Earning To Give involves pursuing a high-earning career in order to donate a substantial portion of your income to effective charities. Though earning to give doesn’t involve directly helping others with your career, it’s a path that can have incredible positive impact.
Flora works as a software engineer. She loves the job and earns a top salary for it, too. However, she thinks she should be doing more to help others, and is considering joining a local nonprofit that could use her skills.
This seems like a natural decision. However, the surprising truth is that by staying in her lucrative career, she may be able to achieve even more for others than if she joined the nonprofit.
By staying in her job, Flora can donate $10,000 per year. If directed towards the most effective charities, her money could do some amazing things: save two lives otherwise lost to malaria, help 10 families escape extreme poverty, or even improve the lives of thousands of chickens living in factory farms.
It’s not an easy decision, but Flora ultimately decides to stay in her job, committing to give a percentage of her money away every year. This way, she gets to stay in a career she loves and still have an impressive positive impact on others.
Higher income for higher donations
Earning to Give refers to career plans that focus on earning higher income with the intention of giving money away to charities. For some people, this might even be the best way to have a positive impact with their career.
One of the main reasons for this is that the best charities can do lots of good with your money. As we highlight in our article on effective giving, the world’s most effective charities are capable of doing enormous amounts of good with the money you give them. Because they take cost-effective approaches to solving global problems, they’re able to get impressive and impactful results much more reliably than an average charity.
Many of these charities are also constrained by their funding, meaning the money you give them will let them help others they wouldn’t have been able to help otherwise.
For both of these reasons, earning to give can be a highly effective way to help others. For those who are able to land a particularly well-paying job, or start a lucrative business, earning to give may even be the most impactful path available to them.
Extra considerations for earning to give
There are other considerations that make earning to give an impactful career path worth considering. For one, it’s an approach that is relevant to a wide range of people with vastly different skill sets. You’re just using the money that other people give you to make the world better – and there are many ways to earn money – at least for those fortunate to live in high-income societies.
On top of this, its value is not likely to meaningfully drop as more people pursue it. We can be confident that many effective organizations will still need extra funding in the future, and this approach gives you the flexibility to give to any cause.
It is also easy to know your contributions make a real counterfactual difference since it’s unlikely that the next best person for your job would have donated large portions of their salary. In directly impactful roles, such as working for an effective nonprofit, it’s often the case that someone else would have done a similarly good job to you if you hadn’t applied for the job. However, money donated through earning to give will typically be real additional money going towards great causes.
However, it’s also worth noting the potential downsides and risks that accompany earning to give.
The first is that you may find yourself missing direct impact. Some people may find less motivation or joy in earning to give compared to direct work that helps others. Being removed from the day-to-day outcomes of your donations could reduce the sense of fulfillment that comes with making a difference.
There’s also a risk of value drift – losing your altruistic motivation over time. This is a particular risk if you’re immersed in a non-altruistic work environment, like in most corporate jobs, and can lead you to prioritize personal wealth and success over impact.
Relatedly, it may also be tempting to pursue high-paying but morally dubious opportunities if you intend to donate the money to good causes. However, the risks are rarely worth the reward—we’d caution against taking roles that seem likely to harm others.
Getting started with earning to give
There are several organizations and communities that help those who want to donate significant portions of their income. This can be a great idea to stave off value drift—working with others who have similar altruistic goals can help you preserve your values over the long term.
One great giving community is Giving What We Can, who not only help identify the best places to give but also offer an opportunity to take their 10% Pledge. Thousands have publicly taken this pledge to give at least 10% of their income each year over the course of their lives. One for the World is a similar community dedicated to giving money to help end extreme global poverty.
There are also options worth considering if you’re interested in earning to give through entrepreneurship. Ambitious Impact’s Founding to Give program helps people launch new companies in order to give more money away. Additionally, Founders Pledge gives support to founders who want to donate a significant portion of their profits following an IPO or exit.
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