I was recently talking to someone who had recently started thinking about effective altruism, and was trying to figure out how to work it into their life. They were established in their career, it paid well, and their background wasn't obviously a good fit for direct work, so they were naturally considering earning to give. This prompts a question of how much to give.
"How much?" is a question people have struggled with for a very long time. Donating 10% of income has a long history, and it's common for EAs to pledge to do this; donating 2.5% of wealth is also traditional. If you're earning to give, however, you might want to give more: Julia and I have been giving 50%; Allan Saldanha has been giving 75% since 2019. How should one decide?
I was hoping there were good EA blog posts on this topic, but after spending a while with EA Forum search and Google I didn't find any. Claude kept telling me I should check out Jeff Kaufman's blog, but all I found was a rough post from 2011. So here's an attempt that I think is better than my old post, but still not great.
While EAs talk a lot about principles, I think this is fundamentally a pragmatic question. I find the scale of the world's problems overwhelming; no one has enough money to eliminate poverty, disease, or the risk we make ourselves extinct. This is not to say donations don't matter—there are a lot of excellent options for making the world better—but there's not going to be a point where I'm going to be satisfied and say "Good! That's done now." This gives a strong intellectual pull to donate to the point where donating another dollar would start to decrease my altruistic impact, by interfering in my work; burning out does not maximize your impact!
In the other direction, I'm not fully altruistic. I like some amount of comfort, there are fun things I want to do, and I want my family to have good lives. I'm willing to go pretty far in the altruism direction (I donate 50% and took a 75% pay cut to do more valuable work) but it's a matter of balance.
Which means the main advice I have is to give yourself the information you need to make a balanced choice. I'd recommend making a few different budgets: how would your life look if you gave 5%? 10%? 20%? In figuring out where you'd cut it might be helpful to ignore the donation aspect: how would your budget change if your industry started doing poorly?
In some ways Julia and I had this easy: we got into these ideas when we were just starting out and living cheaply, while we could still be careful about which luxuries to adopt and maintain inexpensive tastes. It's much harder to cut back! So another thing I'd recommend, especially if you haven't yet reached peak earning years, is to plan to donate a disproportionately large fraction of pay increases. For example, 10% of your (inflation adjusted!) 2024 salary plus 50% of any amount over that.
Overall, the goal is to find a level where you feel good about your donations but are also still keeping enough to thrive. This is a very personal question, and people land in a bunch of different places. But wherever you do end up, I'm glad to be working with you.
To follow on to your point, as it relates to my personal views, (in case anyone is interested,) it's worth quoting the code of Jewish law. It introduces its discussion of Tzedakah by asking how much one is required to give. "The amount, if one has sufficient ability, is giving enough to fulfill the needs of the poor. But if you do not have enough, the most praiseworthy version is to give one fifth, the normal amount is to give a tenth, and less than that is a poor sign." And I note that this was written in the 1500s, where local charity was the majority of what was practical; today's situation is one where the needs are clearly beyond any one person's ability - so the latter clauses are the relevant ones.
So I think that, in a religion that prides itself on exacting standards and exhaustive rules for the performance of mitzvot, this is endorsing exactly your point: while giving might be a standard, and norms and community behavior is helpful in guiding behavior, the amount to give is always a personal and pragmatic decision, not a general rule.
From my point of view, the biggest issue that makes this question an everlasting companion for most is uncertainty. Even if I could currently give 50% away and have the same standard, how will that look like in a few years? What if I lose my job in my 50s and struggle to find anything? What if my abilities will become meaningless because of technological advancements even earlier?
I would assume for most it's not a question of consumption vs. donations, as many essays and books make it sound. It's about the balance between how much to put into your own financial securement vs. donating. This is probably much easier to answer for promising 80,000 hours supported geniuses, but a very different picture for the Average Joe who struggled in school and to find employment in the first place. It's probably impossible to give clear answers when taking that into consideration, though.
You could try putting cash into a separate savings account earmarked for donation. When you are happy that you don’t need it, donate it. (But maybe over a few years for tax efficiency)
You've put into clear words the struggle that I have always had. If I had a guaranteed income or some high level of confidence that I would always be able to find employment and gain income of a certain level, then I'd find it quite easy to give away money. It wouldn't be as scarce of a resource.
There are certain parallels to the idea of put on your own oxygen mask first, as we do need to make sure we are okay before helping others. But I also suppose that the really tricky part is considering what is okay 'enough' for us.
I strongly agree that you need to put your own needs first, and think that your level of comfort with your savings and ability to withstand foreseeable challenges is a key input. My go-to in general, is that the standard advice of keeping 3-6 months of expenses is a reasonable goal - so you can and should give, but until you have saved that much, you should at least be splitting your excess funds between savings and charity. (And the reason most people don't manage this has a lot to do with lifestyle choices and failure to manage their spending - not just not having enough income. Normal people never have enough money to do everything they'd like to; set your expectations clearly and work to avoid the hedonic treadmill!)
Thank you for writing this. I have been struggling with this question myself, and your recommendation will hopefully give me motivation to finally getting around to creating a budget