AMA: Luke Freeman, ED of Giving What We Can (GWWC)

Thanks Julian! But that's a question for 80,000 Hours 😀 If I get an invite, I'll let you know!

Thanks Imma, great question!

It's true that our donation distribution at Giving What We Can (GWWC) follows a 'heavy-tailed' pattern. According to our most recent impact evaluation, less than 1% of our donors contribute about 50% of our recorded donations.

Yet, I would stress that this doesn't paint the complete picture of our impact. Although this less-than-1% represents a small-to-medium group of larger donors, the other half of our donations, spread among tens of thousands of other donors, is no less crucial.

Here's some reasons why:

• Direct impact of these donations: Each of us has an opportunity to save and improve lives using our donations. That's a really important and valuable thing for people to do. It doesn't matter if someone else is able to give more, your donations still have a direct impact and together you're sharing in an even bigger collective impact.
• Reliability and diversity of funding: Donations from a broader base tend to be more consistent year to year. For instance, we experienced a surge in donations from larger donors in 2021, but then witnessed a significant drop-off in 2022-2023. Throughout these fluctuations, the regular donations from our wider community provided a steady and reliable support to high-impact projects.
• Spreading EA principles and causes: Every single one of our donors helps propagate EA principles and cause areas. In fact, a large grant we received previously was attributed to the influence we've had on donors' career decisions - a direct consequence of their engagement with effective giving.
• Discovering new opportunities and red teaming: Since the early days of GWWC and EA, people giving at ~normal levels who take their own giving seriously has led to a lot of research and thinking being done that's been very helpful to the wider community (including larger donors).
• Cultural change: Our main goal at GWWC is to bring about a shift in how society views giving. By reaching out to individuals early in their careers or even before they start earning, we can shape their perspectives on effective giving (plus, some of them may go on to earn a lot later). This not only promotes positive values but also puts societal pressure on high earners to follow suit. People count more than dollars when it comes to cultural change and advocacy.

So, while we're very grateful for our large donors (and would like more of them!), every pledge and donation made through GWWC we find to be very valuable in many different ways. Each donation both has a very important impact itself (in how much it improves the lives of others) and also signifies a step towards normalising effective giving, and in those regards, every single donor and pledger contributes meaningfully to our mission.

Thanks Vaidehi. That's a tough one as it's often a matter of who and to what degree but generally speaking (it's probably unsurprising and I'm a bit biassed) I've most often disagreed quite strongly with the degree to which effective giving has been deprioritised or dismissed within other core-EA meta organisations.

I'm very sympathetic (downright agree with) to these parts though:

• We wouldn't want someone to turn down (or not seek out) a good fit opportunity for direct work because they got the idea that giving at a ~regular pledger level is more impactful in expectation than a high-impact good fit direct work role.
• We don't want EA to be equated with giving and the "EA is earning to give" meme is not good for the community.
• Donations are heavy-tailed (most donation $ will come from a smaller number of large donors).
• Longtermist giving is more evaluation constrained, riskier, and harder to make good recommendations for donors.

However, I do think that at time's it has got to a pretty extreme level of aversion to talking about giving as a path to impact. That being said I'm seeing many people change their tune over the last 6 months as the funding constraints (experienced by many others) have started to hit them more personally.

The other one that comes to mind is the importance of things like governance and being leligibly good and seen as “safe” from from the outside. Views on this seem to be evolving more recently too. 

Thanks Akhil! Fostering a new generation of leaders in the EA community is something I think about often, and it's something I feel is critical for the continued growth and impact of EA principles.

Firstly, I wholeheartedly agree that we need a more diverse and broad group of people in leadership positions within the community. 

