Really appreciate this post! I think it's really important to try new things, and also have the courage to notice when things are not working and stop them. As a person who habitually starts projects, I often struggle with the latter myself, haha.
(speaking of new projects, Manifund might be interested in hosting donor lotteries or something similar in the future -- lmk if there's interest in continuity there!)
Question, just to check whether I haven't misunderstood this post:
It would be very sad if we lost these two things without handover.
(1) I'm also a bit confused about the difference between charitable projects and hosted funds. First, I thought it means it's not possible to donate to funds via GWWC website, but after reading it again, I interpreted it as a change happening rather back-end and won't impact recommendations. Instead, it would be a change in the oversight GWWC promises for the funds. Have I understood it correctly?
Thanks for these questions! I understand this may be a bit confusing.
On (1): as Karla suggests, this is a "back-end" change (i.e. about whether we do grantmaking for funds ourselves or transfer to the fund host organisations to do this), and it doesn't impact which supported programs we continue offering on our donation platform, including EA Funds and other funds, which will all become "charitable projects" by this definition.
On (2): Yes, we'll continue to maintain ANBI status in the Netherlands.
Kudos to you team and many thanks for sharing! I’m a big fan of organisations focusing and doing less but better. In my opinion too many people and orgs in our movement take on too much and don’t do anything as well as a result, and it’s great to see such a big, well-respected org setting an example. It’s never easy to make such decisions, especially if time and money has been invested. But it’s important that we constantly reevaluate the effectiveness and retire/hand off projects like you did in this case, very aligned with EA values :)
Happy to see this. Seeing how much was cut, I agree that GWWC was trying to do too many things. The one I at first questioned was "translations" but I think you guys have a good point regarding Google Translate and other organizations who should take over non-English languages.
How much time/money were spent on these initiatives would you estimate as a percentage?
Is this due to more recent funding constraints?
I don't think that guess would be compatible with their BHAG, for which they're "recruiting top-tier Chief Operating and Chief Growth Officers with experience scaling similar products and organisations" etc?
Yep indeed, we're scaling up rather than down, but to achieve our ambitious goals we'll still need to focus :).
Sorry but I can't provide you with a precise time/cost estimate for all these projects currently (it also varies a lot over time, and could have varied a lot in the future); my best guess would be in the order of a few percentage points across the board, so a significant amount of resources and potential "distraction" from our strategy but not an overwhelming amount.
This seems like a good move! Not everything is equally important; some things are a lot more impactful than others, so makes to focus on those.
Executive summary: In an effort to sharpen its strategic focus and maximize impact, Giving What We Can (GWWC) is discontinuing 10 initiatives that, while often valuable, diverge from its core mission of expanding its global Pledge base—this decision reflects a shift toward greater prioritization and a call for other actors to carry forward impactful work where possible.
Key points:
This comment was auto-generated by the EA Forum Team. Feel free to point out issues with this summary by replying to the comment, and contact us if you have feedback.
Kudos for making the hard decision to cut so many things! This seems the best thing for GWWC's impact
In our recent strategy retreat, the GWWC Leadership Team recognised that by spreading our limited resources across too many projects, we are unable to deliver the level of excellence and impact that our mission demands.
True to our value of being mission accountable, we've therefore made the difficult but necessary decision to discontinue a total of 10 initiatives. By focusing our energy on fewer, more strategically aligned initiatives, we think we’ll be more likely to ultimately achieve our Big Hairy Audacious Goal of 1 million pledgers donating $3B USD to high-impact charities annually. (See our 2025 strategy.)
We’d like to be transparent about the choices we made, both to hold ourselves accountable and so other organisations can take the gaps we leave into account when planning their work. As such, this post aims to:
What’s changing
We've identified 10 initiatives[1] to wind down or transition. These are:
Each of these is detailed in the sections below, with timelines and transition plans where applicable.
How this is relevant to you
We still believe in the impact potential of many of these projects. Our decision doesn’t necessarily reflect their lack of value, but rather our need to focus at this juncture of GWWC's development.
Thus, we are actively looking for organisations and individuals interested in taking on some of these projects. If that’s you, please do reach out: see each project's section for specific contact details.
Thank you for your continued support as we work toward a world where giving significantly and effectively is a cultural norm!
The GWWC Team
Project description
Giving What We Can Canada is one of GWWC’s funding partners—a legal entity through which GWWC operates. It was established to enable Canadians to contribute to high-impact causes through Giving What We Can's donation platform while receiving tax benefits available to Canadian donors.
