adam galas
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Thank you, Lucius. I've added Giving Multiplier to my list of charities to donate each year.
GiveDirectly - lifting people out of poverty, 2.6X economic multiplier/RCT research into UBI
Helen Keller International - lowest cost way to save a young child
Clean Air Task Force- lowest cost way to offset carbon emissions ($1.26 per ton)
Giving Multiplier - 1.5X effective multiplier to most effective charity/multiply the number of effective altruists
Local Food Bank meal donations (my personal passion project since I went hungry for three months).
This year will be a record year of income for me, so I'm making it a record year for giving.
Exponentially giving more each year until I not just surpass 50% of my income but hit 5% of my net worth, which, thanks to my family's hedge fund, will take me many times above my income.
My two greatest passions and skills in life are making and giving away lots of money;) EA has given my quest for billions an actual meaning. Thank you to you, GiveWell, Founders Pledge, Peter Singer, William MacAskill, and all the other people who have made it easy for people like me to earn, invest, and give with meaning and maximum effect.
I now have a spreadsheet that counts my annual and cumulative inflation-adjusted donations, meals donated, lives saved, people lifted out of poverty, and economic impact.
For math and evidence-based spreadsheet nerds like me, EA combined with patient philanthropy is a match made in heaven:)
My dream is to beat Andrew Carnegie's philanthropy record of $438 billion in inflation-adjusted giving.
My hedge fund will turn into a permanent philanthropic trust which will let me eventually donate $1 trillion (adjusted for inflation) over the next few centuries.
Give thousands and you can make a difference to some.
Give millions and you can change a lot of lives.
Give billions and you can change the world.
Give trillions and you can change everything.
I should note the goal is to donate 5% of the portfolio each year.
That will let me donate far more than my entire annual income which is currently over $500,000 per year.
I love Will McCaskill's "earn to give" strategy but I tweak it to "earn to invest and give."
In an upcoming article on Seeking Alpha I'll show how donating 50% of your income is great.
But donating 25% of your income to the most effective charities and investing 25% into a low risk ETF based portfolio can result in up to 100x more donations than just donations alone.
Donate today, donate even more tomorrow, and donate staggering amounts over your life time.
And then turn your portfolio into a perpetual charitable trust in your will.
That ensures the effective altruism never stops.
For an example of how powerful this can be consider the example of Ben Franklin.
Franklin left $1,000 in his will to Philadelphia and Boston with one important proviso.
The money had to be invested and half donated to charity after 100 years.
Then the other half after 200 years.
The second donation to each city, was $13 million each.
From $2000 over $26 million donated to charity.
That is the power of patient philanthropy.
Help those most in need today.
Help tens of thousands over your life time.
And help millions or billions over centuries.
Give thousands and you can help lots of people.
Give millions and you can help millions.
Give billions and you can change the world.
But give trillions over centuries and millennia and you can change everything.
I spent 3 hours answering questions on the Dividend Kings forums about Givedirectly, including numerous studies and video interviews.
One of of members posted a screenshot of a $10k donation he just made.
$20k effective donation.
42 people lifted out of poverty.
$52,000 economic impact.
51 hours left in the campaign.
$850,000 raised from 542 donations and 150,000 to go.
I donated an extra $2k myself after my best friend tipped me off to PayPal MasterCard which offers 3% unlimited cash back for PayPal purchases.
Givedirectly takes PayPal.
I was approved today and they offered 2k limit before I get the card.
So I donated it all to bring my total donation for the year to $5k.
What a wonderful way to end an amazing year.
Next year will be even better.
https://fundraisers.givedirectly.org/campaigns/2022match
$550K raised in 36 hours. I'm very impressed with GD's ability to get so many people involved so quickly.
From $20 donations to $20,000, we're over 360 people on a mission to donate $2 million to lift 9,000 people out of poverty and make a $5.2 million economic impact.
For context, this single campaign, if used in a single area, could boost local GDP by 3%.
