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GWWC Team

Announcing our 2026 strategy

After a successful 2025 laying the foundations, this year we're strengthening our foundations and starting to accelerate growth towards our 

 (BHAG): 1 million pledgers donating $3B USD to high-impact charities annually.

 is working towards a world without preventable suffering or existential risk, where everyone is able to flourish. We do this by making giving effectively and significantly a norm among those who can afford it.

Our community of ~20,000 pledgers and donors has already given more than $500M across a range of causes, from global health to animal welfare and from climate to AI safety, and currently records ~$80M per year in donations with Giving What We Can, either by giving through our 

 recommended funds and charities in global health, our community currently prevents the death of a child every three hours.

, we announced our BHAG and laid the organisational foundations for building towards it. Among other things, we recruited an executive team with experience scaling similar products and organisations, grew our team from 10 to 16 core staff, set up essential operational and grantmaking systems, and established an initial portfolio of growth interventions.

Additionally, we grew by 20-30% on our new pledges and pledge donations metrics (e.g. we had ~1100 new 🔸10% Pledges). This enabled us to reach two core milestones: 10,000🔸10% Pledgers and $500M in total recorded giving.

This year, we shift from laying foundations to strengthening them while starting to push more seriously on growth. We’re aiming to grow 40% on most of our key pledge and donations metric (e.g. aiming for roughly 1500 new 🔸10% Pledges). This puts us on a trajectory of achieving our BHAG by 2040.

We’re making the donation platform more central to our strategy

 provides significant strategic value in moving towards our BHAG. It makes it much easier for pledgers to fulfill their pledge, allows us to maintain a high standard of effective giving through our research and inclusion criteria, and provides a source of sustainable funding as we scale (through our voluntary tipping function for donors). We're currently the only 

 effective giving platform in the US and UK, and we want to do an excellent job at this.

This means we'll be investing in user experience and functionality improvements, further improving the research supporting our recommendations as well as our communications around them, and strengthening the operational and finance systems needed for higher grantmaking volume.

 offering. These funds are directly informed by our evaluating evaluators research, as a consequence we think they are among the highest-impact places to give, and they already attract a significant proportion of donations, particularly from new pledgers. In 2026, we'll develop these further and increase both the quality and quantity of reporting around Cause Area Fund grantmaking.

We’re making pledge fulfillment a priority

The power of the 🔸10% Pledge, and of our BHAG, depends on pledgers following through. Right now, we only have direct visibility on the giving of about 30% of our pledgers. We have some weak 

 suggesting this may be due to a large proportion of other pledgers currently not meeting their pledge, and some even weaker (anecdotal) evidence that there are also many who do meet it but don’t record their donations with us, because this isn’t a pledge requirement and there isn’t enough value for them in doing so.

We aim to increase pledge fulfillment by significantly improving the experience of the pledger journey. We also want to improve our visibility on pledge fulfillment by making it easier and more attractive for pledgers to record their donations with us.

For example, we’re planning to make upgrades to our pledger onboarding process, online pledge reporting experience, and impact communications, in addition to proactively reaching out to pledgers who aren’t yet recording with us.

We’re doubling down on what’s working while making new big bets

Our pledge booths at EAG(x) events and partnerships with various aligned organizations were two major growth successes of last year, collectively accounting for ~30% of new pledges. We’re doubling down on these, both by further improving them and extending their reach.

For example, we’re trialling pledge booths at non-EAG(x) events (e.g. 

) and are investing in new types of partnerships with high-profile advocates (e.g. 

) in addition to increasing support for our existing partnerships.

Additionally, we’re placing a few big and more speculative bets that could help accelerate growth further. The first example of this will be our new long-form video content aiming to replicate the success of 

Several strategic decisions from 2025 remain in place:

The 🔸10% Pledge remains our primary expected route to our BHAG.

We focus our pledge outreach on those who can afford pledging, while remaining welcoming to anyone who is willing to give effectively and significantly (relative to their means).

We prioritise the US and UK as our core markets for in-person and media engagement, while serving a global community of pledgers.

 coordination and development, including through hosting the annual Effective Giving Summit.

