Giving gladly, giving publicly
As part of my commitment to give away 10% of my income to highly-effective charities, I just made a £10,000 donation to The Humane League to support their amazing efforts protecting animals raised for food! 🎉
With Gift Aid, this comes to £12,500, and brings my total lifetime donations to ~£52,000. It’s a lot of money to me, but I give it gladly – I’m privileged and proud to be able to give this kind of money to make a better world.
In the grand scheme of things, it’s chump change – but because the difference between the most and least effective charities is so large, I’ve in expectation saved (or greatly reduced the suffering of) many years of human and animal life. And if my startup is a success, I hope to be able to give away much more.
Why the Humane League? Factory farming is not just bad but arguably the worst thing ever – an ongoing moral catastrophe1. I usually give to the EA Animal Welfare Fund, and will probably do so again in future.
But THL is not only a top animal charity - it has a particularly pressing funding gap this year which if left unfilled would lead to some of their projects failing. Given their room for more funding, they seemed like the right choice at this moment.
I’ve tended to be relatively private about my donations. I’ll mention to people that I’ve pledged to give 10% of my income to highly effective charities. I’ll say that I’ve taken the Founders Pledge to donate some of the proceeds of my company, Mast, when there’s a liquidity event (i.e. it gets sold or we go public). But I usually won’t post specific numbers.
So this marks a bit of a departure from that policy. It’s typically British to want to be modest; we’re a bashful people, allergic to boasting. But I think there’s value in making these commitments in public, as well as how they’re being implemented. It encourages other people to give. And it reminds people that the pledge wasn’t just an empty promise; it’s a commitment I’m making good on.
I hope some of you will join me in giving a portion of your income to help solve some of the world’s most pressing problems, if you’re able – and doing so publicly.
“In relation to [farmed animals], all people are Nazis. For the animals, it is an eternal Treblinka.” – Isaac Bashevis Singer