They set a goal of 5 days but are on track to finish in half that time.
What if you miss it?
The Life You Can Save matching campaign has no time limit and is available once this is over.
For US donors.
$4,500 out of $33,000 goal reached.
For Australian donors.
$20,100 AUD out of $50,000 raised.
I'll post the Life You Can Save Campaign again in a separate post once the Million Dollar match campaign ends.
And when that runs out, I'll talk with Tyler, Director of Communications at GiveDirectly to make sure they update the fundraising match campaign.
In other words, there should always be a way to match your donations to GiveDirectly, and I'll do my best to help the people on these forums find it.
If you give $1 it's matched and actually $2.
And that's $5.2 in economic impact, a multiplier of 5.2.
According to Moody's, most domestic programs the government funds have a multiplier of 1.36 to 1.73.
Or, to put it another way, by matching donations to GiveDirectly, your money can make 3X more of a difference in people's lives than our most effective government spending programs (SNAP benefits).
Life is about balance.
Should we care about the long-term future? Of course.
But as Keynes said "In the long term we're all dead."
We can't ignore the plight of 711 million people living in extreme poverty.
My life mission is turning my portfolio into a long -term donation machine to eliminate extreme poverty and then poverty in general.
Each year I give more to Givedirectly and my local food bank.
I started with what I could afford, two years ago, starting with $1000.
This year I was able to give $4,000.
Next year around $7,000.
And within a few years over $100,000 per year including donating 6 meals to my local food bank for every meal I eat all year.
I'm helping people in my local community right away.
I'm helping dozens of people in Africa rise out of poverty right away.
And long term I'll be able to help millions and then billions.
Why turn EA into a political like fight?
Charity today vs. longtermism?
Do both.
The problems are big enough that all EAs can make a difference.
I'm new to EA. I'm sure there are critics of the philosophy.
And I'm sure some of those are valid.
I don't have time to get bogged down into symantic debates about what is or isn't EA. What is or isn't longtermism.
Should altruism be effective? Of course. I don't think many people disagree with that basic principle.
Should we help people suffering today? Of course, I don't think many disagree.
Should we ignore the long term future? I don't believe many sane people think this.
In other words, just like a humans want similar things, all altruists want basically the same thing.
No philosopher is perfect. No one is a saint, or a prophet.
Peter Singer is an inspirational philosopher but not perfect.
Gene Roddenberry was an inspirational guy who created a vision for the utopia that has inspired millions.
But people who knew him also know he often failed to live up to his own vision in his personal life.
Let's not get bogged down in tearing down the cheerleaders for various kinds of altruism or visions for a better future.
Let's all just celebrate our common humanity and small part in traveling the long and winding road towards utopia together.
Reminds me of a saying. Aim for the moon, because even if you miss you'll be among the stars.
Human progress has always be try steps forward, one step back.
As one book put it, "slouching towards utopia."
The goal of life is to constantly be striving for improvement and to improve our relationships and how we impact others.
The value isn't in actually achieving a perfect world, but in making the would better, bit by bit, forever.
Together humanity can compound improvement.
Imagine if we can make the world 1% better every year.
That's improving life 2x every 72 years.
If we can achieve 2% improvement each year, on average, it's a 2x better world every 36 years.
And if you're an optimist then maybe we can improve the world 3% per year, doubling our global standard of living every 24 years, or 8x every century, and 64x every 200 years.
But as long as we all work together, and do our part to make forward progress, we're always striving, and succeeding, on the path to utopia.
On Tuesday GD will announce this and post the link. I'll post it here as soon as Tyler sends it to me.
Givedirectly Twitter feed retweets any charitable matching offers and I'll post that too if one becomes available.
2 weeks ago a woman named Catherine offered a $10k match if you sent screen shot of GD donation receipt.
A man named Peter offered to match her 10k donation.
And Givedirectly fundraiser page has a link to Julie's matching campaign.
