Lorenzo Fong Ponce 🔸

• Lorenzo Fong Ponce 🔸 16 Feb 2026 7:48 UTC

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  on: An­nounc­ing the new Direc­tor of EA UK

  Welcome to the UK Gergo! 😊

• Lorenzo Fong Ponce 🔸 12 Feb 2026 0:40 UTC

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  on: Don’t just have a job role. Have a move­ment role.

  As someone not in a full-time impact job, I find thinking about Movement Roles is doubly important! By de-coupling from the job market, this is a powerful framing to be more agentic. Strong upvoted this post

• Lorenzo Fong Ponce 🔸 6 Feb 2026 11:39 UTC

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  in reply to: Kristof Redei’s comment on: An­swer Eng­ine Op­ti­mi­sa­tion: What do LLMs be­lieve about im­pact?

  Deeply appreciate this Kristof. Interesting that at a broad level (what are the best charities, how to help more people), it cites credible and evidence-based resources.

  Then when discussing animals and Africa—i.e. more long-tail keywords—it does not.

  There is probably low-hanging opportunity here for charities to write up more indexable FAQs and blogposts that match the language a user would use when asking an LLM a question (or even Google).

An­swer Eng­ine Op­ti­mi­sa­tion: What do LLMs be­lieve about im­pact?

• Lorenzo Fong Ponce 🔸 13 Jan 2026 21:41 UTC

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  in reply to: Joel Tan🔸’s comment on: Deep Re­port on Effec­tive Giv­ing in Asia

  Helpful indeed, and thanks for the spreadsheet!

• Lorenzo Fong Ponce 🔸 11 Jan 2026 23:43 UTC

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  on: Deep Re­port on Effec­tive Giv­ing in Asia

  Hey Joel, thanks for the writeup, super insightful!

  “the monetary value of an average GWWC pledge as 146 DALYs averted per pledge (equivalent to USD 20,000 in GiveWell donations)”

  Is that $20K USD comparable to GWWC’s headline figure of $100K USD per 10% pledge, or some other headline metric?

  I note two interesting datapoints versus GWWC’s figures:

  1. 16 year lifespan vs GWWC’s 35.1 ← Less than half of GWWC’s lifespan?

  2. 35% counterfactuality adjustment versus GWWC’s 33% ← Only +2% uplift versus the Western context?

  Not sure how the above parses with this paragraph: “On the positive side, Asian pledgers are counterfactually less likely to do effective giving, and give for a greater number of years.”

• Lorenzo Fong Ponce 🔸 9 Jan 2026 17:47 UTC

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  on: Great bit of mes­sag­ing from The Life You Can Save

  I liked this line most: “It makes them a problem-solver, rather than putting them on the defensive.”

  In my experience advocating effective giving as a layperson, I find that inviting people to have more agency has generally led to my best engagement (and pledges!)

EA Lon­don: Quar­terly Strat­egy Sprint (Q4′26)

EA Lon­don: Quar­terly Strat­egy Sprint (Q3′26)

EA Lon­don: Quar­terly Strat­egy Sprint (Q2′26)

EA Lon­don: Quar­terly Strat­egy Sprint (Q1′26)

• Lorenzo Fong Ponce 🔸 27 Dec 2025 18:01 UTC

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  in reply to: Lorenzo Buonanno🔸’s comment on: Is Silent Par­ti­ci­pa­tion Eth­i­cally Suffi­cient?

  I think all comments here are accurate.

  • $100K is the headline figure

  • $15K is the attribution to GWWC (would be much harder for someone to pledge without all the digital infrastructure, research, community etc)

  • $47K is what you’d discount from $100K if you believe cost-effectiveness of the best charities decrease over time as the problem becomes more “solved”, and if a pledger is giving a % of their donation below the GiveWell bar

  If I take 10% of the median London annual salary (£4.75K) then assume they work 30 more years (£143K), this roughly in line with GWWC’s headline figure.

  At 1%, if we assume annual inflation = annual salary increases = annual negative discounts on cost-effectiveness of top charities we still get ~£14K LTV of a 1% pledge. Maybe apply -£4K discounts on pledge dropouts or changes in life circumstance to £10K.

