Notes on not taking the GWWC pledge (yet)

Thanks for sharing this! It's great to have some honest and open conversations about the GWWC pledge. 

FWIW I think perceived wisdom is that around 6-12 months of living expenses is pretty good as an emergency fund, which might help in terms of your runway value curve. For example, that might look like £1.8k per month (which I think is roughly the UK average) x 6-12 = £10-20k. Ideally, this would be in instant access savings, rather than stocks (but this isn't true in my case). 

Other thoughts: I think unless you expect your situation to change dramatically in the next year (e.g. you leave your job), it seems reasonable that you could both save for an emergency fund (at least partially) and donate 10%? For example, if you have a salary of £50k, that's a takehome salary of £37k, which might be broken down like:

• Living expenses = £1.8k x 12 = £22k (maybe this is slightly on the frugal side but I'm just indexing on this UK average, obviously it depends where you live)
• Donations = £5k
• Runway = £10k

Thanks for sharing, Lizka! and thanks to everyone else for sharing their voices in the comments too!

I liked this post from Samie which talks about some factors for financial planning and security that are helping when thinking about donating - I liked the ideas about income protection insurance and thinking about financial goals.

I personally took a trial pledge for 3% of my income for a year before deciding I could really commit to the full GWWC Pledge. I've had ongoing health issues throughout my adulthood which at times meant I wasn't able to work full time and was concerned about my ability to potentially earn an income in the future - so it was a really big deal to me to sign a lifetime pledge.

There were a couple of things that pushed me over the edge to take the full pledge:

1. Feeling like I did have enough saved that if I had to reduce my work hours that I could still afford to donate. I've been fortunate to be working from the age of 20 and lived with my parents for many years so I could save money.
2. Knowing if that if I couldn't work anymore that I wouldn't be liable for donations under the pledge (just a suggested 1% of spending money) or that I could always resign if I needed to. On this point, I didn't want to let the fear of my health potentially declining be a reason not to make an important commitment to do good - I like the marriage analogy with the pledge, as mentioned by others here. 
3. Knowing that even on a modest income in Australia (or even on government benefits), I would still be really well off in comparison to the majority of people alive right now. My own health issues and suffering have been a big part of understanding how positively my donations could impact the lives of others, and I find that really personally motivating. 

I think it's really up to each individual to figure out how much runway to save up, because our circumstances are all quite different (i.e. family, health, government policies, likelihood of changes to income level etc). I do think it was easier for me to sign a lifetime pledge because I have a family who are likely to be able to support me if things were really dire.

Taking the GWWC Pledge is a big commitment and I would recommend that people think carefully about it before doing so. I think a Trial Pledge is a great step and I'm really excited about the value of having people show that they're donating on a public register, even without the lifetime commitment, because this helps normalise effective giving and giving more broadly as a positive social norm!

(I work for GWWC but this was written in my personal capacity)

Thanks for writing this - it definitely makes sense to me and resonates with another discussion we had in the Berlin EA office recently on what counts as "disposable income".

I would just note three things:

1. If you are not pledging in order to build up financial security, would you consider pledging to donate these funds later in life if it turns out you don't need them? A lot of your reasoning seems to be about self-insurance, which makes sense, but in the event that you don't need the insurance (e.g. because you stay impactfully employed largely without a break for your whole career), it'd be great if you then donated those reserves steadily in your 70s and older. If you don't want to do this, e.g. because you'd prefer to pass these reserves onto your kids, I think that does seem like it's close to motivated reasoning (i.e. "it turns out the most impactful thing I can do is build up personal and intergenerational wealth" seems pretty convenient).

And then relatedly:

2. Depending on your personal circumstances, you might be surprised at how feasible it is to do the GWWC pledge and build up financial security at the same time. I definitely have less money set aside than if I hadn't pledged, but I equally haven't had to choose directly between pledging and being financially secure. Something to think about / factor in to your spreadsheet. The excellent Fi-lanthropy Calculator from Yield and Spread is great for showing how donating certain amounts extends your timelines for complete financial security, and it usually makes less of a difference than you think - https://www.yieldandspread.org/free-resources

And then finally, and a minor point:

3. FWIW, I think the only unconvincing scenario you mention is "if I was worried about EV/CEA/the usefulness of my work, I can imagine leaving without another opportunity lined up."