And we continue holding ourselves accountable to high standards of cost-effectiveness, with a targeted average 

 pursue is important, both to hold ourselves accountable and so other organisations can plan accordingly. In 2025, 

 to improve focus on our BHAG, and those decisions generally still stand. Additionally, these are some directions we're choosing not to pursue in 2026:

 beyond the US and UK (e.g. setting up new local entities or hiring staff elsewhere)

 beyond a call or two and referrals to other organisations

 (e.g. organising groups around earning to give or specific causes)

Significantly expanding the scope of our research

 (e.g. doing our own charity evaluations)

Hosting or incubating non-pledge projects

 (e.g. giving games, charity elections, donor lotteries)

What GWWC could look like by the end of 2028

To give a sense of our medium-term trajectory, here's roughly what we're working towards — bearing in mind we expect to learn a lot along the way that will inform and likely change our precise targets and outcomes.

By the end of 2028, we have grown to 20,000+ 

 who collectively record $100M+ USD per year in high-impact donations. Through our donation platform, our broader community of pledgers and donors supports $100M+ per year in high-impact grants — putting GWWC among the two hundred largest private philanthropic funders globally.

We have identified and built multiple scalable pledge growth engines with dedicated teams around each; continue to provide the highest-impact publicly accessible and worldview-diverse philanthropic recommendations in the world; and provide essential support and coordination for a growing global effective giving ecosystem moving multiple billions of dollars to high-impact charities annually.

And we do all of this while maintaining a robust impact measurement system that holds us accountable to our mission and demonstrates strong returns for our funders.

Whether you've been a pledger since we began in 2009, or you're just learning about effective giving, there are many ways to get involved:

Take the 🔸10% Pledge or 🔹Trial Pledge

 on your dashboard if you're a pledger who hasn't yet

 about effective giving and the pledge with your friends and family

 (our scaling plans mean we have significant room for funding)

We're only at the start of our journey. Thank you for being on it with us!

Have questions or feedback on our strategy? We'd love to hear from you — 

Haven King-Nobles

Member Profile: Haven King-Nobles

This is my story of taking, and continuing to live, the 10% Pledge, first as a student and now as a charity founder.

I first learned about the effective altruism (EA) community as a university student back in 2017. Although of course I never felt so at the time, looking back, my life then was pretty simple: I had few obligations beyond myself, classes were easy enough, and politically and ethically I had all the radicalism and black-and-white thinking that abounds in people of that age.

, I was completely and immediately sold. Finally, here was a community that didn’t just talk about ethical commitments, but actually lived them out! As a philosophy student who had been stewing on these questions for years, it was validating to discover that there were, in fact, other people like me. I wasn’t alone.

A few months after that fateful Ted Talk, I learned of Giving What We Can and its 

. I believe within days, and with very little thought given, I had taken the pledge.

For me, this was a very simple, even impulsive, choice. Part of the reason for this was probably because as a student, I was earning very little money, and so I figured that 10% of basically nothing is… basically nothing!

And so I finished university donating here and there to the 

 and other charities, and for a while I even had my 10% Pledge certificate proudly posted on my wall. I remember one of the first times I made what felt like a large donation. Afterwards, I sat there nearly in tears, thinking about the difference I was able to make. I remember thinking that even if the rest of my life amounted to absolutely nothing, the fact that I had given this money (and in expectation given some child with years of healthy life) made it all worth it.

After graduating, I was (to my surprise) accepted into the 

Charity Entrepreneurship Incubation Program

, which helps people launch new high-impact charities. Through this program, I co-founded Fish Welfare Initiative (

) in 2019, alongside the inimitable (and fellow 10% pledger) Tom Billington.

One of the first operational tasks you face when starting a charity is setting your own salary. That is: how much money, from donor funds, you will pay yourself. This is a surprisingly tricky exercise, especially when (a) you’re 22 and have no real idea what a “reasonable” salary is, and (b) you’re part of this hardcore do-gooder community where sacrifice is implicitly expected, and where you’re acutely aware that the counterfactual use of funds would almost certainly be something else useful for the world.