So I donated $1k to max out Julie's campaign, sent screen shot to Catherine and Peter on the Twitter campaign.
3:1 match so $4k effective donation.
8 people lifted out of poverty and over $10k economic impact.
An example of how you can leverage several match together to get the max impact for your giving.
This time we have 2:1 guaranteed from GD campaign.
Tyler told me that GD does a big annual $1 million match campaign at the end of each year.
Not sure if it's as generous as 2:1 each year but at the least it's 1:1.
So at the end of each year it should be possible to get 2:1 match and possibly 3:1.
Something to consider when planning your charity giving for the year.
It's great to give all year if you can find a 1:1 match, which Givedirectly usually has available via their fundraising page.
But consider keeping the majority of your giving budget in reserve to get that 2:1 or even 3:1 match at the end of the year.
A Simple And Effective Way To End Global Poverty
The debate between philanthropists comes down to timing. Do I give almost all my income today to good causes? Or invest everything so that in 200 years, I'll be able to give 753,000X more, adjusted for inflation?
Long-term compounding is powerful, but life isn't lived in the future, and what if you get hit by a bus in one year or 10?
Here is my hybrid approach to patient philanthropy, using my personal favorite charity, GiveDirectly, as an example.
I am Adam Galas, aka "Dividend Sensei" on Seeking Alpha. I've spent seven years as an investment analyst studying the safest way to earn 10% to 13% long-term returns with recession-optimized blue-chip portfolios.
My personal portfolio, the Dividend Kings ZEUS Income Growth Portfolio, yields 4.1% and has historical and analyst consensus future expected returns of 12.3%, or 9.9% after inflation.
Starting at 0.1% of the portfolio value, I donated to GiveDirectly using 1:1 or 2:1 matching campaigns (leveraged to 2:1 or even 3:1 using Twitter campaigns), and I've donated $3,457 since 2021.
I've lifted 23 people out of poverty, and according to GD's most recent study (from Princeton, Berkley, and the University of California, San Diego), the economic impact was $24,851, adjusted for inflation, a 7.19 economic multiplier.
In other words, for every $1 I donated, there was $7.19 in inflation-adjusted economic benefit to people in Africa, and I changed the lives of two dozen people.
Each year GD has an annual match campaign, sometimes up to $1 million, and a 2:1 match (the next one starting Tuesday, December 27th, 2022.).
You can sometimes find matching campaigns on Twitter promoted by GD. Last week I donated $1K that was matched on GD's fundraiser page at 1:1.
Catherine on Twitter had a $10K matching campaign if you sent a screenshot of the donation receipt.
Peter then matched Catheryn's $10K with his own $10K.
So 3:1 match or 4X your donation.
And a 2.6X economic multiplier, according to their recent study.
This is why I love GiveDirectly; you can measure and track in a spreadsheet the exact impact, both in terms of human lives and economic impact.
$480 per year lifts one person out of poverty (last year, it was $420, high inflation this year).
The initial giving is small, and really I'm paying for it out of pocket from my income rather than selling out of the portfolio (especially in a 2022 bear market).
But let me show you the power of compounding over time.
The portfolio's historical returns are 12% to 13%, and a 10,000 Monte Carlo 75-year simulation shows an 80% chance of this portfolio generating 8.4% to 13.6% annual returns over the next 75 years.
Adjusted for inflation, that's 8.6% to 11.3%.
Let's be conservative and assume that the portfolio's future inflation-adjusted returns are at the low end of that range.
Next, let's assume that my family needs to also live off the portfolio, starting at 0.1% per year withdrawal rates and scaling up 0.1% per year to a maximum of 1%.
So eventually, 1% to live on and 5% per year for hyper-effective giving to the world's poor.
What will the effects be over time? Just take a look (not counting matching, which allows you to boost effectiveness by 2X to 4X).
Note all numbers are inflation-adjusted, so in today's money.
