The Giving What We Can Pledge/General experiences of Effective Altruists+FIRE

[Antonia_Caenis]

Edit: I would appreciate to hear about the experiences of all Effective Altruists on this forum, not just the ones who have taken the Pledge. Please share :)



According to current GiveWell estimates, between 3000$ and 5000$ can save a life.

I learned about Effective Altruism (EA) way before I found FIRE, and it struck me immediately that as long as my life doesn't suck, this is the best thing I could possibly be doing with my money. Consequently, I've committed to donating 10% of my current income, though I haven't taken the GWWC Pledge yet. The reason I held off on that was the same reason I am posting here now: I didn't want to make such a major lifetime commitment without actually having earned a living, and very carefully thinking things through. So, thoughts please. Pros, cons. Experiences, perhaps.

Some further thoughts:
- My personal situation: I recently started working and have no debt and a small emergency fund. I'm also investing small amounts, which I will increase once my EF is bigger (october at the lastest.) I am currently earning my country's median income, and an optimistic prediction, which includes the Pledge, brings me to FI in my mid-thirties. It is unlikely that I will ever earn pre-FI MMM-level income, and if I do, it won't be in a way I can plan for right now. A possible post-FI plan is to start one of 80000hours.org's recommended careers, e.g. think-tank work. Current (vague) plan is to have children.

- philosophical considerations: the effects of money donated now also compound, and giving now vs. later is a complicated decision (EAs will be familiar with the debate). I lean towards giving now. More importantly, what struck me immediately after learning of EA, was the realization that if giving effectively became a middle class social norm, we would fulfill most UN development goals within this decade. That's not counting the second-order effects of money not spent on the waste of resources, for the environmentally inclined.

-practical considerations: the Pledge is fairly flexible. Donor-advised funds count towards it, and you can move your contributions around, e.g. I could donate 20% now and invest more in a bear market, inverted for the withdrawal phase. I intend to do this. Reasons for taking the Pledge, as opposed to quiet charity, are mostly social in nature. OTOH, I am able to envision a future where I would be unable to make my contributions long-term, and would have to take the ego hit of withdrawing. OTOOH, if I end up replacing monetary income with other sources (homegrown produce, barter and trade,..) in FI, I'm not sure what I would do with that. But it seems like a solvable problem :)

I have definitely missed important considerations, so I am looking forward to hearing people's thoughts. Thanks to everyone who took the time to read this ^^

[E.T.]

Are you looking for advice on whether or not to sign up for the public pledge? That's seems like a very personal decision. I like that the campaign is encouraging people to donate consistently but it's up to you on whether or not you want to publicly declare your intentions. If you're concerned about making a commitment, why not start small and bump up your contributions as you feel comfortable? Or maybe set a smaller time frame for your commitment. It could be something like, I will donate 5% for one year. Then see how that suits you and adjust from there.

I used to donate at 10% but then haven't adjusted for my last raises, so I'll probably bump that back up eventually. It's meaningful to me as a reminder to not hold on to my money too tightly, it helps keep me grounded I think.

[Antonia_Caenis]

Hi, thank you very much for your answer. To clarify, I'm already donating 10%. I just feel like I should better evaluate both the upsides and the downsides of making a public commitment, and turning the matter over and over in my head was not really getting me anywhere. So yes, that's the kind of advice I'm looking for :)

[Scio5]

Happy to see other effective altruists!
I took the GWWC pledge, but I haven't announced it publicly in any way. My husband (who also gives 10%, but chooses not to formally sign the pledge) and some other EA friends know, but that's it. I choose not to talk about it socially too much because a lot of my social circle is struggling, much more so during COVID. If your social circle is made up of high earners, I would encourage you to talk about it within your limits of comfort! You could mention it as a thing that you're passionate about without trying to do a hard sell if that makes you nervous.

[yachi]

What's your plan for this during retirement?  I see a few things being resonable:
1. Withdrawing an extra 10% above your expenses and donating it each year. 
2. Keeping the dollar figure fixed at 10% of your last year of employment, and indexing to inflation or not.
3. Subtracting a credit from 1, or 2 above by volunteering time with a charity.
4. Taking a 10% portion of your 'stache and frontloading a donor advised fund and making charity contributions only from there.