On top of this, I had my pledge to think about. Should I factor that into the salary I set for myself? Would that be inefficient, since the money would go from donors to FWI, then to me (with some shaved off for taxes), and then back out again as donations?

I don’t think there’s a single right answer here. Tom chose to take a lower salary so that more money could be invested directly into our fledgling organisation. I chose the other option, and explicitly factored a 10% donation margin into the salary I set for myself. I did this for a few reasons:

 of giving. I worried that if I stopped then, it would be much harder to start again later.

I wanted to continue giving publicly, and to keep reinforcing the idea that donating (and donating effectively) is something people should do.

I wanted to diversify my impact. Even if FWI turned out not to be very effective, at least I’d still be doing some good in the world through other causes.

Tom and I also both chose starting salaries that would strike many people in the US or UK as quite low. I started at $30,000 USD; Tom, in part because he wasn’t factoring in donations, started significantly lower still. But, as we were used to being cash-poor university students, to us this still felt like a lot! It helped, of course, that neither of us had student loans, dependants, or any serious financial obligations.

And so we began FWI, and I continued donating my 10%. By sharing rent and staying with friends while travelling, I found I could live comfortably within my means and still give happily.

Fast forward seven years to today. I’m still working at Fish Welfare Initiative, though Tom 

 last year. Our salaries have increased somewhat as the organization has professionalized, though not dramatically. I’ve continued donating 10% each year, and my 

 tells me I’ve given roughly $25,000 since I first took the pledge.

If all of that money had gone to the Against Malaria Foundation (it didn’t, I’ve since diversified across other charities causes), it would be 

 to have saved the lives of five children. Once again, I’m reminded that if I do nothing else useful in life, I think saving the lives of several people would more than make up for all the resources I’ve consumed.

Continuing to pledge as a charity founder remains deeply meaningful to me. It gives me another way to live out my values, and it keeps me connected to forms of charitable work, such as helping humans in poverty, that are very different from the animal advocacy I focus on day-to-day. It’s something I’d encourage other charity founders (and really anyone earning above the poverty line in wealthy countries) to consider.

" series, which profiles a selection of the Giving What We Can community. The Giving What We Can community is comprised of people from all walks of life, with different perspectives and motivations for giving – all united by their desire to make a significant commitment to use their income to effectively help others. 

-Read more 

 to help inspire others to give more, and more effectively.

Frankie & Mehdi (Keika)

Company Pledge Profile: Keika

We recently spoke with Frankie and Mehdi the founders of Keika. They shared with us why they pledged 10% of their profits from Keika to the world's most effective charities.

Tell us a bit about yourselves and about Keika?

We’re Mehdi and Frankie, a husband-and-wife team building Keika together. Frankie, a registered nurse at the time, started making cold-processed charcoal soap at home on her days off. She’s the creative force behind our brand strategy, formulations and product development. Mehdi has a background in internet marketing and leads the operations, marketing, and growth side of the business.

What inspired you to start Keika, and what drives you in your work?

Keika began in 2018 out of personal necessity. Mehdi has seborrheic dermatitis and could not tolerate most conventional soaps, which were often heavily fragranced and filled with unnecessary ingredients. At the same time, Frankie, working as a registered nurse, was washing her hands constantly and showering after long shifts, leaving her skin dry and irritated.

Frustrated with what was available in stores, Frankie began making cold-processed charcoal soap in their condo kitchen. It resolved our skin issues, and when friends, family, and coworkers tried it, many experienced similar improvements. They began requesting bars for themselves, which is when we recognized the need for simpler, more natural skincare.

What drives us today remains the same. We aim to create products that are safe for the whole family, thoughtfully formulated, and effective enough to address real skin concerns without unnecessary additives.

Fun fact: Keika is Frankie’s childhood nickname, pronounced Kay-KAH. It was originally meant to be temporary until we discovered that in Japanese, Keika means “progress over time.” That philosophy reflects how we approach skincare, business, and life in general. Meaningful results come from small, consistent improvements made over time.

How would you describe Keika’s mission, values, and approach to doing business?

