James Rayton

Tom Delaney

Tom Delaney talks through his decision to take the 10% Pledge — and his experience as an Australian growing up in an informal settlement in North India. 

Taking the 10% Pledge whilst living in an informal settlement: An interview with Tom Delaney

, I’ve recently been doing lots of speeches about giving 10% of your income to impactful nonprofits. In these talks, I’ve tried to describe my own reasons for taking the Pledge, and for dedicating my career to encouraging others to take it.

For me, the Pledge is not just about generosity—it's about justice. Here's why: 

I’m part of the global top 1% of earners (adjusted for cost of living)

, but I’ve done nothing extraordinary to deserve it. It’s almost entirely down to luck. If I’d been born in Haiti, Yemen, or Somalia, my life could have been drastically different. The 700 million people living below the poverty line of $2.15 per day haven’t done anything to deserve the hardships of their lives. This huge imbalance is deeply unfair.

Unlike the middle classes in the global North, the middle classes in India are exposed to the scale of this inequality on a daily basis, and it showed when I attended a conference in Bengaluru last month. The positive response to the idea of giving was overwhelming. The Indian conference had a much higher percentage of attendees sign the pledge than others we’ve attended in the global North.

One interaction I had stood out. It’s the story of Tom Delaney, an Australian by birth who grew up in an informal settlement in North India, and still lives there today. Tom was motivated to pledge by seeing firsthand (and uniquely experiencing) the discrepancy in lifestyles represented by those living in the settlement and his family back in Australia. Tom volunteers in a nonprofit, 

, and despite the challenges of his environment, he made the 10% Pledge last month.

I caught up with Tom to learn more about his inspiring message:

Q: Tom, could you tell me more about your upbringing?

My parents are both Australian; dad trained as a social worker while mum had a maths and computer science degree. After a short-term trip to India in their uni days, their life plans changed drastically, committing themselves to work for – and with – the poor. They made the unusual decision to move into a slum (much to the dismay of my grandparents) – to better build relationships with the people they wanted to serve, and to better understand the root causes of poverty, and potential solutions.

So I grew up at the intersection of two very different worlds. Much of my time was spent playing with the neighbourhood kids – some weren’t getting square meals at home, others were facing domestic violence, many more were receiving grossly inadequate education and healthcare. But we would also visit Australia and marvel at the wide roads with barely a person on them, or the beautiful public libraries, with thousands of books available for free. I’m very grateful that my upbringing taught me what a beautiful but broken world we live in – how incredible its people but also how insane its inequality.

Q: I often talk about the challenges people face when living below the poverty line. Can you explain what that looks like in your community?

Poverty is a lack of cash, which translates to a lack of control over one’s own life, often leading to agonising decisions. Let me give an example. Last year, I published with my mother a 

reflection on public healthcare accessibility

 where we tell the story of Aliya, 16, who had been suffering terrible stomach pains and had awful constipation. Her family had taken her on a circuit of private hospitals, racking up heavy bills but not getting a proper diagnosis. Now they faced a terrible choice – go further into debt, at a high interest rate, which could potentially result in them losing their house, or give up on seeking medical care for Aliya. Thankfully, they chose to seek further care – if they hadn’t, Aliya (who was eventually diagnosed with abdominal tuberculosis and was in danger of a large intestine rupture) would have likely died.

Sadly, this type of scenario is quite common. To me, it encapsulates what poverty is all about – an inability to meet all one’s needs, a feeling (and reality) of powerlessness amidst forces (governments, corporations, diseases) beyond one’s understanding and control.

Q: I’m guessing with Australian parents, you might have more resources than others around you. Does that create tension living alongside people in very different financial circumstances? How do you navigate that?

Most days, I am asked for money. This may be from a beggar on the street corner who I don’t know at all, or from a friend struggling to pay for her child’s school uniform, or from a neighbour hit by a sudden medical crisis. Naturally, this creates both internal and interpersonal tensions: I want to help, but also need to be wary of dependency traps and being perceived as a walking ATM. I try to ask myself and the individual some key questions when I decide whether to give my money. Firstly, will this help them in the long term? For instance, I’m much happier giving towards education than expenditure on wedding or festival feasts. Secondly, I ask the person I’m giving money to whether they could also contribute something. For instance, in helping people get a government 

 – with significant health, economic and environmental benefits – my NGO expects people to pay half the cost, making it more likely that they will value and use the gas connection. Finally, I ask whether the person can give back or pass it on. Reciprocity is innate, and most people like to help others. I often accept the generosity of my neighbours inviting me for a meal. At Dignity Vision Education International we also encourage people to pass on skills they’ve learnt – for instance, asking kids who became literate through our after-school program to join us in teaching others.

I realise that some might find these types of questions a bit paternalistic, and I agree that paternalism is a real problem. However, I also see quite a bit of “present bias”

 in my community and I’ve found that some of these frameworks can help overcome that.

Q: What inspired you to sign the 10% Pledge?

Signing the 10% Pledge was a no-brainer for me. I have all my basic needs met comfortably, so it’s clear that my money would generate a lot more happiness and wellbeing in somebody else’s hands.

Some of my poorest friends have taught me a thing or two about generosity, by sharing a meal or giving to a beggar. If they can give self-sacrificially, why shouldn’t those of us who can give at very little cost to ourselves do so? Put it this way – if you earn $50k per year and donate 10% to Against Malaria Foundation, you would still be in the top 2-3% of global income earners, and you would also save one life every year! The life you help save is more than a statistic; they are a person who is just as real as you or me!

As a Christian, I often think of the principle that ‘he who has two shirts should share with him who has none’. And we have a lot more than two shirts! If you follow any other of the world’s major religions, you will find similar injunctions to give generously. But there’s no need to appeal to religion: the simple economic logic of diminishing marginal returns tells us that our resources will do a lot more good in the hands of those who have much less than we do.

I encourage anyone reading this to sign the Pledge too, making a commitment to your future self. The great thing about Giving What We Can is that you can make a life-changing or life-saving difference in the lives of some of the world’s poorest people - without needing to do anything as drastic as my parents did!

My neighbours are not poor because they are lazy – many work 12-hour days, 6 or 7 days a week. Nor are they poor because they’re stupid – some keep track of the amounts of money owed to ten different creditors, without writing anything down. The good news is, this means the cycle of poverty is breakable: my neighbours are not ‘basket cases’ doomed to remain poor forever. They have the skills, ingenuity and work ethic to build better lives for themselves. If we can help them clamber on to the bottom rung of the ladder, through effective interventions like those promoted by Giving What We Can, they can start climbing it.

Tom's story is a powerful reminder that giving is about more than generosity – it's crucial to our shared humanity. The global distribution of wealth is highly unjust – but we can play our own part in changing that, by recognising that we won the lottery of birth, and giving back to those who didn't.

Tom Delaney volunteers with DEVI Sansthan, an Indian education not-for-profit working to improve the government schooling system. He also works in several i of Lucknow's informal settlements, helping people access government services and healthcare. Tom loves cycling, sports, reading and discussing politics/philosophy/economics.

Tom Delaney

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Taking the 10% Pledge whilst living in an informal settlement: An interview with Tom Delaney