September news: Reversing a decline in generosity

Hi and welcome to our September newsletter!

Together, we’re reversing a major trend.

Generosity is declining, with fewer households donating to or volunteering for charities, according to a new, in-depth analysis of current trends in generosity: The Generosity Commission Report.

Although recent years have shown significant progress in many areas – including a decline in child mortality, an increase in the adoption of renewable energy and the creation of a new vaccine for malaria, we have a long way to go towards addressing the world’s problems. For example, there are still a billion people living in extreme poverty, tens of billions of animals in factory farms each year, and global catastrophic risks looming over us.

The world needs the generosity of regular people to tackle these issues. And I’m grateful that each of you is giving what you can to help.

Reading the report made me feel a bit disheartened – until I refocused on the fact that I’m part of a community of thousands of people who are helping to reverse the trend of declining generosity and set a new norm of giving significantly and effectively.

If you want to help accelerate this reversal, consider signing up for our new Pledge Advocacy Programme to help equip you with the tools and confidence to speak to your friends and family about effective giving and pledging.

If you want to read the takeaways of the report on generosity, I liked this article from Vox. And we’ve got lots of great news from this month below!

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?

• “I’ve been thinking about it for way too long and it’s time to take action”. Tzu Kit Chan from Malaysia
• (Translation) “Because I want to make the world a better place. Because I want to feel useful and know that I am useful. And because I know that my income is largely the result of luck.” Astrid Casadei from France
• “I've previously pledged 2%, but given the state of the world at the moment, the degree of uncertainty about the future, but the very real and current suffering, I'm committing to 10% as a way of increasing my impact in parallel with pursuing an impactful career.” Rebecca Cutter from Australia

Upcoming Events

Giving Green: How to Drive Systemic Change Via High-Impact Climate Donations

Giving Green is hosting an event at New York Climate Week on high-impact climate giving, featuring panellists from organisations such as the Good Food Institute. Giving Green’s Founder and Executive Director, Dr Dan Stein, will lead a panel discussion with leading changemakers in climate about the most promising philanthropic strategies and where more capital is needed to accelerate them.

You can join the evening of drinks and conversation to learn what the latest research says about how and where to donate to spur the systemic change we need to slow global warming. Registration required.

Thursday, 26 September from 5 - 8 pm EDT at 307 West 38th Street, New York, NY

Register here.

GWWC London and Ambitious Impact: Founding and Funding Effective Charities

Ambitious Impact (AIM) and GWWC London are hosting a series of talks at the new AIM offices in London on the journey from research to reality as founders and early employees discuss funding, running and measuring brand-new effective charities. Please come along if you’re interested in using evidence and reason to find the best ways to help others and then putting them into practice.

Wednesday, 16th October from 6 - 10 pm BST at 52 Old Castle Street, London

Please register here if you would like to attend.

News & Updates

GWWC

• We’re spreading the word about the 10% Pledge by partnering with organisations that share our values and commitment to making giving effectively and significantly a global cultural norm. Below are some highlights from the past month – see our pledge page for the full list of partners!

Community

• Word of mouth is one of the best ways for people to learn about the pledge! However, we’ve heard from many pledgers that it can be difficult to bring up the pledge in conversation. To help with this, as mentioned in the intro to this newsletter, we are launching a new Pledge Advocacy Programme to empower our community members to have thoughtful conversations about pledging with their friends, family, and colleagues. We're currently looking for another 20 pledgers excited to help us shape our new Pledge Advocacy Program. Please let us know here if you’re interested in joining the programme.
  • We will be running two 8-week pilots in Q4 2024:
    • Pilot A, from 30 September to 25 November
    • Pilot B, from 11 November to 6 January
• We are energised to see more pledgers taking to social media to share their decision to take the 10% Pledge or a trial pledge. Here are some examples for inspiration::
  • Rebecca Cutter wrote an article to explain why she and her organisation have taken the 10% Pledge – acknowledging that talking about money and philanthropy can feel uncomfortable, but that the benefits are worth pushing through. Read her article here.
  • Alex Voakes posted about how being a 10% Pledger inspires the way he runs his company.
  • Erin Braid publicly celebrated 10 years of being a 10% Pledger. Congratulations and thank you to our 559th pledger!
  • On the 4th anniversary of taking the 10% Pledge, Fernando Martin-Gullans shared with his network that he gives 10% of his income effectively because he knows that the best version of himself dedicates a meaningful portion of his resources and energy towards trying to make the world a better place effectively.
• Two 10% Pledgers are getting married and are asking their guests to contribute to their fundraiser instead of buying wedding gifts. You can donate to Will and JP’s wedding fundraiser if you feel moved to do so – donations will go to Malaria Consortium, The Good Food Institute, and 80,000 Hours. Congratulations and thank you, Will and JP!