2025 (age 39): annual donation of $3,040 (6 people lifted out of poverty)
2025: cumulative inflation-adjusted donation: $4,942 (10 people lifted out of poverty)
2030 (age 44): annual donation: $20,279 (42 people lifted out of poverty).
2030: cumulative inflation-adjusted donation: $65,296 (136 people lifted out of poverty).
2035 (age 49): annual donation: $55,856 (116 people lifted out of poverty)
2035: cumulative inflation-adjusted donation: $265,188 (552 people lifted out of poverty)
2040 (age 54): annual donation: $114,351 (238 people lifted out of poverty)
2040: cumulative inflation-adjusted donation: $709,812 (1,479 people lifted out of poverty).
2045 (age 59): annual donation: $201,061 (419 people lifted out of poverty).
2045: cumulative inflation-adjusted donation: $1,529,206 (3,186 people lifted out of poverty)
2050 (age 64): annual donation: $322,461 (672 people lifted out of poverty)
2050: cumulative inflation-adjusted donation: $2,883,380 (6,007 people lifted out of poverty)
2055 (age 69): annual donation: $486,360 (1,013 people lifted out of poverty)
2055 cumulative inflation-adjusted donation $4,968,631 (10,351 people lifted out of poverty)
2060 (age 74): annual donation: $702,162 (1,463 people lifted out of poverty)
2060 cumulative inflation-adjusted donation: $8,024,968 (16,719 people lifted out of poverty)
2065 (age 79): annual donation of $981,167 (2,044 people lifted out of poverty)
2065 cumulative inflation-adjusted donation of $12,344,979 (25,719 people lifted out of poverty)
2070 (age 84): annual donation of $1,336,938 (2,785 people lifted out of poverty)
2070 cumulative inflation-adjusted donation of $18,284,385 (38,092 people lifted out of poverty)
2075 (age 89) annual donation of $1,684,659 (3,510 people lifted out of poverty)
2075 cumulative inflation-adjusted donation of $26,077,369 (54,328 people lifted out of poverty)
2080 (age 94) annual donation of $2,023,582 (4,216 people lifted out of poverty)
2080 cumulative inflation-adjusted donation of $35,497,215 (73,953 people lifted out of poverty)
Harvard is working on an anti-aging treatment they think will be commercially available in 10 to 15 years. Alphabet (Google) has two subsidiaries working on anti-aging.
If I can give long enough, I can potentially live for centuries or, at the very least, turn my portfolio into a perpetual charitable trust. And this is how I can help end extreme poverty entirely.
2100 (age 114) annual donation of $4,019,601 (8,374 people lifted out of poverty)
2100 cumulative inflation-adjusted return of $94,958,450 (197,830 people lifted out of poverty)
2125 (age 139) annual donation of $8,942,714 (18,631 people lifted out of poverty)
2125 cumulative inflation-adjusted donation of $251,880,346 (524,751 people lifted out of poverty)
2150 (age 164) annual donation of $19,322,860 (40,256 people lifted out of poverty)
2150 cumulative inflation-adjusted donation $594,432,065 (1,238,400 people lifted out of poverty)
2175 (age 189) annual donation of $41,208,898 (85,852 people lifted out of poverty)
2175 cumulative inflation-adjusted donation $1,328,375,330 (2,767,449 people lifted out of poverty)
2200 (age 214) annual donation of $87,354,556 (181,989 people lifted out of poverty)
2200 cumulative inflation-adjusted donation $2,887,548,835 (6,015,727 people lifted out of poverty)
2250 (age 264) annual donation of $389,794,175 (812,071 people lifted out of poverty)
2250 cumulative inflation-adjusted donation $13,154,430,576 (27,405,064 people lifted out of poverty)
2300 (age 314) annual donation $1,734,310,469 (3,613,147 people lifted out of poverty)
2300 cumulative inflation-adjusted donation $58,869,237,194 (122,644,244 people lifted out of poverty)
2350 (age 364) annual donation $7,711,450,846 (16,065,523 people lifted out of poverty)
2350 cumulative inflation-adjusted donation $262,170,250,905 (546,188,023 people lifted out of poverty)
2400 (age 414) annual donation $34,283,242,696 (71,423,422 people lifted out of poverty)
2400 cumulative inflation-adjusted donations $1,004,402,009,845 (Andrew Carnegie holds the current record at $438.5 billion in today's dollars) - 2,429,232,648 people lifted out of poverty
2450 (age 464) annual donation $152,409,985,174 (317,520,802 people lifted out of poverty)
2450 cumulative inflation-adjusted donation $5,184,282,938,209 (10,800,589,455 lifted out of poverty)
Once extreme poverty is eliminated, I plan to focus on regular poverty and global UBI starting at $500, then $1,000, and eventually a peak at $3,000 per month, adjusted for inflation, for anyone who wants to sign up.