Here are some ways I try:

• Promoting a wide array of voices: At GWWC, we regularly highlight various members of our community through our member stories and ambassador program. This helps spotlight the work and ideas of individuals who might not otherwise have a platform, while also broadening the range of voices and perspectives being heard.
• Hiring diversely and inclusively: We hire from anywhere that has an internet connection and give weight towards candidates who can bring fresh and unique perspectives to our work. We also prioritise providing employee benefits that help retain and nurture talent.
• Facilitating opportunity and growth: When I become aware of opportunities such as job openings, speaking events, or grant possibilities, I proactively refer individuals who I believe are suitable. I aim to open doors for those who might otherwise be overlooked, providing them with opportunities to grow, learn, and eventually lead.
• Expanding the ecosystem: I believe that diversity and strength in leadership come from having lots of organisations working on a wide range of issues in various locations. That's why, both personally and through GWWC, I work to grow the EA and EG ecosystems. We do this at GWWC by promoting effective giving globally and by supporting and incubating new projects and initiatives.
• Stepping back and putting forward: Several times I've stepped back from things to create an opportunity for someone else (which also has a nice side-benefit of taking things off my plate), this requires first building trust in people and processes so that you feel comfortable in stepping back. Secondly, putting forward other people (e.g. specific team members with specialist knowledge) for opportunities (e.g. giving a talk) is often something I do.

It's not without challenges, of course. Often, opportunities tend to favour those who already have a strong presence or reputation. We're sometimes faced with situations where individuals or organisations specifically request for established figures like Will or Toby, and if we suggest alternatives, they decline.

If anyone has recommendations of people that would be suitable for any particular types of leadership please don't hesitate to reach out, I have a pretty open door policy (especially for things like this).

I think this is such an important question that I gave it a strong upvote!

The two most plausible ones to me are that:

1. If our team could be having more impact working on other things and that us existing and them being currently bought into the case for impact is the reason they don't.
2. We poison the well/turn people off/create misconceptions etc we don't live up to our standards (e.g. quality and tone).

That being said I think that generally speaking GWWC is one of the lower downside risk options within the EA community (especially compared with some of the (potential or actual) longtermist projects which I often worry much more about potential downsides or accidentally doing harm – in the active sense as opposed to the opportunity cost harm).

If you have some in mind yourself I'd happy hear them out 😀 

Great question Oisin! Internationalisation is a key priority of ours for 2023 and our internal goal is to add at least 2 new countries this year (with 3 projects currently in progress). We are pursuing both strategies of working with existing regranting organisations and also on helping to create new ones in locations where none exist.

We also try to proactively refer people to regranting partners that already exist (e.g. on our tax deductibility page that's linked to in our header and footer) and when their country is selected during checkout.

If you know any potentially good founders/founding teams/funders who'd be interested in growing effective giving in new markets please let us know!

Good question Vaidehi 😀 

There've been times when I've felt somewhat out of place within the EA community, particularly in spaces (physical or virtual) heavily dominated by top-tier university graduates (with economics, philosophy, or science PhDs) who are from/based in UK/US hub cities. Similarly, when I've been in spaces where people have doubled down hard on a particularly narrow worldview or set of conclusions that I think reasonable people would disagree with them on.

However, I've found that the EA community is wonderfully diverse in the corners where I've spent most of my time, filled with people from all sorts of backgrounds and experiences who have a variety of worldviews. Although I fit into many of the stereotypical demographics myself – male, white, in my thirties, university-educated – it's these moments of discomfort that remind me of the importance of striving for a more inclusive community.

In fact, these feelings of being out of place are often a wake-up call. They remind me that others might be feeling the same way or even more so, and that helps fuel my commitment to making our community as inclusive as possible. After all, our collective impact will only be maximised when everyone feels they have a place at the table and we are informing decisions with more diverse and nuanced perspectives. (A related concept is "watch team backup" that is doubly strengthened by diversity of perspectives as more things are successfully caught as different people notice different things based on their experiences and contexts.)

So, I guess I've often felt "out of place" but not so much that it "wasn't a place for me". Partially because I'm also pretty set on the core principles of EA (which I think are actually fairly universal) and think that whenever it starts to feel like the EA community is not a place for me then I feel that it's the EA community that needs to change and I need to help it do so.

