Thank you for sharing (and for having @High Impact Professionals on your 2026 list)! Three additional thoughts:

• People often think it's hard for them to talk about effective giving but easy for the people who already do. I don't think that's the case. For various reasons (many of which raised in this post), I find it hard and uncomfortable to talk about my giving. And still I do it. I think the upsides are much larger. And it gets easier over time.
• When I wrote my first post about effective giving (on Linked + here) I almost didn't post it. I had already kicked it off my to do list - twice. What made the difference was seeing other people talk about it. So, you talking about this might not just lead to your additional posts on the topic but might inspire someone else to talk about it also!
• Tracking your donations means you get to track donation milestones. I find this is a great way to make the impact more tangible and a good excuse to talk about it. ;-)

I love the push on tracking donations! I track mine but it's a private spreadsheet - I have a donation milestone coming up, so I might publish it for that occasion.

Fran, I’m very sorry you had to go through this. Thank you for choosing to share your experience publicly. I’m grateful that you were willing to speak about it so clearly.

Reading this left me feeling very sad and shaken. I hope you’re able to take the time and space you need to heal, and that we all take seriously the responsibility to ensure situations like this are handled far better in the future.

Thank you for the shout-out for High Impact Professionals workbook.

The latest version of the workbook and our resource hub are available in the free resources on our website - I hope they'll be useful for other career advisers (and advisees) also!

thanks, fixed!

Thanks for writing this, Lauren. This resonates a lot and I don’t think it’s limited to the animal welfare space.

At High Impact Professionals, we take a holistic approach to high-impact careers, encouraging experienced professionals to think about how they can use their skills, money, and network most effectively. Some of those paths sit within non-profits, but many don’t.

I’d love to see more examples of these kinds of career paths shared, as I believe it would make them much more tangible for others to explore.

Aw, that's fantastic to hear!

Free to get in touch when the time comes - always happy to share some of our learnings!

Great to see this initiative! From our work at High Impact Professionals (HIP), we’ve found that for experienced professionals, the barriers to translating initial EA knowledge into real career changes are often quite broad. These include feeling isolated in their impact-driven goals, lack of time and structure, uncertainty about relevant options, motivation and accountability challenges, and difficulty identifying concrete next steps.

To address this, our Impact Accelerator Program (IAP) helps professionals develop an impact plan and take meaningful steps towards high-impact career transitions. In 2024 alone, 30 participants successfully transitioned to impactful roles through the program.

This could be a valuable resource to add to your list for community members who are further along in their careers and looking for structured support in making a difference.

Thank you for the fantastic work you’ve done at GWWC, and best wishes to you, Luke! I’m looking forward to seeing what you’ll accomplish after your well-deserved leave and family time.

I also appreciate your kind words about High Impact Professionals. I’m excited about our continued collaboration with Giving What We Can.

Thank you for your kind words, @Non-zero-sum James! I typically think about my donations in a rather abstract way, so doing the calculations and realising I've likely saved 9 lives was really special for me. I'm glad the numbers resonate with you as well.