Cause areas

Animal Welfare

• The Humane League UK published its annual report and accounts for 2023-24, detailing achievements and progress made over the past 12 months and sharing the vision going forward: ending the worst and most widespread abuse of animals raised for food and greatly increasing compassion for these animals by 2050.
• Wild Animal Initiative announced the six new research projects they are giving Challenge Grants to: The grants award up to $200,000 per project, for a total of over $1 million in this round. With methods ranging from treating wild mice with anti-parasitic medication to developing a “lick-o-metre” to assess wild bee welfare, each project demonstrates novelty, methodological rigour, and a high degree of relevance to high-priority research areas in wild animal welfare science.

Global Health and Wellbeing

• Malaria Consortium shared news of a malaria vaccine breakthrough for pregnant women, asserting a major step forward in addressing the real-world health needs of pregnant women in malaria-endemic settings. Read more.
• The Lead Exposure Elimination Project is receiving support from US AID in scaling its approach to getting lead out of consumer goods to reduce lead poisoning and improve the health, wellbeing and potential of children worldwide.
• Rory Stewart, Senior Advisor to GiveDirectly and Former Member of Parliament, gave a TED Talk exploring why many global development projects waste money on programs that don’t work. His talk, “To End Extreme Poverty, Give Cash — Not Advice” promotes cash transfers as an evidence-based intervention to address extreme poverty.
• Our World in Data published a new article: Many of us can save a child’s life if we rely on the best data. The article is a wonderful introduction to the principles behind effective giving and the vast differences in the efficacy of different interventions – consider sending it to a friend! You could also use it to open up a conversation about pledging/donating with Giving What We Can if you feel inspired to do so.

Global Catastrophic Risk Reduction

• Founders Pledge shared how its team has been thinking and acting in light of the 2024 US election, primarily in relation to climate change policy and investment. The brief describes how the team has been preparing for different outcomes since 2023 and how they think about philanthropic strategy in the context of increased climate policy backlash.

Evaluators, grantmakers and incubators

• GiveWell published several blog posts and reports:
• A look at how the statistical concept of expected value is incorporated into its analyses
• GiveWell’s current strategy and thinking on vaccines grantmaking
• An intervention report reviewing the evidence for community-based tuberculosis household contact management programs
• New research pages on a grant of up to $4.8 million to the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine to study the economic impact of distributing reading glasses
• The reasoning behind a $1.48 million grant to Malaria Consortium to design and pilot the “Be In A Net” program with the Behavioural Insights Team.
• Animal Charity Evaluators (ACE) announced the recipients of its Movement Grants Round 8 after receiving a tremendous response from animal advocates worldwide, with 324 applications from 73 countries. ACE is proud to be disbursing $1,024,172 in grants to support 30 innovative projects that will drive positive change for animals.
• The Life You Can Save shared the recently-released recording of a July debate between Peter Singer and Alice Crary: “Does the effective altruism movement get giving right?”
• The Centre for Exploratory Altruism Research (CEARCH) completed an external evaluation of Giving What We Can’s giving multiplier, estimating that every additional $1 GWWC spends on promoting pledging in 2025 will have an impact equivalent to generating $13 for GiveWell’s top charities. You can read the full report here and see more about how it differs from/lends support to what we found in our latest internal impact evaluation on our program page.

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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.