Rationale for discontinuation
Giving What We Can's strategy has evolved to focus on pledge-based global and US/UK (our largest “markets”) engagement rather than other country-specific operations. We do not anticipate conducting localised effective giving community building beyond the US and UK in the near future, which has led to our decision to either wind down, hand over or make dormant the Canadian entity (see below).
While facilitating tax-efficient donations to high-impact programmes remains important to us, we also recognise that pledgers and other effective givers can donate tax-efficiently outside of the GWWC platform through other effective giving fundraising organisations, including in Canada through RC Forward, or directly to registered Canadian charities delivering high-impact programmes, such as the Against Malaria Foundation.
Project standing prior to discontinuation
GWWC Canada is in the advanced stages of its application for registered charity status in Canada. This status was intended to enable Giving What We Can Canada to provide tax deductions for Canadians donating to high-impact causes through our platform—a significant value proposition given Canada's favourable tax treatment for charitable donations and the gap in the market, as few high-impact charities are registered as Canadian charities.
Beyond facilitating tax-efficient high-impact donations, GWWC Canada was working towards localised outreach to promote effective giving throughout Canada. We conducted recruitment processes for Canadian leadership positions on two occasions, including for a Canadian Country Director, as part of our broader localisation efforts that were initiated in 2023, but ended up deciding not to make any offers at those points.
Plan for discontinuation
As the GWWC Canada board evaluates next steps in Q2 and Q3 of 2025, we recognise that there remains a valuable opportunity for impact in the Canadian effective giving landscape. The entity's advanced progress toward charitable status and its established operational framework represent significant assets for promoting effective giving in Canada.
To this end, the Canadian board members are actively soliciting interest from potential donors and volunteers who wish to either oversee or run a potential successor organisation, which, while not connected to Giving What We Can, would fulfil a similar space in the Canadian effective giving landscape. This represents an opportunity to build upon the foundation that has been established here and to enable Canadians to contribute effectively to high-impact causes worldwide.
Alternatively, the board is considering either winding down the entity or exploring whether the entity could be legally and transparently made dormant at low cost until either GWWC or another mission-aligned actor is willing to take it forward.
Contact Information
For questions about GWWC Canada or the transition, or to express interest in involvement with a potential successor organisation, please contact us at [email protected]
Acknowledgments
We extend our sincere gratitude to the Canadian board members—Jonathan Courtney, David Kozak, Kale Ridsdale, Chris Goward, and Daniel Frank—for their significant investment in spearheading this project. While Giving What We Can Canada will not materialise as initially intended, a significant amount of work went into creating the infrastructure for the organisation.
Project description
Effective Altruism Australia (EAA) is one of GWWC’s funding partners — a legal entity through which GWWC operates — and it also has its own programmes that are independent of GWWC. Our funding partnership with EAA enables Australian donors to donate tax deductibly to a limited number of programmes and causes (in line with Australian legal restrictions) on GWWC’s donation platform.
Rationale for discontinuation
Giving What We Can's global strategy has evolved to focus on pledge-based global and US/UK (our largest “markets”) engagement rather than other country-specific operations. We do not anticipate conducting localised effective giving community building beyond the US and UK in the near future, which has led to our decision to wind down the funding partnership with EAA.
While facilitating tax-efficient donations to high-impact programmes remains important to us, we also recognise that pledgers and other effective givers can donate tax-efficiently outside of the GWWC platform through other effective giving fundraising organisations, including in Australia via EAA, even after the funding partnership ends.
Project standing prior to discontinuation
We have licensed Giving What We Can’s branding to EAA, closely collaborated with them on fundraising in Australia, and were considering further localised effective giving community building. This was part of the localisation efforts we initiated in 2023, with the aim of making effective giving more accessible to donors across a range of countries.
Plan for discontinuation
Timeline
Info
After the funding partnership ends, we recommend Australian donors who want to donate tax deductibly to global health or climate focused programmes to do so directly via Effective Altruism Australia. Pledgers can of course still report these donations by logging into their Pledge Dashboard.
Contact Information
For questions about the Effective Altruism Australia funding partnership or the transition, please contact us at [email protected]
Project description
Giving What We Can community groups host local gatherings where members connect to discuss effective giving, share experiences, and support each other's philanthropic journeys. These groups organise discussions, giving games, and social events to build community among people committed to effective giving. GWWC supports these local communities with resources and networking opportunities that connect effective givers across different locations.
Rationale for discontinuation
We have limited capacity to support group leaders, and think we can preserve many of the benefits these groups offer by encouraging group leaders to rebrand to “Effective Giving Groups” instead of “GWWC Groups”. This provides existing community leaders full autonomy without the need for approvals or to stick to our structures and also helps mitigate the organisational risk of operating official “GWWC” groups without being able to devote enough resources to properly oversee them. Also, while groups are valuable for existing pledgers, they haven’t been a major driver of growth.
