I have taken a pledge to donate at least 2% of my income to effective charities in 2026, as part of Giving What We Can’s trial pledge. This will be the first time I have done any kind of effective giving.

Reasons to Give Effectively

(I have updated this section articulate the thoughts about reason more clearly, but nothing changes the core messaging)

What really swayed me towards taking this seriously is reading the possible impact of effective donation. For example, GiveWell estimates that it costs around $3,500 - $5,500 in 2022-2024 to save a life in 2024. That is a really high marginal impact per unit dollar!

Furthermore, from the more selfish angle, doing impactful good feels good! There has been plenty of psychology studies surrounding the helper’s high phenomena. I have gotten Gemini to explain why impure effective altruism is a good, and in fact sustainable, form of giving.

The Case for Doing it Publicly

Reasons to do it publicly:

• commiting myself to giving
• spreading the act of giving as a cultural norm.

Reasons to do it privately:

• retaining privacy
• avoiding virtue signalling

Weighing the pros and cons, I think writing it in a publicly-visible blog post personally sounds like the right balance. If people I know end up cumulatively donate even $5,000 to save 1 life, as a result of reading this, over the course of the lifetime of this blog, the cost to personal privacy and potential virtue signalling is definitely worthwhile.

Giving What We Can has written extensively on why one should do this publicly.

What am I donating to?

I am still figuring this out – all this is new to me, and I intend to write more about this once I do. I have started with some immediately beneficial health initiatives, especially in light of USAID cuts.