[Antonia_Caenis]

Hi, thanks for your answers @Scio5 and @yachi !

My plan for this during retirement includes #1. Since there would be no need to withdraw more tban I need, this would obviously make it "10% of spending". Option #2 I hadn't considered, so thank you very much for bringing it to mind @yachi. Given that MMM style FIRE is essentially the ultimate luxury of a "life of leisure" or at least can be, it seems like your #2 might be closer to the spirit of the Pledge.

With #3 I have the issue that, like stated above, monetary giving is very effective at this point in history. I'm not sure what I could do with my time that would come close, other than distributing bednets. That's not arguing against volunteering, or saying I won't do it, just that the effective "credit" I would get from it to count towards my Pledge should be rather low. While I will probably end up doing something at some point that is also on 80000 hours' list of effective careers, subtracting an "imputed impact" from that just really doesn't seem to be the spirit of the Pledge. The 10% are 10% of your income, regardless of whether the most effective charity in the world is your employer.

#4 This seems like an excellent option if you're planning your legacy, or a high income type planning to fatFIRE, or in a comparable situation. I'm even pretty sure there are people here who did/will do something like that. I'll have to look into it in more detail, since I'm a moderately creative type and already developing an allergy of sorts towards traditional employment.

I guess I should really have phrased my opening question more like "compatibility of the GWWCP with FIRE", since I tend to over-worry about everything. Perhaps I'm just complaynipantsying here. What I realised in the last weeks was that earning money is damn hard, at least for me, at least right now. I'm in full "scarcity mode" - I can't image having enough, ever. Perhaps that will change with time and what seems like major hurdles now will simply disappear. Perhaps I should do something about my general anxiety levels, too *laughs*.

As for how I'll do it, like I said there are a number of things I need to figure out. I'm pursuing a more ERE-style approach with a focus on robustness, resiliency, and redundancy. I'm not sure yet how to implement a system that fulfills a number of criteria related to effective altruism, but that seems misplaced here, so I'll take it over to the ERE forum.

My issues aside, if there are any EAs here who want to share their experiences, please feel free to do so! I'm interested in hearing about it!

[SwordGuy]

I don't know a thing about this public pledge but we're giving at least $1000 a month for charitable purposes.    We have God's plenty and sure could have used the help early on.    I don't understand the bitter people who want other folks to have to suffer to get ahead like they did.

We're picking small charities and for our son's, granddaughter's and daughter-in-law's birthdays, they get to pick a local charity where they are for the $1000.    When our two grandsons get a bit older we'll add them to this process.   We want them to practice picking effective charities and get used to giving charitably.   

We don't worry about whether the money is tax deductible.    Nice if it is but we don't care.   

I prefer directed assistance to individuals by helping them to start a business or earn extra income that they need to overcome a setback but those kind of situations don't happen in my social circle on a monthly basis -- but charities deal with folks in the same situation.   We've helped people start a rental property business and a trucking business, we've bought someone a house and let them fix it up to mortgageable standards, then sold it to them for cost, etc.   Those kind of actions can transform someone's life (and that of their family for several generations) for the better.  We've also just hired people to do things for us that we would otherwise have done for ourselves because they had lost their job and needed the money but didn't want to take charity.

I'm happy my wife is totally on board with this.  I went to an artist conference where there was an auction of various tools and artist supplies that folks had donated.  It was to raise money for the organization.   I bid for a kiln that was available at a good starting price.  I realized I was bidding against a student looking to get their first kiln.   So I outbid them and then gave them the kiln.   Organization raised more money and a young person got an essential, expensive tool for their career at a price that they could definitely afford.    If I had spent the same amount of money on a donated piece of jewelry for my wife she would have looked at me like I was crazy, but giving the kiln away to a total stranger made perfect sense to her.

Maybe we're just weird.   But we're happy weird and we control our money, it doesn't control us.