Earning to give
Earning to give is a philanthropic strategy within the effective altruism community that encourages individuals to pursue high-paying careers, such as in finance, technology, or consulting, primarily to donate a substantial portion—often 10% or more, and up to 20-50% of incremental earnings—to highly effective charities addressing global issues like poverty alleviation, animal welfare, or existential risks.[1][2] The approach originated in the early 2010s as one of the foundational ideas in effective altruism, popularized by organizations like 80,000 Hours and Giving What We Can, which argued that for talented individuals without specialized skills in direct charitable work, leveraging market salaries could generate outsized impact by funding interventions with proven cost-effectiveness, such as cash transfers or malaria prevention.[3][4] This reasoning draws on the principle that marginal dollars donated to optimized causes often outperform marginal hours spent in lower-impact roles, though it assumes donors maintain commitment over time and select charities based on rigorous evidence of outcomes.[1] Proponents highlight successes like the Giving What We Can pledge, launched in 2009, which has committed thousands of signatories to lifetime donations totaling hundreds of millions of dollars, enabling scalable funding for evidence-backed programs.[3] However, the strategy has faced internal and external scrutiny, including concerns that high-earning industries may involve ethical trade-offs, such as contributing to systemic harms in finance or tech, potentially offsetting charitable gains through indirect negative externalities.[5][6] Effective altruism groups have since de-emphasized earning to give relative to direct high-impact work, citing risks of career drift, burnout, or suboptimal talent allocation, particularly after around 2015 when broader career advising expanded options like policy or research roles.[4][7] Despite limited large-scale empirical studies directly evaluating earning to give's net impact—due to challenges in isolating causal effects and long-term donor behavior—it aligns with effective altruism's evidence-based framework, where donor funds have demonstrably amplified interventions like deworming or vaccine distribution with high returns on marginal investment. Critics argue it may foster moral licensing or underperform compared to systemic advocacy, but for select individuals with strong earning potential and low opportunity cost in altruistic labor, it remains a viable path grounded in comparative advantage.[8][9]Definition and Historical Origins
Core Concept and Emergence in Effective Altruism
Earning to give refers to the strategy of selecting a career path that maximizes income potential—typically in fields like finance, technology, or consulting, where roles are morally neutral or net positive—and committing to donate a significant share of earnings, often 10% to 50% or more of total or marginal income, to evidence-based charities tackling high-priority global issues such as poverty, animal welfare, or existential risks.[1] This approach posits that the funds generated can support multiple full-time equivalents in direct charitable work, potentially yielding greater overall impact than an individual donating their time in a lower-paid altruistic role, assuming the donations target funding-constrained, cost-effective interventions evaluated by organizations like GiveWell.[1] Proponents argue it leverages personal skills in competitive markets while providing flexibility to adapt to evolving evidence on effective causes, though it requires sustained discipline to avoid lifestyle inflation and ensure donations remain substantial relative to alternatives.[1] The concept predates effective altruism with roots in utilitarian thought, including 18th-century preacher John Wesley's maxim to "gain all you can, save all you can, give all you can" and 19th-century industrialist Friedrich Engels financially supporting Karl Marx's writings through his business earnings.[1] In the late 20th century, philosopher Peter Unger argued in Living High and Letting Die (1996) that academics and others should pivot to high-earning professions to amplify aid to the global poor.[10] An early modern articulation aligned with effective altruism's precursors appeared in Brian Tomasik's 2006 essay "Why Activists Should Consider Making Lots of Money," which urged cause advocates to prioritize income generation for funding interventions over direct activism.[10] Within effective altruism, earning to give emerged as a formalized career recommendation through 80,000 Hours, an organization launched in 2011 by William MacAskill and Benjamin Todd at Oxford University to guide graduates toward high-impact paths using expected value calculations.[11] Initially termed "professional philanthropy," it was promoted alongside direct work and movement-building as one of three core strategies for altruistic career choice, with 80,000 Hours estimating in 2014 that 35% of its advised individuals pursued it, projecting over £700,000 in additional donations to high-impact charities within three years.[12] The term "earning to give" gained traction by 2012–2013, coinciding with MacAskill's opinion piece advocating Wall Street roles over nonprofit jobs for greater leverage, and it drew mainstream scrutiny as effective altruism's first widely publicized tactic, though 80,000 Hours later shifted emphasis toward direct roles in areas like AI safety by around 2015 due to updated impact assessments.[10][13] This evolution reflected effective altruism's commitment to evidence-based revision, with earning to give retained for those whose skills best suit high-earning markets.[1]Key Milestones and Influences