  How you wish to apply % attribution to GWWC’s infrastructure /​ paid ads /​ in-person advocacy /​ the local EA meetup /​ online forums is probably a messier science and hotly debated. Good thing OP and I aren’t doing this outside a personal capacity.

  That said I’d bet that OP’s co-workers and mine have much limited exposure to EA, so the counterfactual upside of personal advocacy is much higher, no matter if you take from the $10K headline or $4.7K time-discounted high-impact donation per 1% pledge.

  At the end of the day £10K will still go to high-impact nonprofits, and it would have been a community effort :)

• Lorenzo Fong Ponce 🔸 27 Dec 2025 11:09 UTC

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  in reply to: satelliteprocess’s comment on: Is Silent Par­ti­ci­pa­tion Eth­i­cally Suffi­cient?

  Glad you’re forming your own views on what feels like an obligation and what does not.

  Some thoughts gently encouraging advocacy. Not because it’s an obligation, but solely because of its impact:

  • Giving What We Can conservatively values the lifetime value of a 🔸 10% Pledge at $100K USD (inflation adjusted to 2024)

  • The implicitly LTV of a 1% Pledge is therefore $10K USD. 1% is a far more accessible option for people who are building up 3-6 months of financial runway, cannot meaningfully save at a 10% pledge, are remitting money to family, are paying off debts, or have other charitable commitments /​ personal circumstances

  • Following that, personal advocacy is one of the highest-leverage direct impact activities any working professional can go after without quitting their day job imo

  • Over 6 months, I helped inspire 8 EG pledges ranging from 1% to 10%. 4 came from personal conversations. Of that, 3 came from people at my private sector job. None have heard of EG before; the counterfactual of personal advocacy is definitely there

  • I explicitly do not discuss Effective Altruism unless prompted, and so do multiple EG organisations such as One for the World and FarmKind. I view it as unnecessary cognitive load that detracts from the core objective. For most people, it’s not needed when making an informed and personally fulfilling decision to donate more effectively

  Understand the feeling of being a hypocrite, but please know that I—and most people on this forum—wouldn’t call you that! We all have our own circumstances

• Lorenzo Fong Ponce 🔸 26 Dec 2025 14:46 UTC

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  on: Is Silent Par­ti­ci­pa­tion Eth­i­cally Suffi­cient?

  Heya!

  I think public advocacy can be a sliding scale of participation and does not immediately go from 0 to 100. It does not require fighting every online battle.

  Why fight battles anyway, 99% of people havent even heard of effective giving despite all of GWWC /​ TLYCS /​ 1FTW’s online outreach. There are only ~11,000 pledgers worldwide. The London Effective Giving Community WhatsApp group is 100 people. Besides myself I rarely see other private individuals posting on social media about EG unless they work for an EG organisation.

  Want to gently push in favour of starting with small-scale advocacy: You currently might find it draining to engage publicly, be it online or in person. I did too when I started out and still do sometimes.

  You can always start low-touch with people in your immediate circle: “what did you do last weekend?” “Just some volunteering and donation things” and let the conversation flow from there.

  Best argument against this is you might have a counterfactuallly better use of your time versus trialing effective giving /​ vegan advocacy. Since you’re earlier in your career you might want to prioritise building your credibility—less people in your personal life might take your EG /​ veganism seriously if they don’t consider you serious people. Or you’re working on a more ambitious initiative. Or you have personal commitments. Or you want to avoid burning out if advocacy will stretch you too thin.

  Happy to DM on this for some of your more sensitive topics. Wishing you a Merry Christmas /​good holiday season.

• Lorenzo Fong Ponce 🔸 18 Dec 2025 18:05 UTC

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  on: Why I donate: some self­ish reasons

  Unfathomably based. Im stealing this one and its relevant ideas:

  Choosing to donate based on the cost-effectiveness of helping is making a radical political statement about equality.

