Take The Pledge: Giving What We Can
Feb 08,2017
Giving What We Can is an organization trying to change the world by asking its followers to donate 10 percent of their annual income to charity. They ask for people to “Take The Pledge” and dream of creating, “a world in which giving 10% of our income to the most effective organizations is the norm.”
Created in 2009 by Oxford philosophy professor Toby Ord, Giving What We Can has grown in size by 1,506 members in 2016 alone, with pledged donations currently totaling at $1.3 billion dollars.
Once someone takes the pledge they choose how much they wish to donate and which charities their money will be donated to.
In the eyes of this organization, not all charities are equal. And, they pride themselves on connecting people to the most effective charities. “Giving What We Can’s mission is to be as rigorous as possible when recommending charities to donate to, using evidence, data, and reason to inform our research.”
Some of the recommended charities include the Against Malaria Foundation, Schistosomiasis Control Initiative and Project Healthy Children. All are highly effective charities that give pledges the most bang for their buck. This enables them to see that their money is doing the most possible good.
Giving What We Can has a “How Rich Am I” calculator that enables users to compare their annual income against the worlds average. There are 7.15 billion people in the world today and many are living well below poverty level. By world standards, someone living off of $600 a month is still in the top 20 percent of the worlds richest population.
“The scale of poverty is immense, and it is easy to think that we in the developed world are powerless to do anything about it.” The worldwide gap between the rich and the poor is ever-present and growing.
Seeing the statistics can become a driving force for those in the developed world to realize how fortunate they are and hopefully inspire them to donate. Most U.S. citizens are within the top economic standard of living.
That is why Giving What We Can is asking its members to pledge 10 percent of their total lifelong income. This would still leave them living comfortably in the richest 20 percent.
One person can make a difference, as proven by organization founder Toby Ord. He has inspired people to take action and positively impact the global community, one pledge at a time.
Members of Giving What We Can believe that they are, “obliged to do something about extreme poverty. That’s why we've each made a public pledge to give at least 10% of our incomes to the charities we believe will do the most good in the world. Whatever our incomes, we will all have a tremendous effect on thousands of lives.”
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