Project standing prior to discontinuation
We were operating GWWC Groups in several major cities and supporting each with a $250 annual grant.
Plan for discontinuation
Timeline
Info
We also encourage community members interested in connecting with others to join our Global Community Slack channel if you haven’t already.
Contact information
For questions about Giving What We Can Community Groups or the transition to Effective Giving Groups, please contact James at [email protected]
Project description
Giving Games are workshops where participants learn about effective giving by collaboratively deciding how to donate a small sum (typically $10-20 per participant) to charity. GWWC has been providing resources, facilitation guides, sponsorship, and direct support for running these workshops for a number of years.
Rationale for discontinuation
While we think Giving Games are a great way to increase awareness of effective giving concepts, this initiative takes up significant resources and is only tangentially related to our core strategy of growing the Pledge. We are re-homing the programme to live in the CEA Groups Resources Centre, so it’s likely to continue in some capacity (see “Plan for Discontinuation” for more info).
Project standing prior to discontinuation
We were offering facilitation & sponsorship support to people and organisations interested in running a giving game.
Plan for discontinuation
Timeline
Info
From April onwards, GWWC will be handing over the instruction guide/template for Giving Games to CEA. We are still liaising with CEA about whether they will be able to offer sponsorship or tailored support. We will update this post once we have confirmation.
Contact information
For questions about Giving Games or the transition, please contact [email protected]
Project description
The Charity Elections programme introduces high school students to effective giving concepts, inspires meaningful discussions, and empowers young people to reflect on complex world issues and realise their potential to make a difference. The programme is designed to cultivate a culture of giving and giving effectively, expand moral circles, promote compassion, and raise the profile of outstanding causes among future givers.
In a charity election, high school students research, discuss, and reflect on three charities before voting to decide which will receive up to $2,000 in sponsored funds. A self-contained slideshow allows teachers to easily run the event, either across a set of classes or the whole school.
By the end of this academic year, the programme will have reached approximately 15,000 student votes (across 45 school events in seven countries) since the programme’s creation in 2018.
More information about Charity Elections here.
Rationale for discontinuation
While we believe Charity Elections is a valuable programme for introducing young people to effective giving principles and encouraging thoughtful philanthropy in schools, supporting this programme takes up significant resources and is only tangentially related to our core strategy of growing the Pledge. We are actively supporting the programme to seek a new fiscal sponsor, with the hope it can continue.
Project standing prior to discontinuation
The Charity Elections programme was created in 2018 with support from The Life You Can Save (TLYCS) and has been incubated by Giving What We Can (GWWC) since 2021. As a result of implementing charity elections, students have started EA-related clubs, fundraised and advocated for highly effective charities, published articles on school websites, and conducted interviews to reflect on the impact of their school campaigns.
Approximately 100 student leaders have helped run the programme, such as through charities committees and AP Government and IB Philosophy classes, and their results have been presented by teachers (e.g., US, Italy) at national and international conferences. For more information, please see the most updated version of the project brief, which includes student and teacher testimonials and the programme’s theory of change.
Plan for discontinuation
Without a new sponsor, schools will no longer be able to receive the financial sponsorship or voting resources needed to run a charity election. We are working to find a new sponsor, and welcome connections to organisations that might be interested in supporting this initiative!
Timeline
Info
If a teacher or other school staff member would like to run a charity election, they can reach out to [email protected] for updates on the programme’s status or to see samples of previous curriculum. In the absence of a new fiscal sponsor, teachers can still run a similar event based on aspects of the curriculum, in accordance with the programme’s Creative Commons (CC) license.
Contact information
We would love to hear from organisations that might be interested in fiscally sponsoring the Charity Elections programme through its next chapter. Please reach out to us if you would like to consider working together!
Founder and Project Lead -- Greg Gianopoulos, [email protected]
Communications and Outreach Lead -- Adam Steinberg, [email protected]
Project description
Because of giving multiplier effects, GWWC believes supporting promising Effective Giving (EG) initiatives may be among the most cost-effective giving opportunities. We also believe there is currently a lack of promising donation opportunities related to EG fundraising & outreach available to retail donors, as the space is not directly covered by existing publicly accessible charity evaluators or funds.
Because of this, we were previously exploring a potential partnership with Meta Charity Funders or other evaluators in the effective giving meta space, whereby they direct EG funding opportunities to GWWC, which we could then review and fund through a cause area fund dedicated to promoting EG. Unlike our other cause area funds, we would ultimately be managing this fund and deciding which opportunities to direct funding to, even though we would still rely on a partner evaluator (vetted by a GWWC evaluation) to provide us with high-quality funding options and evaluations.
