Edit (22 April 2025): After careful consideration we have decided to discontinue our investigation into whether there’s some value in (someone) building a community for those in the earning to give (EtG) space and to close down the EtG Pledge Club.
At GWWC, we’ve recently made the difficult decision to retire a number of initiatives in order to focus our attention on our ambitious new strategy.
We still believe in the impact potential of this project. Our decision doesn’t reflect a lack of perceived value, but rather our need to focus at this juncture of GWWC's development. Thus, we are actively looking for organisations and individuals interested in taking on this project. If that’s you, please do reach out. Note: CEA have indicated to us that they might be interested in filling this gap directly or indirectly (see their most recent strategy post).
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In my capacity as Effective Giving Global Coordinator and Incubator at Giving What We Can (GWWC) I’m currently exploring whether there’s some value in (someone) building a community for those in the earning to give (EtG) space—specifically, whether there is scope for GWWC or another organisation to incubate a project of some kind that’s genuinely useful here (I'm aware that there might be some initial funding available for a new project). The key questions we’re trying to answer are: Who is out there? What do EtGers need? And is there a community-building project that could offer real value? My next step in this exploration is identifying EtGers who are interested in this among GWWC’s community of pledgers.
A note of clarification: Outside of the EA community, the 10% Pledge is often misinterpreted as being targeted directly and/or exclusively at people who are earning to give. We wish to explicitly clarify that this is not the case. Rather, the Pledge is aimed at anyone with any career who can afford to give a portion of their earnings to high-impact charities (and we think that’s most people earning an average salary in a high-income country – hence, our mission of creating a cultural norm).
What do we mean by EtG?
We define earning to give as people who are deliberately pursuing high-paying (but morally positive or neutral) jobs with the aim of giving much more than ten percent of their income to high-impact charities. Our current proposal (given some of the reasoning defined in this post and comments) is to define EtG (only) as:
- Giving at least 20% of one’s income while pursuing EtG, but typically more, dependent on what one needs to take care of oneself and loved ones
- To charities that one thinks do the most good per dollar
- Working in a job that one believes is morally positive or neutral
As stated above, this is far from Giving What We Can’s target or usual audience (given our mission of creating a cultural norm). However, there is definitely a subset of our community of pledgers who are pursuing earning to give, and we think there could be value in identifying who is in that subset and determining whether there might be scope for GWWC (or more likely another organisation or new project) to support this community and provide value. See this report by AIM for previous thoughts about what could be valuable in this space.
Launching the EtG Pledge Club
To begin understanding this better, we’re trialling a new Pledge Club for people who are earning to give. Membership will be anonymous—only GWWC will know who is in the club, and this will help us assess whether there’s scope for generating value by engaging this group.
To join, you will ideally have made a public giving pledge (Trial, 10% or Further) with GWWC and be currently (or have previously been, or are expecting to soon be) pursuing EtG as a career path—where donations are (one of) the primary way(s) you’re seeking to make an impact through your career. As such, we are excited to hear from
- Current EtGers: Those currently earning to give.
- Aspiring EtGers: Early-career professionals building career capital and earning potential with the intent to earn and give significantly in the future.
- Ex-EtGers: Anyone who was previously pursuing this career path but has since transitioned away or retired.
You can join the EtG Pledge Club from your GWWC Pledge Dashboard, or if you haven't yet taken a formal pledge, you can sign one and join the EtG Pledge Club here. If for whatever reason you do not want to take a pledge but would still like to be included in this project, please drop me an email at [email protected].
The EtG Pledge Club is the first step to exploring whether there’s real value to be built in this space. Over time, we hope to learn more about the needs and potential of the EtG community, and whether there’s room for GWWC or another organisation to play a role in supporting them. At this stage, we have a few weakly-held ideas for what might be valuable, but our focus is on figuring this out together with the EtG community.
I think one thing lacking in the EtG community is actually feeling like you're a part of the EA space. Since my day to day interaction is outside of the EA space, it can feel very difficult to remain value-aligned and socially close to people who share the same value system unless I put in a very concerted effort.
Based on my anecdotal experience, it could be very high value to have some sort of social community developed around this!
Random idea: a yearly community retreat or a mini-conference for EtG folks?
Random idea on the random idea: such an event (or indeed similar social opportunities for ETGers) could charge for participation and aim to fully cover costs, or even make a profit that gets donated.
EtGers have money they want to give away, and this is clearly a service that should be supporting them to address a need they have --> they should be willing to pay for it.
Also, if the service just focused on providing EtGers with fun, social connections, and a great community rather than 'overfitting' to what seems directly relevant to impact, I think it might be easier to make it successful and grow it. But then a bunch of the money would be spent on things that are quite disconnected from impact, and arguably shouldn't be funded by Open Philanthropy, EAIF etc and would be better coming from EtGers personal/social/fun budgets rather than out of their donations.
Arguments against:
separate fuzzies and utilons... This might be blurring the boundaries and making it hard to optimise for either, or making it confusing for EtGers whether they should see it as a donation or not.
EtGers might underestimate the benefits of investing in themselves in this way (in the same way people often underinvest in their own mental health, productivity systems, etc) and offering it free or subsidised might better set incentives that accurately represent its value.
Similarly, I wonder if one of the major activities this group could do together is joint funding, possibly by forming a funding circle. When I was EtG, I just donated broadly to GiveWell Top Charities because I found cause selection overwhelming, but a community of similar funders with some hobbyist-type research into causes and charities might’ve engaged me more.