Tag: donations

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We’ve still not fixed the malaria problem… ðŸ¦Ÿ

… So I’ve donated 10% of my 2025 salary (sorry, a bit belatedly) to some top malaria prevention charities, and some other charities too.

I blog here for my own accountability and in the small hope it might encourage others to do so.

Whenever I waiver about whether this is a good idea, I like to read Julia Wise (normative determinism in full flow). In a recent blog post, she put it very simply:

  • The world has a lot of appalling problems. Many can’t be addressed very well with money, but some can.
  • On a rich-country income [check out how rich you are] you almost surely have some income you could dedicate to making the world better in whatever way seems best to you.
  • This is best done not impulsively and sporadically, but deliberately as part of your ongoing budget.
  • Donating a fraction of your income is a pretty great opportunity to make the world more like what you want it to be: with less suffering, more progress, more fairness, or whatever seems best to you.
  • You don’t have to agree with my choice of where to donate! Think it through yourself!
  • My ask to you for the coming year: think seriously about how much you want to give, and where you want to give it. One tool that I recommend is making a pledge (either for a period of time, or ongoing).

This is all done very easily over Giving What We Can’s platform — where you can select from a range of charities or cause areas. This time I plumped for GiveWell’s Top Charities Fund, which isn’t much different than the GWWC Global Health and Wellbeing Fund that I’d normally give to, but perhaps a bit more cautious.

My donation, which with gift aid, comes up to around £4,000, buys a lot of nets, seasonal chemoprevention, routine childhood vaccinations and vitamin A supplements. In all likelihood, this will save a child’s life. Maybe two.

It’s a drop in the ocean when the USA has withdrawn so much funding for global health (risking 14m deaths over the next five years), but even more vital as a result.

Join me! There’s some helpful info on trying out regular giving here: https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/get-involved/trial-pledge

Photo (of magnolia, cos it’s spring) by Til Man on Unsplash

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2024’s donations

A nurse in Indonesia

This blog is now basically just a public record of my donation pledge… I aim to write more, about other stuff, at some point. 

See previous years’ posts for the explanation of why giving 10% of your salary is a moral imperative — and also made very straightforward by the good people at Giving What We Can. 

I’ve previously donated 10% before tax, but they recommend including the gift aid in your pledge. In calendar year 2024, I earned about £40k, so I’m donating £3.2k. With gift aid of £800, this is a pretty handy amount of cash for Giving What We Can’s Global Health Fund.

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Donation record for 2023

Sorry if I’ve mentioned this before, but if you’re reading this, you’re probably in the top 5% of high earners worldwide. Perhaps top 2-3%.

If you’re not sure, you can look it up via this handy calculator.

In the absence of a global wealth taxation scheme to fund global public health – it’s just around the corner I’m sure – it’s up to you do the right thing and donate to some effective health charities.

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Very belated new year’s donations

Photo by Marta Branco on Pexels.com

The photo of turmeric will be explained, promise.

I’m very behind on life admin. Here’s what is normally an early January post of new year’s day donations. (New year’s day because it was a new year’s resolution…today it might make more sense to combine this now with something like #GivingTuesday – although that’s only a thing because Black Friday is a thing, and that’s upsetting).

Going back seven years now, I donate 10% of my earnings before tax to some of the world’s most effective health charities. I blog about it pour encourager les autres.

Continue reading “Very belated new year’s donations”
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Donations for global public health in a pandemic year

Since 2014, I’ve donated one-tenth of my salary/income to end poverty. I do so alongside thousands of other folks, having pledged to via Giving What We Can.

Continue reading “Donations for global public health in a pandemic year”
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New year’s donations (2020)

It’s that time of year again… when we all donate some cash. 

The best thing you could probably do with your life in 2020 is to take the Giving What We Can pledge: to choose to spend 10% of your salary to do the most good you can.

If, like me, you want to be good, but are also lazy, then the people at Effective Altruism (EA) Funds are here to help. You visit their website, play with some sliders as to what you think is most important, donate, and then, voila, they parcel it out to the most effective organisations.

You’re supposed to be public about it, pour encourager les autres. So in the last calendar year I earned £30,000 and am donating £3,000: 95% will go to global health and development organisations (mostly to fight malaria) and 5% to support the work of EA Funds.

If you’re like me, then you also donate to climate charities, cos it’s not clear where that falls in the EA work. I’ve given to 350.org every year for a few years and it seems to have worked pretty well. Last year I also donated several times to support the narrative-flipping, game-changing activism of XR. And I’ve just made a donation to Trees for Life, because their website is beautiful and it seems like planting a few trees is wise* to cover all bases.

*Particularly if you’ve not taken the FlightFree2020 pledge. Which you should.

Until next year! (Unless we’ve solved poverty and inequality by then… Or Jeff Bezos has finally stepped up)

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New year’s donations (2019)

Whoops, I’ve not blogged about anything since last year’s donations. Must try harder .

In the meantime, here’s a belated new year’s donation update: over 2018, I earned £30k and so am donating £3k to the global health and development fund run by Effective Altruism Funds. Thanks to them for doing the ongoing research work to make my money work harder.

I’ve lost the bit of their website where it tells you where your money’s gone, but assume it’s going towards malaria nets, deworming and anti-bilharzia/schistosomiasis stuff. Possibly child nutrition too, not sure.

I also need to sort out payroll giving so that this happens monthly rather than in a terrifying blob at the end of the year.

Over the past year, I’ve worried more about climate change / the anthropocene and its coming effects on health and humanity — but it’s hard to work out where to be useful here, apart from preventing harm (lower your environmental footprint) and lobby lobby lobby for systemic change. Previously I’ve donated to Cool Earth and 350.org, but the former took a bit of a beating in this useful blog post, and I like the urgency of the Extinction Rebellion folks, so they’ll get a donation this year. (Not included in the 10% to the ‘most effective’, which is the original pledge.) I need to read this document by ‘Founders’ Pledge’ on climate change, and see what other research into effective mitigation/adaptation is out there.

This is all inspired by the work of Giving What We Can, which is a good place to start learning about — and trying out — charitable giving.

None of this negates the need to do political stuff too!

Scarlet (?) macaws by Alan Godfrey (Unsplash)