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Christoph Hartmann

Member Profile: Christoph Hartmann

We recently spoke with Christoph Hartmann from Amsterdam, who shared how effective giving unites his nerd and hippie tendencies, and explained why taking the pledge has made donating much easier for him! He also told us that he sees the pledge as part of a portfolio of ways he tries to effect change in the world: through his resources, his work, his voice, and his actions.

Tell us about yourself. What keeps you busy and what makes you tick?

Nerd: After studying Cognitive Science, I did a PhD in computational neuroscience, worked at the business consulting firm BCG, and then switched to a social scale-up, where I am now the CTO. No matter what I do, I can’t stop analysing, thinking things through, finding patterns. When writing code, I am one of the few people who enjoys fixing bugs - it’s like solving a new mini puzzle every few minutes and then getting a dopamine hit when you get it right.

Hippie: I have a very deep-rooted belief that if we would all just empathise more with each other, a lot of problems would solve themselves. I’m talking about empathy with strangers, empathy with animals, empathy with nature. Combine that with my questioning of norms (fueled by the analytical tendencies mentioned above!) and you get typical hippie behaviour: I did my share of psychedelics, have been vegetarian for a long time, lived polyamorously for the last decade, spent my holidays at local burning man festivals, and right now am living in intentional communities and thinking about starting one.

I get very excited when my hippie-self and my nerd-self find projects to collaborate on, and effective giving is one of them.

Tell us about your effective giving journey.

During a lazy summer between high-school and university, I happened upon Peter Singer’s 

, which immediately resonated with me for its no-nonsense, practical view on ethics. At the time, it convinced me to become vegetarian and to note that once I made money, I should give some of it to charity.

When I finally did make money during my PhD, I was overwhelmed with all the donation choices and day-to-day trade offs: Should I get that Starbucks coffee or donate the money? Should I buy fairtrade or rather the cheaper product and donate the difference? Was the extra cost of organic food worth the marginally better life that these animals lived? I figured I couldn’t be the only one struggling with this, so I found a meetup on Effective Altruism, went down an effective giving rabbit hole, and emerged taking the Giving What We Can pledge!

Why do you give? (What motivated you to give originally and what keeps you motivated now?)

I live a good life and want to share this. I was lucky to be born in a great family in Europe and recognise that others were less lucky. Money is so unevenly distributed that I can easily part with 10% of my salary here in Amsterdam without really feeling the difference while that same money can have a massive impact on people and animals who were born in less fortunate circumstances. In short, I have an opportunity to help.

Why did you take the Giving What We Can pledge?

I’ll cover the practical reasons first: I took the 

because it helps me make donating a habit. It sets a clear guideline for giving so I don’t have to think about it. I also thought it would be good to start the pledge during a relatively low salary time so I won’t notice the impact once I make more. Finally, it holds my future self accountable. If I hadn't taken the pledge, it would be easy for me to slowly start donating less as life changes.

One of my main reasons for taking the pledge, though, is to set an example: I see the pledge as a way to pull donations more into the open. If we could normalise talking about donations, we could have better discussions on donation opportunities and create social norms that encourage generosity. So I view taking a public pledge and talking about it in this post as steps in that direction — pulling these discussions more into the open!

What are the issues in the world that you care most deeply about?

Initially, I was most passionate about global health and inequality, simply because the wealth and life satisfaction differences around the world are so obvious. However, once I realised how little funding goes into animal welfare relative to the sheer number of factory farmed animals, I also started donating to charities active in that area. I also feel very strongly about cultivating empathy in our society but have found no convincing charities in that area yet.

Which organizations do you give to (and why)?

Give Directly for its simplicity; EA Funds’ Animal Welfare Fund because I find the animal welfare funding landscape difficult to navigate and trust the fund managers to allocate my money to high-impact opportunities.

Yes — mainly because of the administrative hassles involved. It can feel like doing taxes to me. Reading up on the latest charities and evaluations, comparing effectiveness, deciding how much to donate to which places — I don’t get a lot of joy from all that, but once it’s done, I get a lot of mental peace that’s less in the moment and more continuous. This year, as an experiment, I’m planning to make it more fun by turning it into a social activity with friends who also donate!

Do you have any interesting stories related to your giving?

I am paying for the WiFi of an orphanage in a very low-income neighbourhood in Kenya because I know the person running it. I don’t know if it’s effective — I also don’t count it towards my pledge commitment —  but I do get a lot of joy from it. Growing up, the internet was my gateway to the world, perfect to help appease my never-ending curiosity. I love to be able to gift this to others.