In each scenario you mention, I think the correct trade off is "is the security for me not to suffer X more important than the benefit of donating this money?". So when it comes to caring for your family, I think it's fair enough to prioritise that pretty highly. But in this scenario, you could just carry on working at CEA while you do your job search, and I think it's pretty indulgent to say "the ability to resign immediately rather than do my job and look for other jobs on the side is worth more than the value of donating money to help people in extreme poverty". People become disillusioned in their jobs and start applying for other ones all the time, and I think you could do this as well, without undue hardship :-)

I might be underthinking this but to me the 10% pledge is only about acknowledging that I earn significantly above the minimum wage in the region and hence giving up on 10% will likely not have a significant effect on my wellbeing.

Then for factoring in the tradeoffs related to direct work, a starting point I could think of so far is if funding would be available to cover them. If you think about it, you decided to take a tradeoff to pursue a direct work opportunity. You could have also just kept earning and started donating the difference to a fund. Now imagine someone else comes with a funding application to the same fund. This other project has the exact same expected returns as your direct work project. The only difference is that this other project requires funding. Assume that the amount required is the same as the difference you'd donate. You might see where this goes. The two projects are equivalent from the fund's perspective (for each project to get done the fund is worse off by X money). This means - if I did not mess it up - you taking the tradeoff for the project is at least as good as donating the difference to the fund (assuming the fund would be happy to trade off this amount of money for the project you are doing).

So I'm not sure if taking a tradeoff like this would technically count for the pledge, but I think the result would be at least as good as donating the difference to a given fund. And so far I assumed that this is what matters.

(Note that I also had a likely not too successful attempt of writing up this idea from a different perspective)

Thanks for sharing Lizka! I appreciate you sharing these considerations :)

Personally, I donated at roughly the 10% amount for several years before taking the pledge (and at some point in the process I actually thought I had but when I realised I in fact hadn't in 2016 I then did it on the spot lest I forget again). I've definitely leaned into the "lifetime" part of the wording at points and after taking the pledge I had years where I gave below 10% (e.g. when working on my startup and taking home below minimum wage) and others where I have far exceeded that amount. While I've not taken the Further Pledge it is more similar to the way I think about my giving/living expenses.

I'm interested in hearing from people who might feel similarly about the full lifetime 10% pledge as to whether they have considered using the Trial Pledge for shorter periods or smaller amounts. And for those who have, how'd they find the experience? And those who haven't, why not? (Personally, I hadn't heard of it before I took the full pledge, so it might simply be awareness.)

FWIW almost half the new pledges each year are Trial Pledges.

TLDR: I am glad that I am not the only one who thinks "I'd like to help, but I want to make sure I have enough financial runway first."

(The rest of this comment is just my musings and explorations.)

I'm glad you wrote this. I've had vaguely similar thoughts bouncing around in my head during the past few days of seeing so much talk about giving.

I've donated a small amount of money over the years (≈8% of my income one year, and ≈1% another year), but I've never taken a pledge, and for most of my adult life I've not felt as financially secure as I would like. I feel a vague sense of pressure that effective giving is something I should do, and that it is something other people will think more highly of me for. But I've crunched numbers, and I have a spreadsheet, and I know a decent amount about personal finance. My rough narrative is something like this: there are bad things that have a reasonable chance of occurring in my life. If I have enough money available, then most of these things will be an annoyance, or a minor setback, or a negligible cost to me. If I do not have enough money available, these most of things will be a major setback, or will irrevocably alter my life path for the worse, or make other things much harder for me.

I would also like to retire someday. I assume that I will eventually reach an age where I lack the energy or motivation to do stuff, and I don't want to be in a situation in which I am forced to choose between doing a miserable job and not being able to afford decent food, clothing, and shelter.