(This can include current and former team members)

Annie 🐈‍⬛

Thanks Isaac! Personal advocacy goes a long way, especially when you are kind, warm, meet people where they are at and inspire them to see where they could be. Sometimes it takes a long time to pay off but if you leave people intrigued and inspired it often comes back around. Most pledges and new donors can be traced back to some form of personal advocacy.

Secondly, giving people specific calls to action (e.g. if you care about X you can donate to Y) is a very empowering move that leaves people feeling like they have agency and makes it easier for them to advocate for the ideas you present to them (whereas "look at how big and hard and complicated the world's problems are, this specific one is most important, and we need a very unique specific person to solve it" is going to be really demoralising and makes it ultimately harder to find those specific people anyway). 

Thanks Renan!

While I wouldn't ever want people to feel pressured to donate or to take a giving pledge, I honestly think it's a real missed-opportunity that isn't emphasised much within the EA community anymore (especially compared to where it once was). For so many people giving will be the main way they stay engaged (of which some will eventually find other ways of having an impact) and for many it'll be their biggest contribution. Also for many people pursuing direct work this can be incredibly high variance whereas giving can be a nice stable part of their impact journey.

One thing that I'd love to see more celebration of is significant giving milestones (we're starting to do this at least with the 1 and 10 year GWWC pins, but I'd love to see annual celebration events where the community celebrates wins including things like significant giving milestones for people within the community).

Thanks Vaidehi!

Open Philanthropy's Effective Altruism Community Growth (Global Health and Wellbeing) program is currently our largest source of funding. Their policy is to fund no more than 50% of the budget for an organisation of our profile (and we also do not want a single funder to be such a large portion of our funding). That leaves us with roughly ~£2.4m to raise between now and December to reach our target runway through to March 2025 (with our current budget which includes various international programs also).

We have a small number of other donors who have generously provided us operational funding in donation greater than $10k USD. We also have about $1.2k of monthly recurring donations to our operations from smaller donors.

Ultimately we'd like to be funded directly by enough small and large donors that we do not need to seek as much institutional funding but can still pursue our plans and reach our impact goals.

However, there is a tension here. We want to be very careful about how we fundraise for our operations from most donors as we don't want to undermine our relationship with donors and be seen as too self-recommending. Not only could this be bad for us but we think this could be bad for the wider community if it's done in a way that undermines trust.

We're currently exploring the option of including an opt-in for donors to support our operations when making a donation which (if done well) would likely increase the amount of baseline support from regular donors and also signal to larger donors that we do in fact need the funding.

We'd like to do a better job with working with larger donors on fundraising for high-impact projects and hope that in doing so they may also see the value of our work and offer to support it.

We'd be excited to see more worldview diverse meta funders as it is harder for worldview diverse meta organisations that are as closely tied to EA to find other institutional funders than it is for cause or worldview specific organisations.

Some of the other difficulties we face when finding operational funding include:

• We are explicitly worldview diverse, so while we have a high donation multiplier many funders might discount a lot of the impact that doesn't match their worldview.
• We are focused on fundraising for our supported charities and funds (and also just encouraging people to give effectively even if it's not something we've vetted).
• We work hard to avoid conflicts of interest (and have turned down funding and being recommended for this reason).
• GWWC is often seen as a large and established EA organisation given its history at the start of the movement so "surely it's well-funded and has good relationships with donors?". However, GWWC was essentially on ice from 2017-2020 and most relationships with donors ended up drying up or moving elsewhere during that time. Since 2020 we've grown a lot (including taking on a lot of costs to support the donation platform formerly run by EA Funds) and are working to grow effective giving internationally and increase our research capacity both of which requires upfront funding that takes years to pay off.
• There has been general anxiety around EA and EV (our parent charity) following the FTX collapse which has been a barrier for some funders that we know about (and probably others who haven't told us).

If anyone would like to support our work, you can do so here and I'd be more than happy to chat on a call or respond to questions here on by email (luke at givingwhatwecan.org).

Thanks Jeroen! This is a great – and timely – question.

What are your thoughts on national organisations like Effektiv Spenden in Germany or Doneer Effectief in the Netherlands, which operate much like GWWC?