Our mission is to pursue steady progress in the products we create, the way we grow, and the impact we make over time. In practice, that means making simple, effective skincare without unnecessary ingredients or hype. We focus on quality, practicality, and products that do what they are meant to do.

We value transparency, consistency, and long-term thinking. We aim to be clear about what goes into our products and realistic about what they can achieve.

Our approach to business is disciplined and steady. We prioritize quality, maintain open communication with our customers, and reinvest in improving both the product and the overall experience. We believe growth should be the result of doing the right things consistently over time.

Tell us a bit about how you put your values into practice?

As Keika continues to grow, we ask ourselves how we can give back in the most meaningful way. That led us to explore the idea of effective giving, which meant focusing on evidence, transparency, and measurable outcomes rather than just good intentions.

We were looking for a way to formalize our commitment to giving. The 

 provided accountability and confidence that our contributions would be directed toward high-impact causes. It offers a clear, measurable way to commit to long-term contribution rather than occasional donations.

We care most about different forms of inequality, such as social, environmental, and access to basic health resources. Through how we run our business and how we give, we aim to contribute in a practical, measurable way toward reducing those gaps.

 the biggest difference has been clarity and accountability. Giving isn’t occasional, it’s structured and intentional. That shift strongly aligns with how we run our business overall: long-term, thoughtful, and evidence-based.

One moment that stands out in our journey to taking the 

 was during the early stages of COVID-19. There was widespread uncertainty, supply shortages, and heightened awareness around hygiene. Because we produce soap, an essential product at the time, we were able to continue operating while many businesses were forced to pause.

That period reinforced something important for us: essential goods carry responsibility. We weren’t just selling a product; we were providing something people genuinely relied on. It was also a time when we became more intentional about giving, recognizing that in moments of crisis, steady contribution matters even more.

COVID clarified for us that impact isn’t always dramatic. Sometimes it’s about showing up consistently when it counts.

What advice would you give to other business leaders or companies considering the Company Pledge?

We’d advise them to build it right into their business model. Think long-term, commit to evidence-based causes and treat giving like any other serious part of their business. We personally value the fact that the pledge commits you to impact, not to one specific organization. That flexibility allows you to donate across a variety of high-impact causes and address different injustices you care about most, while still maintaining consistency and accountability.

Think in percentages, not one-off amounts. So much easier! Committing to a fixed portion of income or profits creates consistency and removes the guesswork each year.

What are your goals for Keika in the future, both as a business and as a force for positive impact?

Our goal is sustainable growth as a business and sustained commitment as a contributor. We want to scale responsibly, improve continuously, and ensure that as Keika grows, so does our ability to support high-impact causes in a disciplined, consistent, and measurable way.

Our broader vision is to see inequality gaps steadily close over time. Closer to home, we’d like to see more people choosing simpler, healthier skincare over harsh, chemically-laden products. Both reflect the same principle: better systems, better choices, better outcomes. On a personal level, we hope to build something we can genuinely be proud of: A stable, principled company that contributes consistently and responsibly. And in many ways, that vision mirrors our name. Keika represents progress over time.

Any final reflections or messages you’d like to share with others about giving, business, or making a difference in the world?

Progress happens through steady, intentional action and not one big gesture. If more individuals and businesses made small, consistent commitments toward change, those inequality gaps would close much faster.

Frankie and Mehdi are the founders of Keika, a family-run skincare company that has pledged 10% of it’s profits to highly effective charities. In this Company Pledge profile, they share how Keika began out of personal necessity, how the idea of “progress over time” shapes both their business and their giving, and why they’ve chosen a structured, evidence-based approach to creating impact.

Our candid perspectives on common concerns about money, relationships, timing, and uncertainty.

Honest concerns thoughtful people have before taking the 10% pledge

Taking the 10% Pledge is a big decision, and it’s natural to have questions before committing. Many people who are drawn to effective giving are careful, reflective, and balancing complex responsibilities around money, family, relationships, and identity.