The concept of earning to give draws early influences from utilitarian thinkers and practical philanthropists, such as 18th-century Methodist leader John Wesley, who advocated "Gain all you can, save all you can, give all you can" as a framework for maximizing charitable impact without self-harm or exploitation.[1] Similarly, Friedrich Engels exemplified the approach by managing a family textile business to financially support Karl Marx's writings on social reform.[1] These precedents emphasized leveraging economic productivity for altruistic ends, prefiguring modern strategies. In the contemporary era, philosopher Peter Singer's 1972 essay "Famine, Affluence, and Morality" provided a foundational moral argument for donating a substantial portion of one's income to alleviate global suffering, influencing the ethical rationale for high-impact giving.[14] This utilitarian imperative gained organizational traction in 2009 when Oxford philosopher Toby Ord, inspired by Singer, pledged to donate at least 10% of his lifetime earnings to effective charities and co-founded Giving What We Can with William MacAskill to promote similar commitments.[14] The organization launched in November 2009, initially attracting 64 members who collectively pledged over $21 million in future donations within its first year.[14] The explicit strategy of "earning to give"—pursuing lucrative careers specifically to fund cost-effective charities—crystallized in the early 2010s through the effective altruism community. In November 2011, MacAskill and others launched 80,000 Hours, a career advisory organization that advocated EtG as one high-impact path, particularly for those with skills suited to finance, technology, or consulting.[1] The term itself appeared in discussions by 2012, with advocates like Jeff Kaufman compiling references to its promotion in rationalist and altruistic circles.[10] MacAskill's 2015 book Doing Good Better systematized the approach, arguing that for certain individuals, donating 20-50% of elevated earnings could outperform direct altruistic work in fields like global health.[1] These developments intertwined with the broader effective altruism movement, which formalized in 2011 and emphasized evidence-based prioritization of interventions.[15] By 2022, Giving What We Can had grown to over 7,000 pledgers committing billions in potential donations, underscoring EtG's institutionalization.[16] However, the strategy faced scrutiny following high-profile cases, such as the 2022 collapse of FTX, where proponent Sam Bankman-Fried's alleged misuse of funds highlighted risks of moral licensing in profit-maximizing roles.[1]Philosophical and Economic Rationale
First-Principles Justification
Earning to give derives from the consequentialist premise that actions should be evaluated by their expected net positive outcomes, prioritizing interventions that reliably improve welfare on a large scale. Under this view, individuals assess career choices by comparing the marginal impact of their time and skills: pursuing high-income roles enables substantial donations to evidence-based charities, where each dollar can avert significant harm, such as preventing deaths from preventable diseases at costs as low as $3,000–$5,000 per life equivalent through interventions like insecticide-treated bednets. This approach assumes fungible resources and scalable impact, where market-earned income amplifies effects beyond what direct charitable labor typically achieves, given that nonprofit salaries often range from $50,000–$100,000 annually while top charities leverage funds for outsized results.[1][17] A key first-principles argument hinges on opportunity cost and comparative advantage: if an individual's talents yield higher earnings in sectors like technology or finance—potentially $200,000–$1 million annually—donating even 10–50% of that income can fund multiple full-time equivalents in direct aid roles, such as hiring nonprofit staff or scaling programs. For instance, a $1 million donation to highly vetted charities might support outcomes equivalent to saving 200–300 lives, far exceeding the direct contributions of a single mid-level charity worker whose efforts, while valuable, are constrained by personal productivity limits and organizational overhead. This logic holds particularly when personal fit for lucrative, non-harmful jobs exceeds aptitude for altruistic fieldwork, allowing specialization where markets reward scarcity while charities handle execution.[1] Economically, earning to give exploits the efficiency of capital allocation in funding-constrained areas, where additional resources directly translate to expanded operations without proportional increases in donor effort. Unlike traditional altruism, which may dissipate impact through low-leverage activities, this strategy aligns with causal mechanisms observed in randomized controlled trials underpinning charity evaluations, enabling donors to indirectly address neglected global issues like poverty and health via professional evaluators. However, its validity presupposes verifiable charity effectiveness and minimal leakage in donation pipelines, with empirical backing from organizations demonstrating 10–100x returns on marginal dollars compared to average philanthropy.[1][18]Comparison to Traditional Altruism