We ❤️ them! We're truly delighted to see these organisations. Witnessing effective giving (EG) grow globally is a joy for us. Anyone who is helping with our mission (to create world where giving effectively and significantly is a norm) is an ally. Even more than that, these specific effective giving national fundraising organisations are close partners. We exchanging knowledge and support on a regular basis. By pooling our resources and talents, we believe we can do a much better job. In fact, we've just hired Lucas Moore to spearhead our Effective Giving Global Coordination and Incubation initiative to help with this and our team recently helped initiate and organise an Effective Giving Summit that brought together representatives from these organisations.

Each of these partnerships is unique. For example:

• We have an official brand partnership with Ayuda Efectiva who independently operate their platform (with their own team, board and grantmaking decisions) while also representing and managing our community in Spain.
• We helped to found and fund Don Efficace, who will be using our donation/pledge platform, have a brand partnership and act as our local representative (with their own team, board and grantmaking decisions).
• We share team members with EA Australia, and together we are launching GWWC Australia.
• With Effektiv Spenden, we exchange best practices and collaborate on projects.

Brand partnerships also make it easier to share things like marketing materials, introduce pledgers to them, and have shared public advocates.

For many of them, we're also involved in the grantmaking/regranting processes (e.g. receiving funds that they're raise and regranting them to fund programs delivered by our charity partner).

Should these organisations pursue a different approach to charity research, or should they function as national versions of GWWC, attracting more members without undertaking their own investigations?

On the brand front:

The context is crucial here. How the GWWC brand presents itself through national partners varies, largely depending on the country. For instance, the idea of having significant impact as an median income earner in your country resonates and makes sense in Germany, but less so in India.

We're actively working with our partners to strike a balance between local and international community building within the effective giving sphere. This approach helps us foster a global community that operates smoothly and raises the profile of effective giving everywhere.

On the research front:

This largely depends on available resources, local context, and areas of specialisation.

Research capacity is often limited, not just for these organisations but for GWWC as well (funding for this is pretty limited). That's why we hope our Evaluating the Evaluators initiative will be valuable for translating the work of evaluators (like GiveWell, ACE, Founders Pledge etc) to donors and fundraising organisations. Several national regranting partners (and other fundraising organisations like High Impact Athletes) have shown interest in using this information in their charity partner selection process.

Local research on poverty alleviation could make sense in places like India and the Philippines, while policy research related to climate and existential risks might be more suited to countries like Germany (a key player in the EU) and Australia (a major source of coal/uranium and potentially renewables). If these organisations (or other organisations in new places/causes/worldviews) begin to conduct more specialised evaluations, we'd be thrilled to review their findings and share our reviews with the wider community.

Do you think that there could be very effective charities operating outside the UK/US that GWWC is currently missing? Does GWWC research charities in continental Europe?

Indeed! I've always believed that we're only just beginning to uncover the most effective interventions and organisations. However, we're constrained by our research capacity. Since 2016 we no longer conduct direct evaluations of charities/programs/grants ourselves but rely on specialised evaluators and grantmakers. We don't plan to undertake direct evaluations in the near-to-medium term, but we're eager to see more evaluation work that we can review and decide how best to incorporate into our recommendations.

Despite these constraints, we're quite confident that our current recommendations are amongst the best options available for donors. We believe that most regular donors could make a far greater impact by following these recommendations rather than donating based on a specific cause or region they're familiar with or live in. We think the field has a long way to go and are excited to see it grow.

Related: Should initatives like the '10 procent club' exist in more countries?

Note: 10 procent club organizes quarterly events about effective giving in the Netherlands. They are a separate initiative from 'Doneer Effectief' which translates the charity recommendations and provides the giving platform.

(First up: You've done a great job on podcasts and presentations too! Would love for you to share what you've learned below. Would also any other comments/perspectives from other readers.)

Thanks Johannes for the question (especially because I'm keen on helping people to advocate and communicate more)!

While it is true that I think about it a lot, I've gotta say that we have definitely not not figured this out, and that really keeps me up at night. I think we (me personally, GWWC specifically, and EA in general) are a long way from being exceptional at communicating EA ideas.

