I think that you are asking the wrong question. The role of organizations such as ours is not to set the most ambitious standard, but rather to influence as many people as we can to give to the nonprofits we recommend.
Your article presents a critique of the go-to-market approach of The Life You Can Save, and then a comparison to the go-to-market approach of Giving What We Can, which you state you prefer as it is more ambitious. Let’s explore this a bit…
The Life You Can Save is actually 2 things:
1. A book in which Peter Singer presents an argument that in order to live an ethical life we have a moral obligation to help those suffering and dying unnecessarily from the effects of extreme poverty
2. An organization that has been working to influence as many people as possible to help those living in extreme poverty for the past 10+ years, and has raised more than $100M for effective nonprofits working to lift people out of poverty.
When it comes to recommendations for the level of giving, I would argue that Peter sets the most ambitious target of anyone when he argues that “in order to be good people, we must give until if we gave more, we would be sacrificing something nearly as important as the bad things our donations can prevent.” One important point here is that in the book The Life You Can Save he is arguing the case for giving to help those suffering from the effects of extreme poverty only, and not including giving to fight climate change, animal welfare or other causes that donors may hold dear. The book is a call to action written to raise awareness and compel everyone living with enough financial means to buy things that are not necessities, that not only do we have the ability but the obligation to end extreme poverty. Peter sets this moral ambition, but recognizes himself that this standard may not be attainable for many and may actually deter some to give, and thus he writes: “I propose a much easier target: roughly 5% of annual income for those who are financially comfortable, with less for those below that level, and significantly more for the very rich. My hope is that people will be convinced that they can and should give at these levels. I believe that doing so would be a first step toward restoring the ethical importance of giving as an essential component of a well-lived life. And if it is widely adopted, we’ll have more than enough money to end extreme poverty.”
Now, as an organization working to raise funding for our recommended nonprofits we need to decide how we ‘go-to-market’, meaning how we craft a strategy and business plan to achieve our objectives. Our mission is to lift people out of poverty by changing the way people think about and donate to charity. There are several considerations for why take the approach we do:
We are focused solely on helping those in extreme poverty, and as such we need to work to overcome standard objections donors may have, the main one being why they should give offshore versus locally. As such we take the position that donors should take a portfolio approach to giving, meaning they should give with their head and their hearts and allocate their philanthropic budget across multiple causes that resonate with them. We are actively working to educate donors to the benefits they themselves would experience if we raised the minimum quality of life in the world, and thus inspire everyone to give some percent of their giving to lift people out of extreme poverty in an effective manner.
We commend all giving and at all levels, and believe that donors are on an impact journey that will last a lifetime and as such, we need to meet donors where they are and support them to start, encourage their progress and continue to educate them as they expand their giving and thus their impact. Some donors may be deterred by calls to action with high thresholds, so we encourage people to start with any amount. Even a one-time $10 donation can go a long way, particularly when pooled with other resources and given to our Maximize Your Impact Fund, which is actively managed by our research team who determines where funds are deployed based on immediate funding needs of our recommended nonprofits in order to optimize the impact of donations on behalf of donors. In our view it’s important to encourage donors to just start, and then build from there.
There is strong consensus among behavioral change experts that setting small, achievable goals is an effective way to change behavior. While not the only strategy, as the success of the Giving What We Can Pledge demonstrates, it is still considered highly effective in creating long lasting behavior change driven by: boosting self-efficacy when an individual achieves goals and believes in their ability to do so, creating habits as small changes are easier to incorporate into daily life, reducing the overwhelming nature of trying to achieve a highly ambitious goal, creating positive reinforcement when a person has consistent success in achieving goals and the power of incremental progress which creates a sense of momentum that can drive more significant change over time.
All of these factors have influenced our approach to messaging and donor engagement. We are working every day to continue to find the most successful tactics in influencing donors to join us on our mission and achieve our vision of a world with no global poverty.
Giving What We Can bases their ‘go-to-market’ approach around their 10% pledge, and we are so inspired by the work the team there does, and by the approximately 9,000 people who have taken the pledge. We do not disagree that their pledge is more ambitious than our recommendation at certain income thresholds, by design, and we hope that they continue to have success in not only inspiring people to sign the pledge, but to stick to it and move money to effective nonprofits. It would be worthwhile to note that they also have stated in their recommendation “if 10% doesn’t yet seem achievable, consider starting with a
Trial Pledge (where you choose a custom amount of 1% or more and your own time commitment), or donate to effective charities without taking a pledge” in order to be more inclusive of donors who may not yet be ready to commit to a 10% giving threshold.
I hope this helps you better understand the reasoning behind our approach.