Do you have any examples of times where you decided to not spend money on something your peers would have?

When I first learned about effective giving, I questioned every purchase, wondering if I should be donating that money instead. Then I took the pledge, set my donations as recurring bank transfers, and now I know that I have a certain amount allocated to donations, and don’t have to worry about the rest. I find this much more productive and sustainable, and I’m probably also donating more now than if I had continued to make those decisions every time.

I’ve never not been able to purchase something I wanted because of my donation budget, but being a hippie with the income of a nerd, I also make more money than most of my friends.

Do you try to effect change in any other way?

Yes, I think broadly I can effect change through my money (the pledge), my work, my voice, and my actions:

, an organisation building tech for health insurances in Kenya. I hope that this will allow more people to get health insurance, thereby reducing the risk of falling into poverty.

My voice: I’ve written a few letters to politicians and I join protests sometimes, but of all the categories mentioned here, I am the least happy with my advocacy. I’m always looking for ways I could have more impact with my voice and this blog post is a small step in that direction!

My actions: I think most everyday, individual actions (like eating organically, using less heat, etc.) are much less impactful than other categories of effecting change, so I don’t focus my energy there as much. However,I ate vegetarian for many years, I try to avoid unnecessary flights, and I vote for parties that I believe are most value-aligned with me.

What effective giving tips would you like to share?

Take a pledge, make the donations automated, and review once a year. One less thing to worry about! Oh, and talk about it! I would love to see more talk about donations. I am posting my donation choices once a year on LinkedIn.

What suggestions do you have for other people considering the pledge?

Do it early in your career; it’s a lot less painful and you don’t have to sacrifice as much. And you can always stop — there is no pledge police!

A more empathetic, loving, understanding society. I think that could solve a lot of problems. I am working on some ideas that could help with that.

Have any books or documentaries or articles or studies significantly changed the way you see giving?

 probably had the biggest impact on my giving.

On the more detailed aspects of giving, I found the articles on 

And then for the country-specific tax optimisation, I found local organisations like 

Have you found anything to be helpful in talking to people about effective giving?

I talk about my donations very rarely, a LinkedIn 

 once a year, and every now and then I talk to a friend when the topic comes up. While I’d like to have donation discussions more often, I’m vocal enough about my giving that people know where to find me when they want to talk through donation decisions themselves. In other words, I don’t actively try to convince people to donate but I am happy to share my experience if they have questions.

Are there any other concrete ways that Giving What We Can has helped you?

 is great: A tool to keep track of how much I should donate and it even syncs with some of the charities I donate to! Much better than the excel spreadsheet I used to have. It sounds silly but I feel more joy donating when using the dashboard :)

" 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.

Alana Horowitz Friedman

We share and correct some common misconceptions about the Giving What We Can pledge. 

5 things you've got wrong about the Giving What We Can Pledge

How well do you know the details of the Giving What We Can Pledge? A surprising number of people we’ve spoken to — including many who know a lot about effective giving — shared some or all of these pledge misconceptions.

Misconception #1: If you sign the pledge, you have to donate at least 10% of your income 

 is a public commitment to donate at least 10% of your

 to the organisations that can most effectively use it to improve the lives of others. Giving 10% of your income each year is a good rule of thumb for most people, as it helps them stay on track with their lifetime pledge. However, there are certainly cases where it doesn’t make sense to give annually. Provided you continue reporting your income

on your personal pledge dashboard, the “Overall Progress” bar will show you where you are with respect to fulfilling your lifetime pledge.This way, you can continue to progress towards your lifetime pledge even if you need to skip a year.

While we recommend giving annually for most people

, here are two examples of cases where it might make sense to skip, bunch, or otherwise donate on a non-annual basis:

In some cases, donating every few years instead of every year is better from a tax benefit perspective. For example, if you live in the U.S., you often have to donate quite a lot in order to receive tax benefits for a particular year. Thus, some U.S. pledgers “bunch” their donations by saving the amount they would have donated and then donating a much larger sum every 2-3 years.

Not all years are equal from a finance perspective. Perhaps you were hit with a bunch of medical expenses this year, or you made a down payment on a house. While many pledgers are able to fulfill these commitments and continue donating, for some, it may make sense to skip a year and then “catch up” over the next few. Provided you remain serious about fulfilling your pledge, and are able to increase your percentage in the next few years to make up for the skip, this is perfectly reasonable and still very much in keeping with your lifetime income pledge!

Misconception #2: Only the charities on the Giving What We Can Platform count towards your pledge

 is a public commitment to donate at least 10% of your lifetime income to the 

organisations that can most effectively use it to improve the lives of others.