For example, a tension often exists between sparking initial interest, where intriguing, counterintuitive concepts like earning to give tend to shine, and cultivating deep understanding, which is often best achieved via a Socratic style of discourse — engaging individuals on their terms and building upon shared values. There's a similar tension between conveying depth nuance verses simple repeatable ideas.

I worked with Geetanjali Basarkod and Matti Wilks (with more help from others) on this guide to talking about effective altruism and effective giving which goes into great detail and also leverages research.

Off the top of my head, here's some advice that might seem kinda simple and obvious but is often easy to forget:

• Tell stories: Human brains are wired to resonate with stories. Stories help us form connections, remember information, and stimulate our imagination. Rather than just presenting raw data, embedding that information in a story makes it more palatable and memorable.
• Make it feel real: Abstract ideas can sometimes feel distant and intangible. To bridge this gap, use vivid examples that people can easily picture. If you're talking about the importance of clean water, don't just mention statistics about disease — paint a picture of a day in the life of a child who now has access to clean water thanks to an effective intervention.
• Meet people where they are and know your audience: It's essential to understand the perspective of your audience — their beliefs, values, and pre-existing knowledge. Starting from common ground helps foster a sense of connection and understanding. Recognise their feelings, validate their concerns, and acknowledge the motivations behind their views. By connecting EA principles with concepts they're already familiar with, you make your conversation more engaging and meaningful.
• Be warm and open: An approachable, receptive demeanour invites more constructive dialogue. Nobody appreciates a know-it-all attitude. Be open to learning from others and show genuine interest in their ideas. If they feel like you're the kind of person they could reach out to after the interaction then they'll be more likely too continue thinking about it , act on it, and maybe eventually reach out. Plus the warm glow of you will transfer onto the ideas you share. If you're abrasive or dismissive you poison the way they'll feel to the ideas you're trying to convey.
• Spend weirdness points wisely: A dash of counterintuitive thinking can spark curiosity. Concepts that are unconventional or counterintuitive can draw attention and stimulate discussion. However, it's important to use this sparingly as you can easily overwhelm or alienate your audience.
• Your job isn't to convert: This is a crucial perspective to maintain. It's not your goal to convert people instantly into effective altruists, or to make them agree with every point of the philosophy. Rather, your aim is to introduce the ideas thoughtfully and generate curiosity. Encourage them to explore further in a manner that resonates with (while still sufficiently challenges) their existing interests and values. The goal is to foster understanding and respect, not to win a debate or compel immediate agreement. Remember, people often need time and their own personal journey to fully embrace new ideas. Plus, we're likely wrong about a bunch of stuff too, so there's that 😅

One worry I have with communications in the EA community lies in how we seem to have become worse at memetics. Although our capacity for rigorous analysis and self-criticism is vital, it sometimes hampers the 'memetic value', or shareability, of our narratives. We were initially adept at using compelling memorable examples, like the differences in impact of interventions from the Disease Control Priorities Project (DCP3) or the PlayPumps story, to effectively communicate EA ideas. However, as time passed, a combination of seeking precision/accuracy and probably an element of boredom with familiar narratives ("Oh no, not PlayPumps AGAIN") has led us to sideline these effective stories. In our pursuit of precision and novelty, we risk losing the power of having strong memetics that people will repeat for us, narratives that have proven their value in conveying the principles of effective altruism.

I'd like to see us find good memetics that meet our quality standards and tend to be received well-understood and repeatable...  then keep using them again and again and again until the general public take on an EA mindset by osmosis. We're currently in the later stages of a hiring round for a research communicator and I'm looking forward to working with them (alongside our research team, marketing team, and product team) on finding more things that'll work!

As a side note, I think we could also do with a bit of ritual such as the way we open events and the way we schedule our year. Back when EA Sydney used to open events with a reminder of community norms (like "high integrity") I think I worried less about having low integrity people in the community, when every January the community organised around GWWC's pledge drive there was a "moment" for many people who were just looking for a nudge. On that note, it's a pity that Meta kinda killed Giving Tuesday's matching program which for a while had some organising momentum.