If I had an in demand skill that could easily get me a well-paying job, or if I had family wealth to rely on, or if I had an excellent professional network from a well-reputed university... well, the more of these things one has, the less risk-averse one has to be.^[1] But in general I feel a great sense of financial precarity, and currently I am not confident that I will have enough money in the future to provide a modestly comfortable life for myself.

In brief, I want to make sure that I am taken care of. Any money above and beyond that I am happy to get rid off (such as donating it at the end of my life, or doing donations after a few years of earning good money).

1. ^{^}

   For legal citizens, it’s less risky to drive above the speed limit. For married people with two incomes that share expenses, it's less risky to quit one job to start another. For people with a highly in-demand skillset, it is less risky to take time off work to travel. For students not relying on scholarships, it’s less risky to skip class. For people with non-abusive parents, it's less risky to live with family. And so on.

I am still on the trial pledge and have been for a while now. I think promises really matter and so one shouldn't make one that one can't keep. I am sad that my pledge number is rising and that I don't get a bad, but I think this is better for me overall.

Thanks for writing this.

Regarding "How much runway someone should have".

I'd very much plug spending time actually crunching the numbers and using some financial planning resources (e.g. Yield & Spread). Huge amount of peace of mind when you actually calculate different scenarios.

Literally building a spreadsheet and writing out assumptions helps a lot. I remember going through this with my partner in our early 20s it involved hard calls but once you actually see the numbers it helps. It's going to be so personal though like how happy you are with rice and beans, if you have a family/friend you could crash with for 3 months if necessary etc.

Thank you for sharing. This felt very personally relevant. I also haven't taken the pledge. I very nearly did in 2016. I go back on forth on whether and when I should take it. There are so many considerations at play. 

How much am I willing/able to sacrifice my wealth and financial security alongside sacrifices made for my direct work? Would/will I have as much direct impact without my savings/passive income potential? I'd be more risk-averse and less likely to address 'funding market failures'. Could I give more and give better later on that now? How much is motivated reasoning because I am very averse to spending on most things... etc

I also find it a little hard to talk about with people who have taken the pledge without feeling worried that I will be judged for being selfish or just feeling selfish and bad etc.

Related to that, I would really like someone to make a decision tree, guesstimate model, or similar for people to determine when and whether someone should take the pledge or donate money.

Related to this desire for when to give analysis, I would also like some way of upvoting potential posts or project (and even funding them), perhaps hosted on or linked to the EA forum. The situation feels like a potential coincidence of wants problem. I think I would pay maybe 100usd for a good post on this topic, if easy. I suspect that a lot of people would also be willing to do this (but not sure). I think someone else would take the opportunity to write the post/make the model if they knew there was demand, but the opportunity/demand is not easily advertised/aggregated etc.

Thanks for writing this, I found many of these points relatable. As I read the post I found it a little surprising that I haven’t seen more of this kind of discussion.

The epistemics and independence point feels particularly important - I think this is one of the main factors that makes me want to build more runway. I don’t have a very principled view of how much runway is “reasonable”, if people have numbers in mind I’d love to see them.

Thanks for posting this, Lizka!

I think your reflection points to some tradeoffs about the way the GWWC pledge is currently structured. Before I mention them, I should emphasize that they are tradeoffs, and addressing them would mean compromising on other endpoints (most notably the value of simplicity).