This means you can donate to any organisation you’d like, as long as you have good reason to believe it qualifies as a highly-effective organisation. (We do suggest familiarising yourself with the concepts of

 when deciding where to give, because the effectiveness part of the pledge is a key aspect of its impact.)

It’s also a more seamless experience to choose from the charities on our platform, because you won’t have to do any reporting; you’ll merely choose where to donate, set up recurring payments, and then these payments will automatically show up on your pledge dashboard and be counted towards your pledge. That said, you can absolutely donate to an organisation outside of our platform; you’ll just need to report it on the pledge dashboard yourself if you want to see your progress.

Misconception #3: The pledge is a legal document

We’ve used the word “pledge” to signify a serious commitment. However, this type of pledge is different from “pledge” as defined by the IRS or in a similar legal context. The Giving What We Can pledge is not legally binding. It is, rather, a serious commitment made to yourself and 

that you will donate at least 10% of income to the organisations you believe can most effectively use it to improve the lives of others. As such, you can:

Donate via a Donor Advised Fund (DAF). In fact, we have recently optimised our check-out process, making it much easier to 

While we see the pledge as a serious commitment, we hear from some that they are scared to take it because they don’t know what the future holds. We think, depending on the level of uncertainty you have, it’s usually better to pledge and give yourself the option of resigning if you need to than to never pledge at all. If your level of uncertainty is relatively high, we would recommend a trial pledge, which you can do for a set amount of time and then renew or increase if appropriate.

Misconception #4: There’s no plausibly good reason to sign the pledge if you’re already donating 10% or more

(Note: This isn’t to imply that anyone who doesn’t find reasoning similar to the below compelling holds a “misconception.” Rather, it’s intended to express that an argument can be made for the value of signing a pledge even if you are already donating.)

One of the primary reasons the Giving What We Can Pledge was created was to help influence the social norms around charitable giving, with the goal of making it common and expected for people in high-income countries to give a portion of their resources to help those in need. So while the pledge is a great tool for living up to your own values and holding yourself accountable, signing it is about much more than this: it’s about being part of a global effort to fundamentally change how people in high-income countries approach charitable giving.

video (an oldie but a goodie!) Here, we discuss the power of social proof in setting norms and influencing behaviour. Signing the pledge contributes to the goal of widespread adoption — the longer the 

, the more normal pledging becomes. And even before we get to the “norm setting” vision, we’ll be inspiring others to give more significantly and more effectively, helping to get to a better world.

The sceptics among us might think: that all sounds plausible in theory, but practically, how much good would adding my name really do? Well, that depends. Let’s say only one other person in your network hears that you took the pledge and is inspired to do the same. That could drastically increase the impact of your pledge, especially if this person wouldn’t have otherwise heard about the pledge and wasn’t already donating. (And this isn’t all that unlikely considering that awareness of the pledge in the general population is quite low.) If two people in your network were inspired to pledge based on your decision, that would be even more impactful.

 While one or two people might not seem like a lot, if you consider how much good 10% of even a modest income could do over someone’s lifetime, it should begin to feel more valuable. For example, around $200 a month donated to one of GiveWell’s top charities would be enough to prevent someone’s death…every two years. So if you got two extra people to donate this amount over the course of their lifetime (who wouldn’t have otherwise donated)

 that’s a lot of suffering and death prevented — not to mention anyone they might inspire to pledge down the line!

Perhaps you're also sceptical that anyone in your network is going to follow suit. Maybe you aren’t really planning to talk about the pledge, add it to your email signature, or post about it on social media. Or maybe you 

 planning to do these things but you don’t think they’ll make a difference.

even if you don’t directly inspire anyone else to take the pledge

, you’ll still be adding to the total number of pledgers and contributing to that goal of widespread adoption discussed above.

 In other words, down the line, your action (combined with the action of other similarly on-the-fence donors who didn’t see any value in pledging) could 

 greatly increase the number of people involved in this global effort to change the norms around charitable giving.

 And this could significantly move the needle: for example, imagine you come across something that seems interesting and compelling but only fifty people have done it. Now, imagine you come across something that seems interesting and compelling and 50,000 people have done it. In which case would you be more likely to sign up?

, you say? Well, I’d argue that — looked at from today’s vantage point — the marginal value of an extra name may be low, if you don’t expect anyone to follow suit. But looked at from some vantage point in the future, each of those names that contributed to reaching 50,000 or more pledgers played an extremely important role. This means that the marginal value of your signature will be 

Put another way, widespread adoption is a slow process, but being a first follower (the first person to jump on board, or in the case of the pledge, one of the first 10,000 or even 20,000 to jump on board) is one of the best ways to help achieve it. After all, it’s much easier — and much less impressive — to do something that nearly everyone is doing. So if you care about the marginal value of your contribution, it’s best to jump on board as early as possible.

