought into the spirit of the pledge is likely well above the 10% anyway and wouldnât be faulted for not finessing their pledge calculation to account for this if theyâre so far above their 10% that itâs immaterial to whether theyâre on track to meet their pledge or not).
I believe GWWC do include âincome you have sacrificed to do direct workâ in their pledge. (Correct me if Iâm wrong, GWWC folks.)
This does not seem like a very plausible interpretation of the actual words in the pledge, and the GWWC FAQ is quite clear on this matter:
How does working at a nonprofit or charity change my pledge?
While we think direct work at a charity or nonprofit can be extremely impactful! However, your pledged amount does not change depending on your workplace or occupation. Those of us who work for nonprofits, even if we left higher-paying jobs to do so, still donate our pledged amounts.
If your giving pledge is preventing you from doing more impactful work then it might be appropriate to resign from your pledge. Read more about this in âHow permanent is a giving pledge?â.
Not exactly, depending on what someone means by âsacrificed incomeâ. See my comment clarifying this. Essentially âsalary sacrificeâ (a form of payroll giving where you take home less pay for some kind of benefit including a donation to a charity; or equivalent arrangements) is different to âchoosing a lower paying job for impact reasonsâ. The key here is itâs voluntary, revocable, has a specific monetary value, and the donation is very specifically one that would count towards a pledge.
Yes, the wellbeing argument still applies even after the paycut if youâre still substantially above the regional minimum. But if you compare it to your original wage, given that you only committed to a barely noticable sacrifice, which the paycut itself likely even surpasses signifficantly, that additional 10% might just be too big of an ask.
However if one is also just fine with earning around the lower wage and even donating from that, then I think considering something like taking the further pledge may also be an interesting idea.
I might be underthinking this but to me the 10% pledge is only about acknowledging that I earn significantly above the minimum wage in the region and hence giving up on 10% will likely not have a significant effect on my wellbeing.
Then for factoring in the tradeoffs related to direct work, a starting point I could think of so far is if funding would be available to cover them. If you think about it, you decided to take a tradeoff to pursue a direct work opportunity. You could have also just kept earning and started donating the difference to a fund. Now imagine someone else comes with a funding application to the same fund. This other project has the exact same expected returns as your direct work project. The only difference is that this other project requires funding. Assume that the amount required is the same as the difference youâd donate. You might see where this goes. The two projects are equivalent from the fundâs perspective (for each project to get done the fund is worse off by X money). This meansâif I did not mess it upâyou taking the tradeoff for the project is at least as good as donating the difference to the fund (assuming the fund would be happy to trade off this amount of money for the project you are doing).
So Iâm not sure if taking a tradeoff like this would technically count for the pledge, but I think the result would be at least as good as donating the difference to a given fund. And so far I assumed that this is what matters.
(Note that I also had a likely not too successful attempt of writing up this idea from a different perspective)
I believe GWWC do include âincome you have sacrificed to do direct workâ in their pledge. (Correct me if Iâm wrong, GWWC folks.)
Although, of course, your main argument (which I endorse) would still be trueâyouâd almost certainly still be earning substantially above the minimum wage in your region, and could most probably still give up 10% of your income, without materially affecting your wellbeing. So itâs a bit debatable if you should then feel like youâve âfulfilled a pledgeâ by doing direct work at a lower salary.
(Excuse the brevity, typing on my phone). The spirit/ânorm is:
Choosing a lower paying job for impact reasons (regardless of how high that impact may or may not be) â pledged donation
Voluntary pre-tax donation (to an org that meets the pledge criteria) via payroll giving or other means = pledged donation
Voluntary pre-tax donation (to an org that meets the pledge criteria, where you also happen to work) via payroll giving or other means (e.g. writing to say please pay me $ less than is on my contract for Y period) = pledged donation
#3, but artificially inflating your salary (eg, you offered me X but can you say you offered me Y) â pledged donation
#3, but the donation doesnât meet the pledge criteria (eg âI asked GiveDirectly to pay me less than my contract but I truly believe that The Humane League is the best thing I could be donating to right nowâ.) â pledged donation
TL;DR Spirit of the pledge: If a voluntary pre-tax donation/âsalary sacrifice can be the means for which someone fulfils their pledge if itâs basically a different way of transacting a voluntary donation.
Like if you owe a friend $20 and then you use your card to pay for $100 for a dinner for the both of you it might be easier for him to just pay you $30 (instead of him paying you $50 and you then giving him $20).
The distinction is important because (a) itâs good to encourage people to make high-impact career trade offs, but (a) GWWC isnât/âshouldnât be about starting to track all of peopleâs impact decisions in one place and converting all volunteering and lower (or hypothetically lower based on glancing at Glassdor) paying jobs into $ so you can then donate less actual dollars. Itâs about recognising if youâre in a relatively well off financial position and voluntarily using your available financial resources to help others as effectively as you can.
Allowing some flexibility for means of donation (eg stock transfer, salary sacrifice, payroll giving) where itâs simpler or more tax efficient is better than saying it always has to be cash, but getting into the game of hard to measure non currency counterfactuals is a slippery slope that would undermine the advantages of a simple common norm.
Similarly if someone were to donate $10k of stock that they had good reasons to believe was about to lose half its value (i.e. knowing itâd only be worth half as much to themselves or the charity) and then it subsequently did lose half its value before the charity could liquidate it, then it would be in the spirit of the pledge to think about that as a $5k donation (regardless of what the taxman thinks). (Although the kind of donor thatâs donating large amounts of stock and is very bought into the spirit of the pledge is likely well above the 10% anyway and wouldnât be faulted for not finessing their pledge calculation to account for this if theyâre so far above their 10% that itâs immaterial to whether theyâre on track to meet their pledge or not).
Thanks for clarifying, I think the arguments makes sense! The FAQ is clear on this and itâs good to see some of itâs background.
I can accept that itâs a tricky situation and the overall best way to handle it is to consider a resign.
Further to my lunch example. If you said âIâm buying lunch!â or âLunch is on me!â then you still owe then $20.
This does not seem like a very plausible interpretation of the actual words in the pledge, and the GWWC FAQ is quite clear on this matter:
Is this true GWWC? I didnât realise that sacrificed income counted.
Not exactly, depending on what someone means by âsacrificed incomeâ. See my comment clarifying this. Essentially âsalary sacrificeâ (a form of payroll giving where you take home less pay for some kind of benefit including a donation to a charity; or equivalent arrangements) is different to âchoosing a lower paying job for impact reasonsâ. The key here is itâs voluntary, revocable, has a specific monetary value, and the donation is very specifically one that would count towards a pledge.
Yes, the wellbeing argument still applies even after the paycut if youâre still substantially above the regional minimum. But if you compare it to your original wage, given that you only committed to a barely noticable sacrifice, which the paycut itself likely even surpasses signifficantly, that additional 10% might just be too big of an ask.
However if one is also just fine with earning around the lower wage and even donating from that, then I think considering something like taking the further pledge may also be an interesting idea.