We’ve spent time listening to the concerns people raise most often before taking the 10% Pledge. Below, we share our perspectives on ten of them, not to dismiss hesitation, but to engage with it. These reflections are grounded in our lived experience and the experiences of pledgers.

You don’t need to agree with everything here to find it useful. Our hope is simply that these perspectives help you think more clearly about what the 10% Pledge could mean for you.

What if taking the 10% Pledge comes at the cost of (or delays) other life objectives? Buying a house? Having kids?

Making a 10% Pledge is a significant commitment, and for many people it does involve real sacrifices. These can include slower progress towards financial goals, reduced flexibility, or harder choices about how and when to take on new responsibilities. In some cases, those trade-offs are especially sharp because certain life goals, such as having children, supporting family members, or pursuing some forms of education, are time-bound rather than indefinitely deferrable.

We don’t think there is a single right answer for everyone.

Most of us are balancing several important priorities at once: financial security, family, personal ambitions, and the desire to help others. For those who do choose to take a pledge, it often enables a more deliberate approach to trade-offs, making giving a considered part of a wider life plan rather than something that only happens if resources remain.

We don’t believe giving should undermine financial stability or crowd out essential or time-sensitive life goals. Many people choose to wait until they’ve built a basic safety net, navigated major transitions, or passed through particularly expensive life stages before committing. Others adjust how they give during periods where demands on their income are temporarily higher.

Like any long-term commitment, the 10% Pledge involves ongoing rebalancing and is intended to be calculated over a lifetime, rather than every year. Life circumstances change, and giving can change with them.

My partner isn’t really onboard with this, and we make financial decisions together.

If you take financial decisions together, we don’t want a giving pledge to put pressure on your relationship. Giving should strengthen your shared values, rather than create conflict. Some couples choose to take the Trial Pledge together, others begin small, review it together, and adjust.

We also offer family donor advisory conversations, which are a safe space where both partners can ask questions, raise concerns, and learn about the approach, with no pressure. If this is something that might be interesting for you, email community@givingwhatwecan.org

It’s true that most people don’t give away 10% of their income. So in that sense, it isn’t normal, but unusual doesn’t mean wrong. Some people may find it inspiring, others may find it uncomfortable, or assume it wouldn’t be possible for them. That reaction is out of your control.

The pledge is a personal commitment; you don’t have to talk about it publicly (though we love it when pledgers do). And you’re not alone, more than 10,000 people worldwide have already taken the 10% Pledge, we think they’re all pretty cool.

What if I’m not currently earning an income?

 pledge, meaning you pledge to give 10% of what you earn over the course of your life, not necessarily meeting a target every single year.

We think that it is within the “spirit” of the Pledge to try to give 1% of your spending money, so whatever is left after rent/mortgage etc. That approach can build the habit of giving before you earn.

Shouldn’t the pledge be for billionaires?

It absolutely should be (and probably at more than 10%)! Elon Musk could do a 99% pledge and still live an extraordinary life. The existence of extreme wealth doesn’t take away your agency to make a positive impact in the world by supporting effective programmes.

As a movement, we’re already donating ~$50M per year to amazing charities doing incredible things. If a million people take the 10% Pledge we’ll be one of, if not the biggest philanthropic organisation in the world. Join us and be part of it.

Isn’t effective tax policy really the answer?

We, and many pledgers, would support higher, more effective taxation to fund the most effective causes.

Taking the 10% Pledge is a concrete action that’s within our control today and helps develop a norm that more resources should be directed towards the world’s most pressing problems, whether through taxation or voluntary donations.

What if I don’t feel ready to make a lifetime decision until I’ve really analysed every aspect of it?

The 10% Pledge is a meaningful decision, and questions about how to do the most good deserve serious reflection.

Blog

Announcing our 2026 strategy

Member Profile: Haven King-Nobles

Company Pledge Profile: Keika

Honest concerns thoughtful people have before taking the 10% Pledge

A visit to Ansh in India

Where are the Giving What We Can team donating in 2025?

Pledger Spotlight: Suriyaa Sundararuban

Balancing crisis relief and effective giving: how to think about donations

How to end factory farming - and what you can do today

Can money go 100x further overseas?