(Yikes, I thought this would be a short comment, clearly I have some views here 😅). 

Thanks Isaac, good question! I believe that although donations moved through our platform are significant and a robust measurement, they only represent a part of GWWC's overall impact. In fact, over half the donations that we're aware of (via member reporting) are made directly to charities or via other donation platforms.

In my view, if we truly make strides towards achieving our mission, I expect that the indirect impact will dwarf the direct impact and more easily measured impact. This could take various forms such as introducing people to EA principles and causes, promoting positive values, and influencing donations more loosely, and shifting the impact-orientation of the philanthropic sector, to name a just few.

On a day to day basis however, our approach is to focus on what we can effectively measure and optimise, which predominantly includes donations and number of people giving effectively. However, we always have our broader mission in sight to ensure we don't make decisions that compromise greater impact elsewhere. This post by Joey gives examples of ways that organisations could undermine overall impact by focusing too much on just their own metrics.

Essentially, we are accountable to our mission more than just the easily measurable metrics precisely because we think that's what's more important. If you ask anyone at the GWWC team you'd likely hear that they're frequently asked questions like "is this moving us towards our mission?" or "could this harm our overall mission?".

We're planning to incorporate more indirect impact measures in our next impact evaluation, starting with the ones easier to measure like organisations using our research, or people we've referred to other organisations as donors or employees etc. Thanks again for your question, Isaac!

Great question, Clifford! There are certainly areas I'd love to see further developed.

It would be fantastic to see the rise of more specialised fundraising organisations that cater to particular segments where there's existing leverage or a network. This can be particularly productive if the model can be adapted from an existing organisation. For instance, the Jewish Effective Giving Initiative might spark the creation of more faith-based fundraisers, and High Impact Athletes has already motivated Artists of Impact. It's also simpler for us to aid specialist organisations in their fundraising if they're raising money for our existing recommendations. In this way, we can assist with donation processing in various countries and impact tracking, leaving them to concentrate on their community and fundraising efforts.

Currently, we're (almost) well-equipped to support the launch of new national organisations that wish to use our brand/product/community. It's much easier to get them up and running, especially as we complete our localisation efforts.

In terms of evaluation and grantmaking, there are certainly gaps we'd like to see filled. We'll have a clearer picture of this as we progress with our 'evaluating the evaluators' initiative.

I'm keen to see an advisory service for high net worth individuals (HNWI) or ultra-high net worth individuals (UHNWI) that focuses on global health and wellbeing, and perhaps a broad "effective giving" specialism. We might consider taking the latter on ourselves in the future, provided we can do it effectively and rely significantly on specialised advisories.

I also believe there's a gap between ultra-high net worth individuals (UHNWI) and HNWI, specifically for donors who give between ~$50k-$1m annually. We may consider addressing this gap by exploiting some of the low-hanging fruit such as connecting people to existing funding circles and advisors. We could also improve communication and product solutions to provide a customised experience without the need for customised grantmaking capacity. I'd love to see more donors in this range start or join funding circles, as I believe these can provide a helpful counterbalance to large or institutional grantmakers, thereby promoting funder diversity.

I'd love to be connected with any potential founders/founding teams or people already doing work that we're not yet connected with!

In case it helps, here's our current spreadsheet where we try to track the ecosystem (I know some very early stage organisations are missing, but please let me know if anything is missing).

Thanks for asking! We need to raise roughly ~£2.4m between now and December to reach our target runway through to March 2025 with our current budget. There are plenty of things we're not doing (e.g. hiring more research capacity, fundraisers, or a country manager in key locations like the UK) due to funding constraints.

Programs we house like the Charity Elections program are fundraised for separately too and have struggled to get funding through the limited number of sources for this kind of work.

Additionally, we'd love to be in a position to do more active grantmaking in setting up or scaling up new effective giving organisations (e.g. launching in new markets).

I also wrote some more details in my response to Vaidehi's question 😀 

--

If anyone would like to support our work, you can do so here and I'd be more than happy to chat on a call or respond to questions here on by email (luke at givingwhatwecan.org).