$3,000 per month is sufficient for just about anyone to afford a comfortable life, including health insurance and education (assuming it's not provided by the government).
Basic needs (via UBI), healthcare, and education are the three legs of the Star Trek utopia I have from the Army (pension, VA, and GI bill).
It's my life's mission to bring this Utopia to all humanity.
How long will that take?
2500 (age 514) annual donation $677,550,606,749 (1,411,563,764 people lifted out of poverty)
2500 cumulative inflation-adjusted donation $23,047,770,140,492 (48,016,187,793 people lifted out of poverty)
Note that poverty won't exist by 2,500, but I'm providing the numbers for context.
2550 (age 564) annual donation $3,012,099,639,781 (6,275,207,583 people lifted out of poverty)
2550 cumulative inflation-adjusted donation $102,461,213,367,918 (213,460,861,183 people lifted out of poverty)
How much would $500 monthly UBI for all humanity cost? The UN's estimated 11 billion peak population and $6K annual UBI (adjusted for inflation) cost $66 trillion annually.
$1,000 monthly UBI costs $132 trillion, and $3,000 Star Trek Utopia UBI $396 trillion annually.
By 2550 my portfolio/charitable trust will be donating $3 trillion annually.
So if we define Star Trek Utopia ($36K per year for all humanity, adjusted for inflation each year), when will we achieve that?
2600 (age 614) annual donation of $13,390,499,184,067 ($1217 annual UBI for all humanity)
2600 cumulative inflation-adjusted donation $455,499,252,405,406 (1,309X more than Andrew Carnegie)
2650 (age 664) annual donation $59,528,393,731,069 ($5412 annual UBI = $451 per month)
2650 cumulative inflation-adjusted donation $2,024,954,398,250,170 ($2 quadrillion, 4,618X more than Andrew Carngie)
2700 (age 714) annual donation $264,637,601,961,757 ($24,058 annual UBI = $2,005 per month)
2700 cumulative inflation-adjusted donation $9,002,076,107,668,440 ($9 quadrillion, 20,529X more than Carnegie)
Star Trek Utopia achieved in...
2714 (age 728) annual donation $401,856,706,735,331 ($36,532 annual UBI = $3,044 per month)
Cumulative inflation-adjusted donation $13,669,806,068,717,800 ($14 quadrillion = 31,174X more than Carnegie)
What if there are more than 11 billion people in the future? Nasa estimates there are enough resources in the Solar System to sustainably support approximately 200 billion humans).
How much would it cost to provide 200 billion people with $3K per month, adjusted for inflation each year? $7.2 quadrillion per year ($7,200 trillion).
How long would that take?
2811 Star Trek Utopia For 200 Billion Humans (Complete Colonization Of The Solar System)
2811 (age 825) annual donation of $7,261,901,439,054,070 ($7.26 quadrillion)
Cumulative inflation-adjusted donation $247,025,332,027,871,000 ($247 quadrillion) = 563,342X more than Carnegie
And keep in mind I'm assuming that I keep paying taxes on this portfolio over time. Charitable trusts don't pay taxes. I consider taxes a form of social charity. Here are the cumulative stats about this portfolio, running on the most conservative inflation-adjusted returns until Star Trek Utopia is achieved for 200 billion people in 2811.