And if you’re not convinced by the above, that’s okay. I see your marginal value…and I raise you a counterfactual. In other words, what’s the marginal value of 

 adding your name if you’re already donating? (See misconception #3 if you’re concerned about constraining your future self forever; see misconceptions #1 and #5 if you're concerned about flexibility.)

So maybe it’s time for a reframe: if you already donate 10% or more, perhaps there’s no good reason 

 to sign the pledge. After all, you’re already doing the hard part. And there may very well be quite a bit of value in making it official.

Misconception #5: There’s only one pledge

The Giving What We Can pledge actually has several options:

You can pledge exactly 10% of your lifetime income.

 of 10% of your income, if this amount is larger.

Outside of the standard Giving What We Can Pledge, there are also other pledge options that you may or may not be aware of:

 for people who aren’t quite ready for a 10% or lifetime commitment but are interested in making 

 commitment. The Trial Pledge allows you to pledge a custom percentage of income for a custom amount of time. You can then renew your pledge when it expires, either at the same level or with a gradual increase. Or, you can decide to upgrade to the full Giving What We Can pledge when you’re ready. Some people who wish to pledge a percentage of their income but don’t ever want to do 10% keep renewing their trial pledge for their entire career.

 where you can choose to live on a specific allowance and then pledge everything above that. Some people prefer this way of thinking about giving, as they find it easier to choose what they need to live on than to commit to giving away a specific percentage.

, where you donate 10% or more of company profits annually.


Additionally, both the Giving What We Can pledge and the Trial Pledge have a provision for students and others who are not currently earning a regular income. If you take either of these pledges while you are a student or unemployed, it is within the spirit of the pledge to give 1% of your spending money until you start earning an income, at which time you would then begin giving your pledged amount. 

So….how did you stack up? Or more accurately — how did 

stack up? We’d love to know just how common these misconceptions are so that we can improve our communications going forward. You can help by filling out this 

 (which just involves clicking yes/no/not sure to each of the five misconceptions we covered to indicate if you would have thought it was a true statement prior to reading this post.)

Check out our Pledge FAQs for more details!

80-year-old Bob Layne thought others should know about effective giving. So he made it happen.

, the learning center of his retirement community.

15, I heard a podcast with Will MacAskill discussing his newly published book Doing Good Better. I bought it immediately and after reading it I found it was a book that truly changed my life. It introduced me to a way of thinking about charitable giving that was logical, enlightening and motivational...I wanted for others to have a similar experience.”


Those are the words of Bob Layne, an 80-year-old retired professor who lives with his wife in a retirement community in Florida, one with a learning facility that presents courses and lectures for residents. After learning about effective giving, he decided others should know about it, and that he could help. He’s now giving talks on effective giving at the learning center of the 10,000+ member retirement community where he lives.


We were so moved to hear about Bob’s initiative that we asked him to write a short piece on it for our blog. Here’s what he wro

by Bob Layne

My presentation

nks so much  to Bob for his incredible initiative, and for sharing it with us! We're certainly inspired, and we think our readers will be too. 


80-year-old Bob Layne thought others should know about effective giving. So he made it happen.  

Grace Adams

Hello and welcome to our March newsletter!

This month, I wanted to feature an update from one of our recommended charities: 

When we’re donating to organisations working far away, it can be easy to forget just how much of an impact our money is having. So I found 

 in Nigeria particularly inspiring. The story follows two members of a mobile vaccination team, Idris and Abubakar, who are trying to reach the babies who have missed their last round of vaccines or haven’t yet presented to the clinic for vaccinations. I encourage you to 

And for a bit more context about New Incentives: In January 2024, New Incentives had 11,130 mobile vaccination teams go out across the nine states where they work. They have enrolled close to 3 million infants in the program since their inception.

Blog

Member Profile: Christoph Hartmann

5 things you've got wrong about the Giving What We Can Pledge

80-year-old Bob Layne thought others should know about effective giving. So he made it happen.

March Newsletter 2024

Discover How "Rich" You Really Are: A Glimpse into Global Income and Charity

February Newsletter 2024

January 2024 Newsletter

Head of TED Chris Anderson signs new “Wealth Pledge” to give 2.5% of wealth to high-impact charities each year

Where are the GWWC team donating in 2023?

Giving What We Can is spinning out of the Effective Ventures Foundations