Rationale for discontinuation
Our research team currently has limited capacity, with approximately 1 FTE. By discontinuing this exploration and not venturing outside our regular evaluating evaluators approach, we are ensuring we have the capacity to maintain the quality of our charity recommendations and internal impact evaluation.
Project standing prior to discontinuation
We had scoped this project and developed tentative plans to evaluate an evaluator focused on EG Meta as part of the 2025 round of evaluating evaluators.
Plan for discontinuation
Timeline
Info
We will not move this project forward for at least the medium term, i.e. we will not be continuing it in 2025, and will not be evaluating an evaluator focused on EG Meta as part of the 2025 round of evaluating evaluators.
Contact information
If you have questions, you can reach out to [email protected]
Project description
The Donor Lottery is a mechanism where multiple donors contribute to a common pot, with each donor having a chance to win (proportional to their donation amount) the right to direct the entire pot. This allows individual donors to potentially influence a much larger amount than their personal contribution, making it worthwhile for the winner to conduct extensive research on effective giving opportunities while creating an economy of scale for the collective research effort. Read more about the donor lottery here.
Rationale for discontinuation
Given our current focus on expanding the Pledge, we don’t think we are best-suited to run the Donor Lottery. We think we can preserve the benefits of this programme by finding a better-suited organisation to carry it forward, and believe that sharing our existing infrastructure & insights should make for a smooth transition, should we be able to re-home the initiative. GWWC will continue supporting existing winners with open balances.
Project standing prior to discontinuation
GWWC has run 16 donor lotteries totaling $4.7 million in winnings since 2018.
Plan for discontinuation
Timeline
Info
Contact info
For questions about the donor lottery, please contact [email protected]
Project description
Our website has some core pages (such as the pledge signup flow and How Rich am I calculator) translated in various languages.
Rationale for discontinuation
We are discontinuing our translation initiatives to focus resources on our core English-speaking audience. While we believe in the importance of global accessibility, our translation efforts have shown limited success despite significant resource investment. Our pilot translations in Korean and several other languages for the Pledge flow demonstrated that creating and maintaining a quality multilingual experience requires dedicated resources we cannot currently allocate while focusing on our core strategy. We expect the impact of this phase-out to be minimal as our current translations are limited and browsers like Google Chrome provide built-in translation capabilities.
We also think we can better facilitate localisation by partnering with and referring to other effective giving fundraising organisations operating in specific regions (listed on our Tax deductibility and Pledge Partners page). For example, partner organisations like Ayuda Efectiva (Spanish) and Effektiv Spenden (German) will have better quality content and can serve as primary access points for non-English speakers interested in effective giving.
Project standing prior to discontinuation
We had a few key pages translated in Korean, the How Rich Am I calculator translated in French, and the pledge signup flow translated in Dutch, Spanish, German, French, Portuguese, Japanese and Korean.
Plan for discontinuation
Timeline
Info
Non-English speaking users will no longer have access to translated content directly from GWWC.
Contact info
For questions about translations, please contact [email protected].
Project description
Giving What We Can's donation platform has supported two types of programmes:
The key difference: Hosted Fund partners advise us on where to grant funds raised, whereas Charitable Projects receive the funds from us directly.
Rationale for discontinuation
There are high operational costs associated with the Hosted Fund grantmaking process, and focusing solely on Charitable Projects also reduces legal risks. In light of our pledge-focused strategy, we can’t afford to take on the additional grantmaking overhead that comes with Hosted Funds.
Plan for discontinuation
Timeline
Info
Contact info
For questions about Hosted Funds, please contact [email protected]
Project description
At various points over the past few years, GWWC has licensed its brand to vetted partners in the effective giving space, so they could operate under GWWC’s name and/or use GWWC resources and products rather than needing to start from scratch.
Rationale for discontinuation
As we aim to focus on our global pledge-focused strategy and strengthen and take ownership of our own brand, we think the benefits of entering into new licensing agreements no longer justify the costs and risks. We will also work with existing partners to see where and for how long it makes sense for each of them to continue using our brand.
Project standing prior to discontinuation
We have currently licensed our brand to the following organisations:
Plan for discontinuation
Timeline
Contact info
For questions about GWWC’s brand licenses, please contact us at [email protected]
Note: we've retired some smaller projects as well, but wanted to focus this post on the 10 initiatives that are most relevant to our community and external stakeholders
This post makes me feel very positive about GWWC and its future! It's hard to overrate the value of focus. One thing I would love to learn is what you are doubling down on as a result.
Did you see GWWC's 2025 strategy post?
no, thanks