The problem(s) we are collectively working to resolve (The Life You Can Save with extreme poverty, and Giving What We Can across multiple cause areas) are massive, and include trying to influence everyone in the more affluent parts of the world, and as such we believe solving these problems will require many varied approaches across many organizations targeting different and diverse audiences. It’s best we find ways to work together, learn from each other and support each other, versus pushing a singular approach into the market.
Just a note: In a recent update we removed the The Life You Can Save pledge from our website for internal business reasons. Some of our supporters have specifically asked for the calculator to be available to them and so we have allowed access to the pledge through direct link only. It is no longer accessible through our website navigation.
I think it’s valuable to have a variety of entry points into effective giving, and agree that a more modest ask is going to be more effective for a large number of donors. I think it is helpful to have a variety of options when pointing people toward effective giving. There’s a lot of room between TLYCS’[1] approach (which recommended 1% at $80K USD and may be more non-specific now that the pledge has been removed from navigation) and GWWC at 10%, and I think there’s merit to the view that TLYCS’ approach is suboptimally ambitious for some donor candidates. But: that merely suggests more space for more good orgs in this area rather than a criticism of either TLYCS or GWWC!
Also, there are two points of potential disagreement here. One could disagree with a strategy of asking for “roughly 5% of annual income for those who are financially comfortable, with less for those below that level, and significantly more for the very rich.” I personally think there is great value in a good org that does that, although I’d like to see other orgs that target higher and lower commitment points as well.
The other point of disagreement, which I have somewhat more sympathy with, is that the calculator didn’t do a great job operationalizing that sentence. Some of these problems reflect inherent limitations to a one-question calculator that spits out a single number rather than a range. The implied threshold for “financially comfortable” in USD is roughly three times the median US full-time salary. While everyone’s financial circumstances are different, I’d submit that this is a rather conservative way to operationalize financially comfortable. Likewise, one might think the steep downslope below $81K is a whole lot of “less” given that $81K is still above the median.
I appreciate the answer and a gree with most of it. I think it’s a bit rough on Vasco though to say he’s straight up “asking the wrong question”. It might be possible to both encourage more people to give, while you also set an ambitious standard (maybe not as your headline ask)
There’s people out there who might want to move closer to Singers challenge “in order to be good people, we must give until if we gave more, we would be sacrificing something nearly as important as the bad things our donations can prevent.” and I think it would be helpful if some big orgs at least might be willing to suggest what that might look like (again not as a headline, and maybe not even from your org)
I strongly agree with this “It’s best we find ways to work together, learn from each other and support each other, versus pushing a singular approach into the market.” I suspect Vasco might as well
This has also simulated some interesting and potentially helpful discussion.
I think it would be helpful if some big orgs at least might be willing to suggest what that might look like (again not as a headline, and maybe not even from your org)
When I think of organizations that have pulled something close to that off, I think of very personal high-touch organizations, rather than ones with a few-to-many communication strategy. For instance, some nuns and monks (or equivalents) in various faith traditions live very simply for various reasons—one of which is often to devote more resources to caring for the poor. That’s not a level of commitment that an organization can hope to inspire very much through a website, video, or other low-cost-per-recipient forms of communication.
I strongly agree with this “It’s best we find ways to work together, learn from each other and support each other, versus pushing a singular approach into the market.” I suspect Vasco might as well
Yes, I agree. At the same time, I guess having a single lower bound for the recommended donations as a fraction of net income for all income levels would help with coordination, and spreading giving norms. Then it would be possible to say “we have all these people of donate at least x %, so maybe you should consider donating at least x % too”. Still, the optimum lower bound is probably below 10 %. Then I would say the upper bound should increase with net income.
Thanks, Jason. The above reply is legit. I shared a draft of the post with TLYCS before publishing it, and Jessica replied with something very similar to the above.
I think that you are asking the wrong question. The role of organizations such as ours is not to set the most ambitious standard, but rather to influence as many people as we can to give to the nonprofits we recommend.
To clarify, I agree the goal is not setting the most ambitious target. I was not that clear, but I meant to allude to that in the post:
TLYCS also emphasises the idea of striving towards one’s personal best in terms of effective donations. Which amount of annual donations should be recommended to increase annual donations to their ideal level is an empirical question. I do not have an answer for this, and here I mostly wanted to start a discussion.
I have one clarifying question. You say your goal is i) “to influence as many people as we can to give to the nonprofits we recommend”. Is your goal closer to any of the following?
ii) Causing as many donations as you can to recommended nonprofits
iii) Causing as many donations as you can to recommended nonprofits per dollar you spend, i.e. maximising your multiplier.
I believe the optimum stragegies under ii) and iii) have a greater focus on larger donors and more ambitious asks than the optimum strategy under i).
To clarify, I never intended a harsh tone, I was merely stating that I thought the comparison was missing a significant aspect of why we take the approach we do, and could also be read to be critical of the people behind the effort into the accomplishments of the organization to date (least of all me to be clear).