Earning to give contrasts with traditional altruism, which often emphasizes direct involvement such as volunteering, hands-on aid, or careers in non-profits where individuals provide services like teaching, counseling, or community organizing.[1] In traditional approaches, impact is typically limited to one's personal capacity and time, with activities focused on immediate, local, or emotionally resonant causes rather than systematically evaluated global priorities.[18] The core rationale for earning to give over direct work lies in financial leverage and comparative advantage: individuals with strong skills in high-paying fields (e.g., technology or finance, where salaries can reach $250,000 annually) can donate sums equivalent to funding multiple full-time aid workers or interventions.[1] For instance, a professional earning $1,000 per hour might redirect one hour's pay to support 100 hours of low-wage charitable labor, amplifying output beyond what average direct involvement could achieve.[1] Donations enable targeting evidence-backed charities, such as those distributing insecticide-treated nets through the Against Malaria Foundation, estimated to avert a death for approximately $5,000—allowing a career-long 10% donation from a graduate's income to potentially save around 40 lives.[1] This indirect path exploits market efficiencies, where money flows to the most cost-effective uses, unlike direct work constrained by individual expertise or organizational inefficiencies in traditional non-profits, which often pay $40,000–$100,000 annually even at senior levels.[19] Critics argue that earning to give risks moral licensing—where high earnings justify ethical compromises in potentially harmful industries—or reduced personal motivation compared to the fulfillment of direct service.[18] It may also overlook cases where an individual's talents yield outsized direct impact, such as in specialized non-profit roles, prompting some to pivot from earning strategies when skills align better with operations.[1] Nonetheless, for those without exceptional direct-work aptitude, earning to give often provides superior expected value through scalability and adaptability, as funds can shift to emerging needs like pandemic prevention without retraining.[1] Empirical quantification remains challenging due to counterfactuals, but the approach's emphasis on verifiable cost-effectiveness distinguishes it from traditional altruism's frequent reliance on unmeasured or less rigorous outcomes.[20]Prominent Proponents and Organizations
Influential Figures
William MacAskill, a Scottish philosopher and effective altruism advocate, co-founded Giving What We Can in 2009 and 80,000 Hours in 2011, organizations that explicitly promote earning to give as a strategy for maximizing charitable impact by pursuing high-income careers and donating a substantial portion of earnings.[1][21] In these roles, MacAskill has emphasized that for individuals with strong earning potential but limited direct skills in high-impact fields, lucrative professions in finance, technology, or law enable outsized philanthropy when combined with pledges like Giving What We Can's 10% lifetime income commitment, which has inspired over $2 billion in pledged donations as of 2022.[22] He has defended the approach against critics, arguing it leverages market incentives to address global catastrophes without requiring direct intervention.[23] Toby Ord, an Australian philosopher, co-founded Giving What We Can alongside MacAskill and took the organization's inaugural pledge to donate 10% of his income, setting a model for earning to give that prioritizes evidence-based charities such as those combating extreme poverty and existential risks.[24] Ord's 2009 initiation of the pledge, detailed in his writings on longtermism and altruism, influenced subsequent effective altruism efforts by framing high earnings as a moral tool for scalable good, with the organization growing to thousands of members by the 2020s.[21] Sam Bankman-Fried, founder of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX, became a high-profile practitioner of earning to give after being advised by MacAskill in 2012 to pursue finance for philanthropic ends, amassing an estimated $26 billion fortune by 2022 with pledges to donate up to 99% to effective causes like pandemic prevention.[25] His approach drew mainstream attention to the strategy, including through the FTX Future Fund, which granted over $150 million to aligned projects before its 2022 dissolution amid FTX's bankruptcy; however, Bankman-Fried's 2023 conviction on federal fraud charges, resulting in a 25-year sentence, exposed risks of moral compromise in high-stakes earning pursuits.[18][24]Supporting Institutions and Pledges
Giving What We Can, founded in 2009, promotes the 10% Pledge, a public commitment by individuals to donate at least 10% of their income to charities evaluated for cost-effectiveness, such as those recommended by GiveWell where approximately $5,000 can save a life.[26] This pledge targets income earners, including high earners pursuing earning to give strategies, and extends to companies pledging 10% of profits; as of the latest data, 10,213 individuals from 117 countries have joined, fostering a community within effective altruism dedicated to sustained, evidence-based philanthropy.[26] By encouraging donors to select high-impact opportunities like global health interventions, the pledge aligns with earning to give by motivating participants in lucrative careers to allocate substantial portions of their earnings—potentially enabling trillions in annual impact if widely adopted among top earners.