Christoph Eggert🔸
Comments7
First (half) year of being introduced to EA, super exciting to finally know that my donations have an impact :).
Hence I started this year very low with about 2% of my pre-tax income monthly to a local animal shelter, not knowing about EA.
Since August, I started my 10% pledge and donate to the German "center" Effektiv Spenden with an even spread for their three funds for global health, climate change and animal welfare, and a very small part to the platform directly.
On top of that I gave away 50% of bonuses I will receive beginning of next year for tax purposes early, that's 4200€ evenly spread between Against Malaria Foundation, Hellen Keller Int. and GiveDirectly. Global Health still has the strongest pull for me and I personally feel the strongest connection to GiveDirectly for how unique it is and how transparent their process is. Really makes you feel your impact and I like the idea of also improving lives dramatically instead of "just" keeping people alive under bad conditions, if that makes any sense. Some perspective for people on top of just getting by, if you will.
That being said, I will definitely think more about what causes to donate to. Especially democracy initiatives are something I am increasingly considering with the current situation in Europe, but maybe that will be on top of my 10% since I really don't know how effective that is and I might be a bit more ego-centric here wanting to do this locally.
Another "pain point" I will think about more is animal welfare - I read from many vegans that donating to it when not being vegan is hypocritical and I really get their point. Since I don't see myself becoming vegan in the near future, I might also drop that support since I'm apparently not really behind the cause. But I will have to think about this a bit more. Maybe combining it with Climate Change by supporting The Good Food Institute or something like that, I'm really not sure.
Lots of things to think about next year.
From my point of view, the biggest issue that makes this question an everlasting companion for most is uncertainty. Even if I could currently give 50% away and have the same standard, how will that look like in a few years? What if I lose my job in my 50s and struggle to find anything? What if my abilities will become meaningless because of technological advancements even earlier?
I would assume for most it's not a question of consumption vs. donations, as many essays and books make it sound. It's about the balance between how much to put into your own financial securement vs. donating. This is probably much easier to answer for promising 80,000 hours supported geniuses, but a very different picture for the Average Joe who struggled in school and to find employment in the first place. It's probably impossible to give clear answers when taking that into consideration, though.
I simply used a classical Excel spreadsheet. Honestly, even a physical notebook is okay. I don't think any particular app will be so convenient that it all of a sudden makes you go through with it when it didn't work before. The most important thing is to establish noting your expenses down as a habit. So e.g. every evening after dinner, you sit down and write down all your expenses of the day, plus check your bank account for any expenses. 1-2 months can already be enough as long as you are aware of the yearly peaks to have a general overview.
For visualization, creating a Sankey diagram helps a lot, which can be done on dozens of websites. When seeing such a diagram, you get a pretty good idea of how your expenses are distributed and if some area might need some cutting down, plus seeing how big the cut from donations actually is from your budget.
As an omnivore who wants to eat lots of protein for fitness, I would love to agree with this and just keep on piling up chicken breasts on my plate. However, I think there are some factors ignored here. Most of them have already been addressed, but I'd like to add another that I did not find so far:
Not eating meat has not only an effect in terms of less demand for meat, it also increases demand for alternatives. This should, in my opinion, not be underestimated, as it also makes the diet change much easier.
For example: In Germany, we have a company called Rügenwalder Mühle. The origins of this company go back to a butcher shop back in 1834 and consequently, they always sold meat-based products. However, in 2014 they introduced vegetarian and vegan alternatives that were so great in terms of taste, quality and nutritional value that the demand was incredibly high. By now, these products bring in more revenue for them than the meat products. Obviously, this company will now focus more and more on the alternatives and they keep expanding their catalogue, often times with very high protein. This makes it much easier for a person like me to consider alternatives, and leads people to consume less meat even if they don't have any moral motivation to go vegan.
I doubt that any realistic amount of donations can top this. Sure, e.g. The Good Food Institute is basically trying to go into this direction, but at the end the demand needs to be there for it to work out long-term. Similar to voting in democracies, I think the "small effect" of our decisions can have quite an impact here that is hard to replace with donations.
I'd be curious about the emotional journey of increasing the giving percentages.
I just made my 10% pledge very recently and am really struggling to find the right percentage to donate. Currently, with a 65k € base income, I just go with the 10% pre-tax and put 50% of my bonuses post-tax on top.
One month, I think I am donating too little. The next month, I'm scared of saving too little. It sometimes feels hard to justify to myself that increasing it further is the right thing to do, since everyone I know saves most of the money for themselves and there's essentially 0 positive feedback for donating. The money is just gone.
Could you describe how these decisions to increase came to be and what it did to you emotionally? Did you have times of doubt, or did every step feel right?
I haven't engaged with this topic much with relations to EA, this was more in a vegan context several years ago so that I don't have specific sources in mind off the top of my head. But it's typically in the direction of "It's like someone holding slaves while donating money against slavery"; or arguing that there is no such thing as merciful killing, so that just improving conditions is meaningless if we still hold them in cages and breed them just to eat/exploit them. Like kicking dogs for fun and then doing things to "kick less dogs" instead of stopping altogether, etc.
So it's still stuck in my head as a hypocritical action from me, redirecting money from other causes to one I don't even personally live up to. I can imagine seeing more nuanced takes in an EA context, hence I want to read up on this more.