To your follow-up question, we try to do both across our online and managed donor segments.
Thanks. Clarification on my side too. In the reply just above, I said “I was that clear”, but I forgot one word. It was supposed to be “I was not that clear” (corrected).
I think that you are asking the wrong question. The role of organizations such as ours is not to set the most ambitious standard, but rather to influence as many people as we can to give to the nonprofits we recommend.
Your article presents a critique of the go-to-market approach of The Life You Can Save, and then a comparison to the go-to-market approach of Giving What We Can, which you state you prefer as it is more ambitious. Let’s explore this a bit…
The Life You Can Save is actually 2 things:
1. A book in which Peter Singer presents an argument that in order to live an ethical life we have a moral obligation to help those suffering and dying unnecessarily from the effects of extreme poverty
2. An organization that has been working to influence as many people as possible to help those living in extreme poverty for the past 10+ years, and has raised more than $100M for effective nonprofits working to lift people out of poverty.
When it comes to recommendations for the level of giving, I would argue that Peter sets the most ambitious target of anyone when he argues that “in order to be good people, we must give until if we gave more, we would be sacrificing something nearly as important as the bad things our donations can prevent.” One important point here is that in the book The Life You Can Save he is arguing the case for giving to help those suffering from the effects of extreme poverty only, and not including giving to fight climate change, animal welfare or other causes that donors may hold dear. The book is a call to action written to raise awareness and compel everyone living with enough financial means to buy things that are not necessities, that not only do we have the ability but the obligation to end extreme poverty. Peter sets this moral ambition, but recognizes himself that this standard may not be attainable for many and may actually deter some to give, and thus he writes: “I propose a much easier target: roughly 5% of annual income for those who are financially comfortable, with less for those below that level, and significantly more for the very rich. My hope is that people will be convinced that they can and should give at these levels. I believe that doing so would be a first step toward restoring the ethical importance of giving as an essential component of a well-lived life. And if it is widely adopted, we’ll have more than enough money to end extreme poverty.”
Now, as an organization working to raise funding for our recommended nonprofits we need to decide how we ‘go-to-market’, meaning how we craft a strategy and business plan to achieve our objectives. Our mission is to lift people out of poverty by changing the way people think about and donate to charity. There are several considerations for why take the approach we do:
We are focused solely on helping those in extreme poverty, and as such we need to work to overcome standard objections donors may have, the main one being why they should give offshore versus locally. As such we take the position that donors should take a portfolio approach to giving, meaning they should give with their head and their hearts and allocate their philanthropic budget across multiple causes that resonate with them. We are actively working to educate donors to the benefits they themselves would experience if we raised the minimum quality of life in the world, and thus inspire everyone to give some percent of their giving to lift people out of extreme poverty in an effective manner.
We commend all giving and at all levels, and believe that donors are on an impact journey that will last a lifetime and as such, we need to meet donors where they are and support them to start, encourage their progress and continue to educate them as they expand their giving and thus their impact. Some donors may be deterred by calls to action with high thresholds, so we encourage people to start with any amount. Even a one-time $10 donation can go a long way, particularly when pooled with other resources and given to our Maximize Your Impact Fund, which is actively managed by our research team who determines where funds are deployed based on immediate funding needs of our recommended nonprofits in order to optimize the impact of donations on behalf of donors. In our view it’s important to encourage donors to just start, and then build from there.
There is strong consensus among behavioral change experts that setting small, achievable goals is an effective way to change behavior. While not the only strategy, as the success of the Giving What We Can Pledge demonstrates, it is still considered highly effective in creating long lasting behavior change driven by: boosting self-efficacy when an individual achieves goals and believes in their ability to do so, creating habits as small changes are easier to incorporate into daily life, reducing the overwhelming nature of trying to achieve a highly ambitious goal, creating positive reinforcement when a person has consistent success in achieving goals and the power of incremental progress which creates a sense of momentum that can drive more significant change over time.
All of these factors have influenced our approach to messaging and donor engagement. We are working every day to continue to find the most successful tactics in influencing donors to join us on our mission and achieve our vision of a world with no global poverty.
Giving What We Can bases their ‘go-to-market’ approach around their 10% pledge, and we are so inspired by the work the team there does, and by the approximately 9,000 people who have taken the pledge. We do not disagree that their pledge is more ambitious than our recommendation at certain income thresholds, by design, and we hope that they continue to have success in not only inspiring people to sign the pledge, but to stick to it and move money to effective nonprofits. It would be worthwhile to note that they also have stated in their recommendation “if 10% doesn’t yet seem achievable, consider starting with a
I hope this helps you better understand the reasoning behind our approach.