[26] The organization 80,000 Hours provides career guidance explicitly endorsing earning to give for individuals suited to high-paying, morally neutral roles in fields like technology, finance, or medicine, where they can donate 20-50% of incremental earnings to funding-constrained causes such as pandemic prevention or extreme poverty alleviation.[1] It recommends this path for those lacking direct high-impact opportunities or preferring career flexibility, citing examples like software engineer Jeff Kaufman, who donated roughly $2 million over 13 years, potentially averting around 200 deaths based on GiveWell's cost-effectiveness estimates.[1] To sustain commitment, 80,000 Hours advises public pledges like the 10% Pledge and integration into effective altruism networks, emphasizing evidence-based charity selection to maximize donated funds' leverage.[1] Founders Pledge supports earning to give among entrepreneurs by facilitating commitments to donate significant shares of company exit proceeds—often 10% or more—to rigorously vetted high-impact charities, with research highlighting opportunities up to 1,000 times more effective than average giving.[27] Over 2,050 founders from more than 45 countries have pledged approximately $11.9 billion as of April 2025, resulting in $1.6 billion already disbursed, thereby channeling windfall gains from high-risk, high-reward ventures into effective altruism-aligned causes like biosecurity and animal welfare.[27] This model complements broader earning to give by providing tailored resources, such as charity evaluations and post-IPO planning, to ensure entrepreneurial earnings translate into outsized philanthropic outcomes.[27]Practical Implementation
Recommended Career Paths
Proponents of earning to give recommend pursuing careers in fields offering high earning potential while maintaining neutral or positive social externalities, such as technology, finance, law, and medicine, to maximize donations to effective charities without contributing to harm.[1] These paths are prioritized over direct altruistic roles when an individual lacks exceptional fit for high-impact interventions, as the leverage from funding evidence-based programs can exceed modest direct contributions.[28] Entry often requires specialized skills or education, but many allow for rapid income growth, enabling substantial philanthropy; for instance, donating 10-50% of income via pledges like the Giving What We Can commitment has been adopted by thousands.[29] In technology, software engineering stands out for its scalability and ethical neutrality, with median total compensation at $187,000 annually across firms, rising to $220,000-$350,000 for senior roles at leading companies.[30] [31] Practitioners like Jeff Kaufman, a Google engineer, donated approximately $2 million over 13 years, equivalent to averting around 200 deaths via cost-effective interventions.[1] The field builds transferable skills in programming and data analysis, facilitating later pivots to direct impact work if desired.[32] Quantitative trading in finance offers exceptional upside, with starting compensation of $100,000-300,000 and potential to reach $1 million within years at elite firms, though it demands strong quantitative aptitude and carries risks of burnout or market volatility.[33] Average salaries hover around $207,000, deemed suitable for earning to give due to minimal direct societal harm compared to other financial roles like fossil fuel investment.[34] Critics note potential indirect effects via capital allocation, but empirical assessments classify it as neutral.[1] Specialized medicine, particularly surgery or anesthesiology, yields median salaries exceeding $208,000, allowing donations that fund thousands of interventions elsewhere after accounting for training costs and hours.[35] Corporate law provides $150,000-$200,000+ for partners, focusing on neutral advisory work rather than litigation tied to harmful industries.[35] Less conventional options include top-tier trades like plumbing, where the highest decile earns over $99,000 with lower barriers to entry.[1] All paths emphasize pre-commitment mechanisms to sustain giving, as studies show altruistic intentions can wane without accountability.[1]Donation Strategies and Tax Considerations
Donors pursuing earning to give often employ strategies that minimize tax liabilities while maximizing the net funds available to high-impact charities, particularly in jurisdictions like the United States where deductions can significantly enhance effective giving. Key approaches include donating appreciated assets rather than cash, utilizing donor-advised funds (DAFs) for flexibility and timing, and bunching contributions across multiple years to optimize itemized deductions. These methods allow high earners to avoid capital gains taxes, claim immediate deductions, and strategically time gifts amid fluctuating income or tax laws.[36][37] Donating long-term appreciated securities, such as stocks held for over one year, provides dual benefits: donors avoid capital gains taxes on the appreciation—potentially at rates up to 20% plus a 3.8% net investment income tax—and deduct the full fair market value, up to 30% of adjusted gross income (AGI). In contrast, selling the asset first to donate cash triggers those taxes, reducing the net charitable contribution; for example, a stock purchased at $10,000 now worth $100,000 donated directly yields a $90,000 deduction without the $18,000+ capital gains liability (assuming 20% rate). This strategy is particularly advantageous for earners in finance or tech sectors with concentrated stock holdings, aligning with effective altruism's emphasis on cost-effective philanthropy. Cash donations, deductible up to 60% of AGI, remain viable for liquidity but forfeit the capital gains avoidance.