It’s been a big couple of months! We’ve celebrated our 15th anniversary, we’ve announced our 2025 charity recommendations, and we’ve just finished holding our Pledge Week!

We’re only days away from the end of the year, so now is a great time to:

• Finalise any donations for 2024 (maybe even make some donations as last-minute gifts)
• Reflect on your giving this year
• (If you have not taken a Pledge yet,) take some time to consider whether you can take a giving pledge for 10% (or a custom percentage) of your income for 2025 — if you think you can afford even 1% of your income for one year, we have a Pledge option for that!
• (For our pledgers:) check out your donation stats and graphs for the year on your Pledge dashboard!

We have lots of news down below to keep you entertained and informed over the holidays. My picks are Julia’s reflection on continuing to donate half their household income and our new blog post about how to interpret our claim that you can do up to 100x more good when donating to effective charities.

From our team at Giving What We Can — Happy Holidays!

With gratitude,

Grace & the Giving What We Can team

Motivations for Pledging

Here are some of our favourite responses from people who took a pledge last month:

What motivated you to take a pledge with Giving What We Can?

• “We can effectively improve the lives of less fortunate people, and significantly impact future generations.” Guilherme Torrens Wunsch from Brazil
• “I'm a university student and I just started making some money as a freelancer. Being able to give has always been a dream of mine and I want to start giving as early as possible.” Hallie Tseng from Taiwan
• “It's too easy to ignore the amount of suffering in the world, instead of taking significant action to reduce it. It's too easy to forget how bad it is and how much you would want help if it was you.” Hugh Pender from the United Kingdom

News & Updates

GWWC

• Our 2025 charity recommendations are here to help you maximise your impact! When you donate to a charity on our list, you can be confident your contribution will be well spent. Check out our Recommendations FAQ at the bottom of the page for info on the reasoning and research behind our list.
• We also published details of our 2024 evaluations of charity evaluators – read the key takeaways here. See our Evaluating the Evaluators page for more information about why and how we evaluate charity evaluators, and how this ongoing research informs our charity recommendations.
• We’re hiring for an Operations Associate. The role is fully remote. (We have a slight preference for US or UK candidates but are open to global talent!) The deadline to apply is January 9, 2025, 11:59 PM GMT.
• Our Donor Lottery is now open, with a block size of $200k USD! A donor lottery gives you a chance to direct a larger sum of money than your donation. We'll help winners make the best-informed decision possible. Find out more and donate to the lottery by January 8 to enter.
• See where the GWWC team is donating this year!
• Wondering what we mean (and what we don’t mean) when we say you can have 100 times more impact when donating to the best charities? Check out our write-up here.

More new blog posts:

We published a lot of great stories for Pledge Week, including:

• My (Grace’s) pledge story on moving from a 3% Trial Pledge to the 10% Pledge
• Luke Moore’s post about taking the 10% Pledge before even earning an income
• Beyond the dichotomy: Perspectives on direct work and effective giving, exploring a few ways to think about how direct work and effective giving could complement each other, and spotlighting the thoughts and stories of some pledgers who do both.
• Jacob Bauer’s giving story – how writing the soon-to-be-released Effective Altruism: An Introduction moved Jacob from belief to action and motivated him to take the 10% Pledge

Community

• This giving season, you might want to read 10% Pledger Julia Wise's reflections on donating up to 50% of her income while navigating career changes and raising a family. Her journey offers thoughtful insights that might spark ideas and encouragement for your giving plans for 2025. Read “Still Donating Half” here.
• We had a chance to get a photo of a good bunch of the Australian and New Zealand GWWC community at EAGxAustralasia a few weeks ago. Take a look at all these lovely faces!

• US donors might find this new tool helpful: GiveCalc launched on Giving Tuesday as a free, open-source tool to help US donors calculate the true cost of their charitable giving. By analysing how donations affect your taxes and net income, GiveCalc empowers donors to give more effectively while considering state and income-level nuances. Learn more and try GiveCalc.
• Our co-founder William MacAskill has co-authored a new textbook, “An Introduction to Utilitarianism” with two long-time 10% Pledgers, Richard Chappell and Darius Meissner. It is designed to be accessible for undergraduates and informative for advanced readers.

