Thoughts on earning to give (MCF 2024 memo)

By Sjir Hoeijmakers🔸 @ 2024-10-02T13:56 (+47)

On request of the Meta Coordination Forum 2024 organisers, I had written a memo on actions organisations could take around the topic of earning to give (EtG). This is not a topic I or GWWC had spent a lot of time working on before writing this memo: the main purpose of this memo was to refer to the existing resources I was aware of, and to get a discussion started around some concrete questions and (very tentative/weakly held) proposals. I’m sharing this here (with minor edits) in the hope it will be useful for others as well. (my other MCF memos are here: 1, 2, 3)

If you’re interested in contributing to any work GWWC might do on earning to give (note: there aren’t any significant plans currently; our focus is on the 10% Pledge!), please reach out to lucas.moore@givingwhatwecan.org.

Why (more) EtG?

This has been written up well elsewhere, e.g.
- Individual arguments for and against EtG here by 80k
- Case for proactive EtG community building in this old CE report
- A more recent case for more EtG in the EA community here by Abraham Rowe
To me, three of the core arguments in favour are
- More funding
  - In particular, EtG could be (one of) the best ways to fill specific funding gaps less accessible to retail donors and less attractive to major funders, e.g. in EA/EG meta and early to mid-stage non-profits
- More diversified funding
  - Abraham’s post goes into this argument in detail
- Anchoring EA principles
  - If done and communicated well, I think an EtG community could exemplify EA values and principles in a way that helps anchor and spread them both within and outside the broader EA community.
Overall, my (anecdotally informed and weakly held) impression is that earning to give is currently more underrated than overrated as an option by most people in the EA community, largely due to overcompensation for pre-FTX mistakes + FTX.

Recent developments

I don’t know of any good data source on how many people are currently earning to give, but our internal data at GWWC suggests it could be at least 100s (also depending on which definition you use)
- In 2023, out of a total of $60M donations recorded (made or reported through our platform), we had 823 people who gave $10k or more, 48 of which gave $100k or more.
- In the same year, we had 121 pledgers who gave >50%, and 243 who gave >20% of their income (out of the ~2400 pledgers who reported their income to us in total).
- Obviously not all people giving >$10k or pledgers giving >20/50% will be earning to give (will also depend on definition; see below), and far from all people earning to give will be giving or reporting through our platform (e.g. the pledge doesn’t require this).
- Other than this I know of this 300+ member Facebook group, but it’s old and looks fairly inactive from the outside (I’m not a member). I don’t have a good sense of how representative it is, i.e. whether most people in the group are actually (still) earning to give and/or what percentage of EtGers it represents.
AIM is launching a Founding to Give programme, which (to a large extent) represents earning to give through a for-profit entrepreneurship route
Posts related to earning to give on the EA Forum during last giving season seem to have been relatively well received / to have generated a lot of discussion (1, 2, 3)