• Lorenzo Fong Ponce 🔸 21 Oct 2025 9:56 UTC

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  on: Reflect­ing on One Year of Mieux Don­ner: Launch­ing the French Effec­tive Giv­ing Initiative

  Hey team! Late comment but really curious about this:

  Counterfactual: We estimated the counterfactual factor, the part of donations received that have happened as a result of our work, at 0.5 → Now, our best guess is 0.64

  This seems very high versus how GWWC attributed their counterfactual impact of a pledge (at least when I went through their Pledge Advocacy programme last year, they tentatively recommended a factor of 0.2)

  Also, given a factor of 0.5 or 0.64, I’m not sure how accurate this statement follows: “50% /​ 64% of the decision-making of the pledger had not come from the pledger, but rather through active outreach and influence of Mieux Donner”. I’m probably wrong. How would I interpret this factor more accurately? :)

• Lorenzo Fong Ponce 🔸 15 Oct 2025 0:18 UTC

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  on: What posts are you think­ing about writ­ing?

  Considering writing a post on how EAG(x) Effective Giving meetups MUST drive a call to action (pledge, pledge advocacy, learning more about EG, running an EG-related project)

  IMO intellectual discussion about EG without action does not meet the bar for engagement or expected impact for an EAG(x).

  Example meetup dicussion topics I personally did not like at past EAG(x)s: talking about how cost of living /​ mortgages get in the way of giving, talking about giving now vs accruing interest then giving later, back-and-forth about how improving farmed animal welfare results in higher wild animal suffering. Valid personal concerns and intellectually stimulating, but I’d reserve it for local meetups. These discussions do not yield impact nor meaningfully increase community bonding.

• Lorenzo Fong Ponce 🔸 13 Oct 2025 16:33 UTC

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  on: Effec­tive Giv­ing for Re­la­tional Altruists

  Mental framework here captures 80% of my experience as an in-person /​ events-based effective giving advocate.

  That said there are ways to make impact-focused EA funds deeply relational. I passionately tell people a large part of my pledge goes to GiveWell’s All Grants Fund. “Since the beginning of 2025, 14 million lives could be lost due to entirely preventable deaths from malaria /​ TB /​ HIV. This was since the Trump administration and Elon Musk decided to shut down USAID. I give to ensure the most critical frontline organisations can keep their lights on to protect and empower some of the world’s most vulnerable”.

  An important 3rd point: relational altruists might not start with the highest-impact malaria-reduction charity, or other EA golden standard charities. That said, t hey are still giving. It’s still counterfactual impact (as opposed to giving nothing), and they should be deservedly praised and acknowledged. Further effectiveness can come incrementally as along as you help nurture their altruism. Make them feel supported and part of a like-minded community of people with skin in the game (people who take concrete action improving the world by donating)

• Lorenzo Fong Ponce 🔸 4 Sep 2025 20:53 UTC

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  on: EA in the Lakes—Reflections

  Kes, this was such a great weekend, so thoughtfully put together. It really helped me recentre. I came away feeling more authentically connected to people in the EA community I hadn’t met before.

  Outing myself as the effective giving community-builder who ran the outreach and advocacy workshop. Was genuinely surprised how engaged and high-agency everyone was. Strong +1 on the value of this sort of workshop for highly-engaged EAs. Probably the best hour I’ve spent in the last few months. Substantially better than most EG group sessions I’ve attended at EAGs.

  Really hoping EA in the Lakes becomes an annual thing, and that Pardshaw being is used more in general. Place felt truly EA: unpretentious, humble, a little basic but all the more charming. Great place for honest conversations and reflections.

• Lorenzo Fong Ponce 🔸 31 Aug 2025 0:33 UTC

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  on: How to stay mo­ti­vated to donate?

  If you currently don’t get much meaning or fulfilment from giving effectively, it might help to notice the areas in your life that do give you that sense of meaning and fulfilment. The fact that this question has stayed with you for six years, even during times when you weren’t actively donating, suggests it’s something important to you, something that continues to pull at you.

  For me, I’ve welcomed pledging as part of my identity, and that’s where I draw meaning from it.

  Like you, I don’t tend to feel a big emotional connection to my giving. I give because I believe it’s the right thing to do. I’m at peace taking longer to pay off a mortgage if it means more people in the world get the chance to live their lives. These are lives that might otherwise be cut short by preventable causes far beyond their control.

  Effective giving has become part of who I am. It shapes my relationship with money, my decision-making, my career planning. That’s been my path. I’d be curious to hear what might work for you.