Cause areas

Animal Welfare

• Faunalytics’ new report in partnership with The Good Growth Co. provides insights for animal advocates and funders in China, Southeast Asia, and beyond. By exploring how research is used, adapted, and produced by advocacy organisations in the region, this study offers a roadmap to bolster animal protection efforts in these culturally unique and logistically complex areas. Read the report.
• The Humane League UK (THL) published its quarterly impact report for Q2 of 2024 and released an interactive year-in-review video.
  • THL UK raised £100,000 for its work for farmed animals in the funding appeal it ran from November 25 to December 3, exceeding its original target of £80k!
  • THL received a judgment from the Appeal Court on its judicial review against Defra – the judges ruled the law says animals can’t be bred if their genes cause them to suffer. THL is optimistic about the possibilities this judgment brings to end the use of ‘Frankenchickens’ in the UK.
• Wild Animal Initiative’s Executive Director Cameron Meyer Shorb spoke on wild animal welfare at the 2024 United Nations Biodiversity Conference (COP 16), where 177 nations were represented. While a conventional approach to conservation values biodiversity as a mechanism to prevent the extinction of species, Cameron encouraged the audience to consider an additional angle: how biodiversity can affect quality of life for wild animals as individuals, and why more research in this area is critical.
• Good Food Institute published a blog post on its 2024 initiatives to drive real climate action by highlighting the role of alternative proteins in addressing agricultural emissions. GFI’s research shows the potential of protein diversification to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, free up 21% of farmland for biodiversity, and contribute €20-85 billion annually to the EU economy. By engaging stakeholders across policy, science, and agriculture, GFI is advancing discussions about protein diversification as a potential climate strategy. Read more about why GFI believes coalition building is crucial.

Global Health and Wellbeing

• Malaria Consortium has:
  • published an HPV catch-up project brief about its work in Cambodia raising awareness about cervical cancer and an article about paving the way for the new malaria vaccine to be rolled out in Uganda in April 2025.
  • launched the Give the Gift of a Healthy Future campaign for the holiday season.
• LEEP is hiring Program Managers and Senior Managers in multiple time zones! It is looking for several Program Managers with different regional and/or language focuses, as well as a Program Manager who will work on industry engagement. LEEP is also seeking Senior Managers to help lead and inspire teams of Program Managers. The application deadline is January 5th.
• In November 2024, Teaching at the Right Level Africa brought together over 100 education policymakers, implementers, and supporters from Ministries of Education, development partners, and education organisations to reflect on their shared goal to improve children’s basic reading and math skills. Find a summary of reflections on the TaRL Africa conference here.

Global Catastrophic Risk Reduction

• The Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security announced the publication of a commentary in Science on the risks of “mirror bacteria.” In the commentary, CHS’s director joins an international team of senior scientists to call for caution, stating “mirror bacteria, if created, could spread widely and irreversibly, with the potential for extraordinary mortality of humans and many other species.” Read the press release.
• Donors interested in supporting AI safety may be interested in Catalzye’s AI Safety Seed Funding Circle, which connects donors to “pre-screened” AI safety non-profits focused on reducing risks from advanced AI systems. Members coordinate, network, and make independent funding decisions. The upcoming February 2025 round will concentrate on technical AI safety organizations. Interested donors can learn more by reaching out by email here.
• Longview Philanthropy published its 2024 annual report for the Emerging Challenges Fund. You can read it here.

Evaluators, grantmakers and incubators

• The research of Founders Pledge and Giving Green helped inform Vox’s list of the best climate change charities! The list includes eleven organisations Vox believes are doing the most effective, cost-effective and evidence-based work to tackle climate change.
• GiveWell has:
  • published their 2024 Giving Recommendations and Staff Members' Personal Donations for Giving Season 2024.
  • re-evaluated the cost effectiveness of direct cash transfers as implemented by GiveDirectly, now estimating GiveDirectly’s flagship cash program to be 3-4x more cost-effective than previously estimated. See the blog post and full report.
  • published an update to their grant deployment timelines and a summary of their 2023 metrics report
• Open Philanthropy shared their staff’s recommendations for individual donors in 2024, sharing suggestions in eight cause areas – check them out here.
• Giving Green’s research and recommendations were featured in Vox, Heatmap, Mother Jones, and the Shiftkey podcast.
  • Founder and executive director, Dr. Dan Stein, appeared on the Innovations in Sustainable Finance podcast to discuss the impact of individual actions vs. donations to high-impact nonprofits.
  • You can catch up on Giving Green’s “Bold Climate Philanthropy for 2025 and Beyond” webinar with the presentation deck and Zoom recording.
• The Centre for Effective Altruism held a Donation Election to which nearly 500 donors contributed and voted in – the winning recipients of $21k USD are Rethink Priorities, the EA Animal Welfare Fund (one of GWWC’s top recommendations for 2025) and Shrimp Welfare Project (one of the recipients of the Animal Welfare Fund).
• Founders Pledge is hiring a Cause Area Lead in Global Health and Development to guide the GHD work on its research team, which identifies and evaluates high-impact funding opportunities.

We love seeing our community sharing stories about what pledging means to them and spreading the word about effective giving. We are stronger together! Tag us on LinkedIn, X, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, or TikTok and stay connected with us for more news and updates.

Do you have any feedback on our newsletter or communications? Share your thoughts here.

Useful Links

• Review our giving recommendations.
• Report your donations with your pledge dashboard.
• Share our ideas to help grow our community and multiply your impact.
• Join other members in the Giving What We Can Community Slack.
• Find more ways to get involved with Giving What We Can and effective giving.

Do you have questions about the pledge, Giving What We Can, or effective giving in general? Check out our FAQ page, or contact us directly.