Ten Percent
When I graduated from college, I decided that thereafter I would give ten percent of my income “to the world.” Usually that means to nonprofit organizations that I think are doing good work, but for a few years my partner and I created a little classroom grants program for teachers in the Boston public schools. The first few years were great, but then interest decreased and we learned that a major foundation was doing much the same thing so we were no longer needed. As this experience suggests, we are always on the look-out for places where a little bit of money might make a difference.
Most people seem to give money in response to requests, but we try not to do that. Instead, we focus on the issues we care most about, and try to find organizations that we believe are making a difference on these issues and could use additional funding effectively. In recent years the issues we have focused on include environmental sustainability, health and economic empowerment in lower-income countries, helping people have only babies they want (which we consider important from both environmental and quality of life points of view), and political dysfunction and economic sustainability in the United States. We used to donate substantially to microfinance programs, until they became popular and well-funded and it was less clear to us that additional money was needed.
One thing we’ve learned is that it’s harder than one might think to use money to improve the world. Think about the people you know. When somebody needs money urgently, there are often other things going on as well. Sometimes a gift of money can solve all their problems, but often not. The same is true for the larger world. Our goal is therefore to find organizations that seem to have a reasonably good chance of making a structural difference.
And yet … sometimes people can’t wait for structural change, but need help now. So we also donate to anti-hunger organizations, as well as to organizations that we hope will help prevent hunger in the future.
This webpage provides information that I hope might be useful to other people who want to do their part to help improve the world. Each of us is just a drop in the bucket, but enough drops are how buckets get filled.
How I decide where to give – and not give