[38][39][40] Donor-advised funds enable donors to receive an immediate tax deduction upon contribution while retaining advisory privileges over future grants to charities, including effective ones vetted by organizations like GiveWell. DAFs facilitate donating complex assets like securities, with low administrative costs and investment growth potential, making them suitable for irregular high-income years common in earning-to-give careers. For instance, contributions to a DAF qualify for the same deduction limits as direct gifts, but allow deferral of grant-making decisions, potentially aligning with charity evaluations or personal circumstances. In 2025, DAFs also support bunching by consolidating multi-year pledges into one deductible event.[41][36][42] Bunching involves accelerating or deferring donations to concentrate them in a single tax year, surpassing the standard deduction (projected at approximately $15,000 for singles and $30,000 for joint filers in 2025) to enable itemizing, which amplifies the value of charitable deductions—especially at higher marginal rates like 37%. High earners might donate two years' worth via a DAF in a peak-income year, then take standard deductions in leaner ones, effectively increasing after-tax giving capacity by 20-30% depending on bracket. This tactic counters the post-2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act's higher standard deduction, which reduced itemizing incentives, and remains relevant amid 2025's stable limits before potential 2026 universal deductions for non-itemizers ($1,000 single/2,000 joint).[43][44][45] For individuals aged 70½ or older, qualified charitable distributions (QCDs) from traditional IRAs—up to $108,000 annually in 2025—count toward required minimum distributions without taxable income, preserving deduction limits for other gifts and avoiding higher brackets. While less common for younger earning-to-give practitioners, this complements strategies for retirees transitioning from high-earning phases. Overall, these approaches require consultation with tax professionals, as rules vary by jurisdiction and evolve; for non-U.S. donors, equivalents like gift aid in the UK may apply but lack direct analogs to U.S. incentives.[46][47][48]Empirical Evidence of Impact
Quantified Donations and Charity Outcomes
GiveWell, a key evaluator of charities aligned with effective altruism principles that underpin earning to give, directed $397 million to cost-effective programs in its 2024 metrics year (February 2024 to January 2025), up from $355 million the prior year, with much of this funding originating from high-earning donors in the effective altruism community who allocate significant portions of their income to such causes.[49][50] These donations primarily support four top charities: the Against Malaria Foundation (bed nets), Malaria Consortium (seasonal malaria chemoprevention), Helen Keller International (vitamin A supplementation), and New Incentives (cash incentives for vaccinations).[51] GiveWell estimates the cost-effectiveness of these interventions at averting one death for every $3,000 to $5,500 donated, based on randomized controlled trials and conservative modeling that accounts for factors like transmission dynamics, adherence rates, and long-term health benefits.[20][52] For instance, bed nets distributed by the Against Malaria Foundation are projected to reduce child mortality by preventing mosquito-borne malaria, with each net costing around $5 and protecting multiple individuals for 2-3 years, yielding a modeled impact of 0.1 to 0.2 lives saved per $1,000 spent after adjusting for baselines and crowding out effects.[53] Seasonal malaria chemoprevention achieves similar efficiency, delivering preventive drugs to children in high-burden areas, supported by evidence from trials showing 75% reductions in severe malaria cases.[51] Open Philanthropy, established by former Facebook executive Dustin Moskovitz using proceeds from high-earning tech roles—a paradigm of earning to give—has complemented these efforts with multimillion-dollar grants to GiveWell top charities, such as $54.6 million in 2019 allocated across malaria prevention programs, enabling scaled distribution and monitoring that amplifies donor impact.[54] Outcomes from these funded programs include millions of bed nets and treatment courses delivered annually, correlating with measurable declines in malaria incidence in targeted regions, as tracked via health surveys and WHO data integrated into GiveWell's evaluations.[49] While models rely on probabilistic estimates rather than direct causation tracking, GiveWell's transparency in assumptions—such as discounting for potential overestimation by 50% or more—supports robust claims of outsized returns compared to average global aid, where costs per life saved often exceed $10,000.[55]| Charity | Intervention | Estimated Cost per Life Saved | Key Evidence Base |
|---|---|---|---|
| Against Malaria Foundation | Insecticide-treated bed nets | $3,500–$5,000 | RCTs showing 20–30% mortality reduction in children under 5[20] |
| Malaria Consortium | Seasonal malaria chemoprevention | $3,000–$4,500 | Cluster-randomized trials with 75% case reduction[20] |
| Helen Keller International | Vitamin A supplementation | $3,500–$5,500 | Meta-analyses of RCTs linking supplementation to 12–24% lower mortality[20] |
| New Incentives | Vaccination cash incentives | $4,000–$5,000 | Ongoing trials demonstrating 20–30% uptake increase for routine immunizations[51] |