2811 annual inflation-adjusted dividends: $19,365,070,504,161,000 ($19.4 quadrillion)
2811 cumulative inflation-adjusted dividends: $658,734,218,776,728,000 ($658.7 quadrillion)
2811 annual inflation-adjusted taxes $3,017,264,954,836,730 ($3 quadrillion)
2811 cumulative inflation-adjusted taxes $102,637,151,381,368,000 ($102.7 quadrillion)
And just for fun, let's consider the annual and cumulative donations for the year 3,000.
3,000 (age 1,014) annual-inflation-adjusted dividend $2,042,753,059,308,000,000 ($2,043 quadrillion)
3,000 cumulative inflation-adjusted dividend $69,487,551,938,900,600,000 ($70,000 quadrillion = 158,466,481X more than Andrew Carnegie.
You might think that such compounding as I'm describing (8.5% inflation-adjusted growth) can't possibly continue for centuries. After all, the global economy can only get so large, right?
Consider this. Nasa estimates that the mineral value of just the eight most valuable asteroids is approximately $63 quintillion ($63 million trillion).
That's approximately 603,000X more than the world's total economic output in 2021.
And that's just the eight most valuable asteroids.
At least 100 earth's worth of resources is available in the solar system (and possibly much more with optimal space mining methods).
Add in centuries of productivity improvements and the solar system's economy, with a sustainable population of up to 200 billion (25X more than the Earth's population today) could be many orders of magnitude larger than today.
Bottom Line: I started giving immediately but am scaling up over time and taking a long-term focus.
If you give thousands, you can make a difference in some people's lives.
If you give millions, you can change many people's lives.
If you give billions, you can change the world.
If you give trillions over centuries, you can change everything.
If you give quadrillions over a millennium, you can get to Star Trek Utopia.
And keep in mind this is just my portfolio! I'm just one person. With 11 billion people in 2100 and thousands of trillionaires and millions of billionaires (and a few quadrillionaires), I'm hardly the only person who will be working on solving the world's problems.
My goal isn't to single handily bring about Star Trek Utopia in 2811; it's to help an army of like-minded philanthropists to bring about Star Trek utopia much sooner.
Does utopia mean there are no problems? Of course not. As Star Trek Discovery shows, even in the 32nd century, the citizens of utopia still have challenges and issues to deal with and overcome.
For every solution to a problem, you create two unintended consequence problems. But if those new problems are 25% as severe as the problem you solved initially, then you're 50% better off.
And when you solve those two new problems, you create four new problems, each 25% as severe and 50% better off and 125% better off than when you solved the original problem.
This is how humanity has slouched its way toward utopia for millennia.
And it's how we'll continue to progress for millennia.
I hope to be around for that long, thanks to Harvard's anti-aging treatments that will allow me to remain biologically 25 years old for thousands of years (and my friends and family as well).
But if I can't, my portfolio and its sacred mission for a Star Trek utopia will continue long after I'm gone.
Today's problems seem insurmountable, just too large to overcome. But the value in philanthropy is in the journey and steady improvements in human existence.
"A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step" - Lao Tzu
Whether I get hit by a bus in a few years or live for Millenia, I look forward to helping people live their financial dreams (my job) and helping lift people out of poverty.
The only value to our lives is our impact on others, and patient effective altruism is the blessing that gives my life its meaning.
I'd like to wish you and yours a healthy, relaxing, safe, and joyous holiday season.
Are these some grand dreams? You bet. But as I like to say, weekends are for dreaming, especially when the dreams are this meaningful and wonderful;)
Live long and prosper:)
Every bit helps.
Thank you for giving what you can.
Humanity moves forward because everyone does what they can to contribute.
That's good we continue slouching towards utopia, but by bit😉