Open questions

How do we define earning to give? What do we emphasise in our communications about it?
- Current definition 80k: “We say someone is earning to give when they:
  - Work a job that’s higher earning than they would have otherwise but that they believe is morally neutral or positive
  - Donate a large fraction of the extra earnings, typically 20-50% of their total salary
  - Donate to organisations they think are highly effective (i.e. funding-constrained organisations working on big, neglected global problems)”
- Some things I like about the 80k definition
  - “that they believe is morally neutral or positive”
    - I think it’s great this is emphasized, as the negation of this seems to remain (anecdotally) the most common feature of outside-EA scepticism of this career path (i.e. people thinking EtG typically trades morally “negative” work for money to high-impact charities, which I don't think it should); I also like that the 80k article gives concrete examples of such paths (medicine in particular) and think we could lean more on those examples to go against this impression.
  - Emphasising the fraction of salary (rather than an absolute amount)
    - This seems clearly better as it (1) may stimulate high-earners to give more and (2) also allows for people with a lower earning potential to consider earning to give as a career path.
  - Making high-impact giving explicit
    - I think it’s important the (apparently catchy) term earning to give only refers to effective giving, as I expect this will cause people who are generally inspired by the other aspects to additionally consider giving effectively.
- Some challenges to the 80k definition:
  - Why emphasise “higher earnings than otherwise?”
    - Many of the most promising EtGers may just work/keep working in a high-paying job they would have also worked in otherwise (e.g. AGB noting he loves his job for its own sake, and his point on “banker” vs “banker who donates”)
    - Leaving this out could also help combat the outside-EA impression that “EtG pulls people away from other high-impact career paths to send them to Wall Street”, which it often likely doesn’t.
  - Is 20% enough?
    - For many people in high-paying jobs, 20% seems a bit low to me to call earning to give a real “career path”
    - Might be better to have a minimum (or at least “typical”) percentage of (say) 50% to contrast with the 10% Pledge as a norm for most well-off people (see below), and/or use something like the Further Pledge for this (though only going with the Further Pledge seems too exclusive).
      - There is some risk of making EtG less accessible this way, but this may be worth the trade-off (as there is e.g. still the 10% and Trial Pledge as a more accessible option / on-ramp)
    - Alternatively, we could just try to leave this to the judgement of the (self-defined) EtGer, though I personally lean towards clearer norms/a shared definition being more helpful here, to prevent drift and strengthen the power of the concept/label.
  - Why present 50% as the “maximum typical”?
    - Arguably someone earning $1M+ annually should be encouraged to give a lot more than 50%
How do we communicate about earning to give in relation to effective giving more broadly, and in particular the 10% Pledge?
- The 10% Pledge is meant to become a norm, e.g. GWWC aims to scale this to 1 million people over the coming years
- EtG is a high-impact career path with high absorbency, but much less accessible than the 10% Pledge and probably (at least in the near term) only something for people highly dedicated to EA principles and applying them in their career
- My sense is the following could/should all be true about their relationship:
  - EtGers generally take the 10% Pledge, but give a higher percentage (or take the Further Pledge)
  - Most 10% Pledgers do not see themselves as EtGers
  - Giving 10% is the main contributor to someone’s (current) impact for many/most 10% Pledgers, but most of these people aren’t earning to give
- I think the contrast between the 10% Pledge and earning to give is something we may be able to use positively in communications, e.g. presenting the 10% Pledge as a potential on-ramp to earning to give (a bit like 80,000 Hours does at the bottom of their article)
How do we avoid past mistakes / mitigate risks?
- I think we should tread carefully when promoting earning to give (in my experience it’s quite a polarising topic, particularly for people outside of the EA community!), though I expect there are ways to do this well (e.g. articles like this).
- As mentioned above, I like the thing 80k has done by emphasising “doing neutral or positive work” in the definition, and think we can more proactively communicate examples here of both individual and paths, to replace the (I think wrongly) stereotypical ones that currently seem dominant (e.g. SBF).
- More generally, I think someone owning communication about EtG rather than leaving this in the hands of the media / subject to historical artefact (as it currently seems to be) will probably help improve the overall reputation of EtG.

Proposals (tentative/weakly held)

Agree on a shared definition of earning to give, including which aspects we emphasise in communications
- My current proposal (given some of the reasoning above) would be to define and communicate about EtG (only) as
  - Giving at least 20% of one’s income, but typically >50%, 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 doesn’t cause harm
- I also propose to frame EtG in contrast to the 10% Pledge, where “anyone well off” could take the 10% Pledge, including many people working in high-impact jobs, but earning to give is framed as an explicit career decision.
Take ownership of communications around EtG and promote stories like this one and this one to counterbalance the current mostly negative-seeming narrative.
- Do this within the EA community, e.g. at EAGs, but also externally, e.g. in CEA’s media strategy
Work towards a project/organisation doing EtG community building
- Along similar lines as this proposal, which was never really tried (partially by HIP but along different lines)
- Who should own this? CEA, 80k, AIM, GWWC?
  - At GWWC we could e.g. consider trialling an opt-in “earning to give” pledge club (as we have for various organisations here) + community slack channel + facilitating some online events as an MVP version of this.
    - I’m not sure about this / This is just an idea; feedback welcome.