The problem(s) we are collectively working to resolve (The Life You Can Save with extreme poverty, and Giving What We Can across multiple cause areas) are massive, and include trying to influence everyone in the more affluent parts of the world, and as such we believe solving these problems will require many varied approaches across many organizations targeting different and diverse audiences. It’s best we find ways to work together, learn from each other and support each other, versus pushing a singular approach into the market.
Just a note: In a recent update we removed the The Life You Can Save pledge from our website for internal business reasons. Some of our supporters have specifically asked for the calculator to be available to them and so we have allowed access to the pledge through direct link only. It is no longer accessible through our website navigation.
Thank you,
Jessica, co-CEO The Life You Can Save
Thanks, Jessica. I generally agree with this.
I think it’s valuable to have a variety of entry points into effective giving, and agree that a more modest ask is going to be more effective for a large number of donors. I think it is helpful to have a variety of options when pointing people toward effective giving. There’s a lot of room between TLYCS’[1] approach (which recommended 1% at $80K USD and may be more non-specific now that the pledge has been removed from navigation) and GWWC at 10%, and I think there’s merit to the view that TLYCS’ approach is suboptimally ambitious for some donor candidates. But: that merely suggests more space for more good orgs in this area rather than a criticism of either TLYCS or GWWC!
Also, there are two points of potential disagreement here. One could disagree with a strategy of asking for “roughly 5% of annual income for those who are financially comfortable, with less for those below that level, and significantly more for the very rich.” I personally think there is great value in a good org that does that, although I’d like to see other orgs that target higher and lower commitment points as well.
The other point of disagreement, which I have somewhat more sympathy with, is that the calculator didn’t do a great job operationalizing that sentence. Some of these problems reflect inherent limitations to a one-question calculator that spits out a single number rather than a range. The implied threshold for “financially comfortable” in USD is roughly three times the median US full-time salary. While everyone’s financial circumstances are different, I’d submit that this is a rather conservative way to operationalize financially comfortable. Likewise, one might think the steep downslope below $81K is a whole lot of “less” given that $81K is still above the median.
In this comment, “TLYCS” means the organization, not the book.
I appreciate the answer and a gree with most of it. I think it’s a bit rough on Vasco though to say he’s straight up “asking the wrong question”. It might be possible to both encourage more people to give, while you also set an ambitious standard (maybe not as your headline ask)
There’s people out there who might want to move closer to Singers challenge “in order to be good people, we must give until if we gave more, we would be sacrificing something nearly as important as the bad things our donations can prevent.” and I think it would be helpful if some big orgs at least might be willing to suggest what that might look like (again not as a headline, and maybe not even from your org)
I strongly agree with this “It’s best we find ways to work together, learn from each other and support each other, versus pushing a singular approach into the market.” I suspect Vasco might as well
This has also simulated some interesting and potentially helpful discussion.
When I think of organizations that have pulled something close to that off, I think of very personal high-touch organizations, rather than ones with a few-to-many communication strategy. For instance, some nuns and monks (or equivalents) in various faith traditions live very simply for various reasons—one of which is often to devote more resources to caring for the poor. That’s not a level of commitment that an organization can hope to inspire very much through a website, video, or other low-cost-per-recipient forms of communication.
Thanks, Nick!
Yes, I agree. At the same time, I guess having a single lower bound for the recommended donations as a fraction of net income for all income levels would help with coordination, and spreading giving norms. Then it would be possible to say “we have all these people of donate at least x %, so maybe you should consider donating at least x % too”. Still, the optimum lower bound is probably below 10 %. Then I would say the upper bound should increase with net income.
[authenticity validated per Vasco’s comment below, so deleted request for verification here]
Thanks, Jason. The above reply is legit. I shared a draft of the post with TLYCS before publishing it, and Jessica replied with something very similar to the above.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Jessica!
To clarify, I agree the goal is not setting the most ambitious target. I was not that clear, but I meant to allude to that in the post:
I have one clarifying question. You say your goal is i) “to influence as many people as we can to give to the nonprofits we recommend”. Is your goal closer to any of the following?
ii) Causing as many donations as you can to recommended nonprofits
iii) Causing as many donations as you can to recommended nonprofits per dollar you spend, i.e. maximising your multiplier.
I believe the optimum stragegies under ii) and iii) have a greater focus on larger donors and more ambitious asks than the optimum strategy under i).
To clarify, I never intended a harsh tone, I was merely stating that I thought the comparison was missing a significant aspect of why we take the approach we do, and could also be read to be critical of the people behind the effort into the accomplishments of the organization to date (least of all me to be clear).
To your follow-up question, we try to do both across our online and managed donor segments.
Thanks. Clarification on my side too. In the reply just above, I said “I was that clear”, but I forgot one word. It was supposed to be “I was not that clear” (corrected).