My views on this a very nuanced and I think it's hard to make general recommendations. I think it's quite inspiring and motivating to have people in my life who are more frugal and generous than me. That inspires me to also give more. It also makes it easier to have social norms around less expensive group activities etc.

However, I also worry about people being so frugal that it backfires and turns people from off following suit. I also worry if people don't spend on things that would improve their lives significantly (e.g. their health and wellbeing) and also their ability to have an impact (e.g. productivity, coaching, education etc).

My all things considered guess is that for many people the ideal mix of impact over the long term (considering personal $ moved, money influenced, and second order effects like values spreading and their pursuit of high-impact careers) is to find a sustainable level of giving and spending that is comfortably on the edge of what those around them could imagine doing themselves and what helps them be most healthy and productive.

We’ll send a replacement if you lose it! 😀 We'd much rather you wear it and risk losing it than keep it in a sock drawer for fear of losing it!

If that happens just shoot us an email :) 

my pledge pin is my most expensive possession I own...

Omg I'd never done those maths 😬

I started mostly in global health and then included some animal welfare. The vast majority of my donation in the past ~6 years has been EA/EG meta. Especially boring stuff that no one else wants to pay for (e.g. paying for accounting, audit and legal fees for an effective giving or community building organisation) but I find the multiplier mindset satisfying. That's mostly been EA Australia and Giving What We Can. I've also sponsored a lot of giving games and charity elections.

Other than that I have a mix of more direct organisations I support (e.g. GFI, AMF) on a regular(ish) basis. These also make it much easier for me to have entry level discussions about effective giving with people as a donor myself.

As another form of advocacy I quite like giving donations as gifts, thank yous, or follow ups (donating to something on someone's behalf after having a conversation with them about it).

Finally I'll often backstop or seed things with personal funds when I have high context (e.g. EAGxAustralia conferences, donor matching campaigns, early stage projects) so that they happen regardless but I hope another donor will step in or a grant will come through.

If I was less high context specific projects and weren't thinking about advocacy I'd likely just do a combination of funds and Charity Entrepreneurship.

On top of my impact focused giving I also like to support a token amount when friends do a fundraiser (provided it doesn't seem harmful) to affirm them looking outwards (it makes it easier to chat about charity in general too when I've actively supported them) and my wife gives some of her donations to the rescue we got our cats from and volunteered at (discussed between us as a bit of a social contract, special obligation type giving).

Great question! I've not got very developed thoughts here but here's my quick take:

As much as I think taking and following through with giving pledges are generally a good norm to have within the community (for many reasons) I'm very sceptical about it being a requirement or anything like that for voting or allocating funds. I think it's fraught with potential unintended consequences. That being said, I've kicked an idea around for a while to have a GWWC community fund where anyone can donate to it (ideally many GWWC members choose to) and there's a process where active members collectively allocate the funds (likely with recommendations from other members and grantmakers and various ways for people to delegate their votes to others).

That's a tricky one! I think that at both extremes it's bad (so the answer lies somewhere between). 

• If no small donors are informed and carefully checking then I think evaluators would generally do a much worse job.
• If all small donors needed to be sufficiently knowledgeable about effective giving before donating I think that it'd be a big waste of time, fewer people would give, and evaluators wouldn't move enough money for their time to be worthwhile spent on it.

Generally, I'd prefer donors not be completely deferential and have at least a basic understanding of why they defer to a specific evaluator (at the moment I think this is super opaque to donors and we're hoping to help change that). But I also worry about donors trying to reinvent the wheel, be overconfident that they can outperform evaluators, or get so lost in the details that they don't end up giving.

My view is that it'll likely depend more on the temperament and context of the donor (including how much they're moving).

On a side note I think the donor lottery is a pretty interesting way of solving this (but feel like we probably need a few donor lotteries for it to work in an ideal way, such as a worldview diverse one and ones for specific worldviews so that you can at least think about worldviews before donating to the lottery).

Related question: what other initiatives might help here?