AnonymousTurtle @ 2024-10-03T01:57 (+17)

Emphasising the fraction of salary (rather than an absolute amount)
This seems clearly better as it (1) may stimulate high-earners to give more and (2) also allows for people with a lower earning potential to consider earning to give as a career path.

It's not as clear to me that this is better.

Since pain is not the unit of effort, it would be better for someone to earn $500,000 and give 10% than for someone to earn $50,000 and give 90%
To motivate higher earners to give more, there could thresholds (you mention $10k and $100k in the post) for different levels of "earning to give", and the framing could be that the more you're donating in absolute amounts the more you're succeeding at Earning to Give. I know a person with a life goal to one day join Farmed Animals Funders, which is only open to people giving $250,000+ annually
It's not clear to me that (2) is a positive thing, given that EtG would be a less valuable career path for people with a lower earning potential. As far as I know this was a major reason why EtG started being promoted less, at least by some: they were worried that it would cause low-middle-income people to switch to less effective careers, or discourage them from applying to more impactful opportunities

Imma @ 2024-10-04T15:45 (+15)

One element in 80k's definition of ETG that I like a lot is:

Work a job that’s higher earning than they would have otherwise

In my view, ETG is a career choice. If you choose to ETG, you choose to spend your time on acquiring money to donate and you choose not to do something else with that time.

You may choose to:

not volunteer or become politically active and spend your time on paid work instead
not take lower paid direct impact job

... and you donate (roughly) the difference in income. This can be a high amount or a low amount, depending on your circumstances.

AnonymousTurtle @ 2024-10-03T01:35 (+15)

Something that I think is underappreciated about EtG is that it's often a win-win. Besides giving more money to charity; you earn more money for yourself, gain useful skills, and might have or at least try a more interesting job.

Some things in this spirit that I think are under-recommended to people

Negotiate your salary.
Move to a wealthier country / area / city, since that alone accounts for a large part of differences in income. This often has many other benefits in terms of future career opportunities and quality of life.
Try a career in a high-income field for about a year or even less and see how it goes. You might find out that you enjoy it more than your current career, regardless of income. I know a person who switched from a physics PhD to finance and they love it.

Gemma 🔸 @ 2024-10-05T18:47 (+4)

+1 on negotiating higher salaries - felt easier to do after taking the pledge.

Here's a good book summary of Never Split the Difference for those who don't want to buy the book.

just_a_dude @ 2024-10-04T05:09 (+14)

A few thoughts from a long-time EtG'er working in finance:

* US tax code caps tax-deductibility of donations at 50% or 60% (depending on if giving cash or appreciated assets). I give 50%, because that's the most that I'm able to deduct. (credit to Tyner for stating this first)

* For the first years of my career, I gave 10-20% of my income thinking that once I saved up $X I'd give much more (where $X is a fairly large number). Once I hit $X, I started giving 35% and then 50%. Would I say I was EtG during the 10-20% years? At the time, I did say I was EtG, but in retrospect I really think of it as I was doing the prereqs to EtG - firstly being in a financial spot where I was comfortable to give 50%, and secondly climbing the career ladder and increasing my earnings to make my future giving as much as possible.

* Personally I'd define EtG as someone giving >30-35% and trying to maximize income (or someone early-career working towards that eventual goal, maybe call that "aspiring EtG")

* I strongly reject the idea of EtG as a "sacrifice" in any significant way. I enjoy my job in finance and there's a good chance that if I never heard of EA I'd still work in finance (with some mildly negative feelings about spending my career on something zero sum). I'm not sacrificing some desire to do direct work nor enduring an unpleasant grind of a job towards altruistic ends. I also don't think of donating as sacrificing potential wealth, but as an opportunity to be a part of some tremendously good projects. I'd argue the only thing I sacrifice is retiring at an unusually young age, but I don't have a huge desire to do that

Vaidehi Agarwalla 🔸 @ 2024-10-05T18:17 (+4)

+1 to preparing to be in a position to do E2G. I think this is true for many career paths, but it's easier to justify it when you're doing a PhD in ML to work in TAIS research, or working in an entry level position in Congress to try to gain career capital and influence policy.

