Thanks for thinking to write this, Julia! I appreciate reading how other couples navigate this and can think of a number of other strong examples.
For my part: my beloved career at GiveWell is enabled by my husband, who is a stay-at-home-dad. He also brought our kid(s) along on my work trips (2-4 per year) for over two years when our baby-feeding configuration made it impossible for me to travel without them.
Hi Chelsea! It's so great to see your interest in using this money for good. One thought: it might not be that the trustees are anti-donation, but rather that they're bound to the legal terms of the trust. You can request to see the documents that govern the trust; if I were you, I'd request those and then use an AI tool like Claude to help you understand them and get a rough understanding of possible next steps. Depending what you learn and whether it seems like there are creative options for donating, Cullen's suggestion of a trusts & estate lawyer might be a warranted next step. Good luck!
Hi Wenmar! Thanks for taking the time to think about your giving and how you can make it more sustainable for you. I work at GiveWell and happened across your post-- I sent you an email with your total donations to GiveWell so far, which really have done a lot of good already. If that didn't come through, please send me a message with your current email.
There's a lot of good advice here already; you might also enjoy this video telling the story of a child treated for clubfoot through GiveWell funding and/or subscribing to a charity newsletter (I personally love the New Incentives newsletter). Some donors also find community in GiveWell's annual staff giving blog posts (2024 post here, and past years linked from there) where some staff talk about the psychology of giving along with their chosen cause areas.
I echo the advice that automating your monthly gifts or giving annually rather than monthly might help,. I also have a day of the year when I make my gifts (which honors a personal milestone in my life) which makes it feel more celebratory.
Thanks again for taking the time to reflect on this.
Henry, apologies for the delayed response-- I'm still sorting my notification settings here and didn't get pinged that you had replied. I can confirm that we are seeing ongoing gaps at our Top Charities specifically (we approved a $41m grant to AMF just last week; grant page to come). As you may know, GiveWell directs funds on a grant by grant basis--if you'd like your gift to benefit from the investigations of our research team, you can contribute to the Top Charities Fund by giving through EA Australia. We coordinate with them to distribute according to our assessment of the best grant opportunities of our Top Charities each quarter.
Philanthropy advisor for GiveWell here, chiming in to confirm that we’re funding constrained! The most recent Top Charities Fund allocation went to a grant that we estimate saved a life for every $3,200 donated (grant page to come on our website)-- not every opportunity we fund this year will be that cost effective, but our research team continues to identify really excellent opportunities and we don’t expect to raise enough money this year to fill them all.Looks like people have shared useful links already; you might also be interested in the blog post we published yesterday describing how we communicate about our need for more funding.
Thanks for thinking to write this, Julia! I appreciate reading how other couples navigate this and can think of a number of other strong examples.
For my part: my beloved career at GiveWell is enabled by my husband, who is a stay-at-home-dad. He also brought our kid(s) along on my work trips (2-4 per year) for over two years when our baby-feeding configuration made it impossible for me to travel without them.
Hi Chelsea! It's so great to see your interest in using this money for good. One thought: it might not be that the trustees are anti-donation, but rather that they're bound to the legal terms of the trust. You can request to see the documents that govern the trust; if I were you, I'd request those and then use an AI tool like Claude to help you understand them and get a rough understanding of possible next steps. Depending what you learn and whether it seems like there are creative options for donating, Cullen's suggestion of a trusts & estate lawyer might be a warranted next step. Good luck!
Hi Wenmar! Thanks for taking the time to think about your giving and how you can make it more sustainable for you. I work at GiveWell and happened across your post-- I sent you an email with your total donations to GiveWell so far, which really have done a lot of good already. If that didn't come through, please send me a message with your current email.
There's a lot of good advice here already; you might also enjoy this video telling the story of a child treated for clubfoot through GiveWell funding and/or subscribing to a charity newsletter (I personally love the New Incentives newsletter). Some donors also find community in GiveWell's annual staff giving blog posts (2024 post here, and past years linked from there) where some staff talk about the psychology of giving along with their chosen cause areas.
I echo the advice that automating your monthly gifts or giving annually rather than monthly might help,. I also have a day of the year when I make my gifts (which honors a personal milestone in my life) which makes it feel more celebratory.
Thanks again for taking the time to reflect on this.
Henry, apologies for the delayed response-- I'm still sorting my notification settings here and didn't get pinged that you had replied. I can confirm that we are seeing ongoing gaps at our Top Charities specifically (we approved a $41m grant to AMF just last week; grant page to come). As you may know, GiveWell directs funds on a grant by grant basis--if you'd like your gift to benefit from the investigations of our research team, you can contribute to the Top Charities Fund by giving through EA Australia. We coordinate with them to distribute according to our assessment of the best grant opportunities of our Top Charities each quarter.
Philanthropy advisor for GiveWell here, chiming in to confirm that we’re funding constrained! The most recent Top Charities Fund allocation went to a grant that we estimate saved a life for every $3,200 donated (grant page to come on our website)-- not every opportunity we fund this year will be that cost effective, but our research team continues to identify really excellent opportunities and we don’t expect to raise enough money this year to fill them all.Looks like people have shared useful links already; you might also be interested in the blog post we published yesterday describing how we communicate about our need for more funding.