Member Profile: Christoph Hartmann
This profile is part of the "People of Giving What We Can" series.
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?
I’m part nerd, part hippie.
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 Practical Ethics, 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 Giving What We Can Pledge 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.
Do you ever find it difficult to give?
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:
My work: I work for carepay.com, 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!
What are your visions for the future?
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?
Peter Singer's book Practical Ethics probably had the biggest impact on my giving.
On the more detailed aspects of giving, I found the articles on https://80000hours.org/, https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/, and https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/ helpful.
And then for the country-specific tax optimisation, I found local organisations like https://doneereffectief.nl/en/ and https://effektiv-spenden.org/ to be a life saver.
Have you found anything to be helpful in talking to people about effective giving?
I talk about my donations very rarely, a LinkedIn post 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?
The donation dashboard 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 :)
This post is part of the “People of Giving What We Can" 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 member stories.
-Share your effective giving story to help inspire others to give more, and more effectively.