One general hesitation I had with parts of the post's framing was that it may not look at this as a long term career path (which means e.g. ramping up giving %'s , doing things to psychologically / emotionally feel good + confident about giving away more money).

SummaryBot @ 2024-10-02T18:50 (+7)

Executive summary: The author argues that earning to give (EtG) is currently underrated in the EA community and proposes ways to better define, communicate about, and promote EtG as a high-impact career path.

Key points:

Core arguments for EtG include more funding, diversified funding sources, and anchoring EA principles.
Recent data suggests hundreds of people may be earning to give, but precise numbers are uncertain.
The author proposes refining the definition of EtG, emphasizing giving >50% of income to highly effective charities while working in non-harmful jobs.
EtG should be framed as distinct from but complementary to the 10% Pledge, with the latter serving as a potential on-ramp.
To mitigate risks and improve EtG's reputation, proactive communication and promotion of positive EtG stories is recommended.
The author suggests creating an organization or project focused on EtG community building, potentially starting with a GWWC "earning to give" pledge club.

This comment was auto-generated by the EA Forum Team. Feel free to point out issues with this summary by replying to the comment, and contact us if you have feedback.

Denkenberger🔸 @ 2024-10-04T05:34 (+6)

I don’t know of any good data source on how many people are currently earning to give, but our internal data at GWWC suggests it could be at least 100s (also depending on which definition you use)

According to the 2022 EA survey, out of 3270 people who answered, 335 people were earning to give. Since there are a lot more EAs than 3270, I think it would be more like a thousand people who are earning to give. But it’s true they might not be using the 80k definition:

Current definition 80k: “We say someone is earning to give when they:
Work a job that’s higher earning than they would have otherwise but that they believe is morally neutral or positive
Donate a large fraction of the extra earnings, typically 20-50% of their total salary
Donate to organisations they think are highly effective (i.e. funding-constrained organisations working on big, neglected global problems)”

I agree with you that it should not have to be a different job, but I disagree that 20% is too low. There are many (most?) EAs who do not have a direct high-impact career or do a lot of high-impact volunteering. So roughly the other way of having impact is earning to give, and if people can give 10%, I think that should qualify.

AnonymousTurtle @ 2024-10-04T09:31 (+4)

There are many (most?) EAs who do not have a direct high-impact career or do a lot of high-impact volunteering. So roughly the other way of having impact is earning to give, and if people can give 10%, I think that should qualify.

I don't understand the reasoning behind this. The goal shouldn't be to allow everyone to "have an impact", and people can definitely "have an impact" by donating 10%, regardless of whether it counts as earning to give.

Denkenberger🔸 @ 2024-10-05T05:44 (+4)

I guess as long as there is another category (like "other"), it's ok. But I believe one EAG exit survey didn't have another category, so one person I heard from felt excluded.

Tyner @ 2024-10-04T03:23 (+5)

>>Why present 50% as the “maximum typical”?

>>Arguably someone earning $1M+ annually should be encouraged to give a lot more than 50%

In the US tax deductions cap at 60%, so that could be a sensible place to draw a line.

https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/041315/tips-charitable-contributions-limits-and-taxes.asp

Imma @ 2024-10-04T14:43 (+5)

This may work for the US, but tax rates and caps differ per country. Also, exceeding the cap can make a lot of sense.

Nithin Ravi @ 2024-10-02T18:15 (+5)

Thanks for making it easily accessible and centralized to batch my donations and report my income. Having a good platform made it super easy for me to report!