1. There are a number of use cases for which the Trial Pledge would seem to be the provided mechanism, but for which "Trial Pledge" trivializes the pledger's commitment. For example:
   1. A time-limited pledge, based on expected future life circumstances: Alice can pledge 10% until her toddler enters high school, but is not comfortable committing to a pledge during a period in which she has a high school or college student.
   2. A time-limited pledge, based on uncertainty: Bob is one year out of college, and can pledge 10% for the next few years, but has enough uncertainty about where his life is going that he isn't comfortable pledging that for the next 40 years. This could also take the form of an event whose existence or time is unknown: "until I have children."
   3. A conditional pledge: Caroline has a health condition which creates a significantly increased risk of partial disability (e.g., having to reduce to part-time work).She is confident in her ability to give 10% as long as she is working full-time.
   4. In my view, reminding Alice, Bob, and Caroline that one can always resign from the main pledge weakens what the pledge means. To me, thinking of resignation when signing up is an appropriate strategy for contingencies that are either part of background risk or adjudged to be relatively unlikely. For example, if Alice believes there is a 70% chance she won't be able to fulfill the main pledge once her child becomes a teenager, I don't think she should take the main pledge intending that she will more likely than not need to withdraw from it.
   5. I'm also reminded of the process for becoming a nun or monk in the Catholic church which involves several preliminary, less intense and/or time-limited commitments prior to making the perpetual vows of poverty, chastity and obedience a number of years later. Likewise, personal relationships often have a number of stages of increasing commitment (e.g., becoming exclusive, living together, getting engaged, having a kid together, getting married -- although the order will vary depending on the persons involved). While having the Trial Pledge as the only form of sub-10%/life pledge has its merits, it doesn't really affirm the progression of people who are going through a similar discernment process of increasing commitment while considering whether to sign up for 10%/life. Maybe something like Trial Pledge (current form), Two-Year Pledge (5% min), Three-Year Pledge (7.5% min), Full Pledge would be a rough analogy to the process of becoming a member of a religious order?
2.  I would consider the possibility of transitioning pledgers who experience life circumstances to an appropriate status that encourages them to participate as able. Right now, it sounds like the two main exit paths for people who need to leave full pledger status prior to retirement are formal resignation and ghosting. I'm guessing that going to a website that reminds you of your prior 10% pledge to input the 3% you were actually able to give due to life circumstances isn't an affirming event for most people. I suggest that there may be ways for these individuals to feel more affirmed as part of the GWWC community :
   1. For people with life circumstances expected to be temporary, one could envision affirming them in a "pledger on temporary sabbatical" status. (I need help from Naming What We Can for any potential pledge names or status names!)
   2. For those with life circumstances expected to be permanent or long-term, one could envision a "pledger emeritus" status. Presumably, these statuses would not be publicly disclosed unless the pledger chose to do so.
   3. Taking either status could include a flexible pledge, like the following (words in italics for temporary sabbatical status only): "My life circumstances have rendered me unable to donate 10% of my income to effective charities at this time. I therefore have modified my pledge to donate to effective charities an amount that is meaningful in light of my personal circumstances. I pledge to return to donating 10% of my income to effective charities when my life circumstances permit."
   4. People who enter one of these statuses for good cause, and who give a meaningful amount under their circumstances, should think of themselves as fulfilling their original pledge with appropriate modifications due to life circumstances, rather than as having withdrawn from it.
   5. I considered whether creating these statuses could weaken the pledge. I think they weaken it less than suggesting that resignation is the remedy for changes in life circumstance that make it impractical to donate 10%.
   6. Adding these statuses on the back end would suffice to address some, but probably not all, of the use cases referenced in point 1 above.

Thanks for the post, Lizka!

How much runway someone should have (i.e. the shape of the “usefulness of runway” curve^[3]) is confusing to me — I’d be interested in hearing what others think.

To account for kids, the concept of equivalised income can be useful:

This scale attributes a weight to all members of the household:

• 1.0 to the first adult;
• 0.5 to the second and each subsequent person aged 14 and over;
• 0.3 to each child aged under 14.

The equivalent size is the sum of the weights of all the members of a given household.

For a household with 2 adults and 2 kids under 14, the effective size of the household would be 2.1 (= 1 + 0.5 + 2*0.3), which, for 2 adults earning money, suggests one would only have to multiply the runway respecting living solo by 1.05 (= 2.1/2).

I prefer to have more than the above suggests for caution, always considering a weight of 1 per person. My target runway is 6 times (= 2*(1 + 0.5)*2) the global real GDP per capita (in Portugal, 69.4 k€), which would allow me to live without any earnings for 2 years with 0.5 dependents with 2 times the global real GDP per capita per person per year. I have been donating (so far, about 20 % of my all-time income) as I build my runway up to that level, and plan to donate everything above that once I reach it.