About Us
Giving What We Can is a community of effective givers.
We support each other in our commitments to helping others and learning about effective giving. We aim to create a culture where people are inspired to give more, and give more effectively.
Our Mission
Inspire donations to the world’s most effective organisations
We believe that charitable donations can do an astonishing amount of good. However, the impact can vary wildly depending on where we donate. Because the difference between charities is astounding, it is important that we donate to the most effective charities if we want to have a significant impact.
Our Values
We aspire to be a welcoming community, sharing our passion and energy to improve the lives of others. Some of our core values include:
- Caring: A deep commitment to helping others, a dedication to helping each other to give more and better;
- Taking action: Following through with our commitments, acting based on evidence, researching new opportunities, putting our money where our mouth is;
- Openness: Being open-minded towards new evidence and reasoning, honest about what we don’t know, open about mistakes we’ve made;
- Optimism: An ambitious and enthusiastic belief that we can create significant positive change and build a better world.
Our History
Giving What We Can was conceived of by Oxford philosopher Toby Ord. He was inspired by the ideas of ethicists such as Peter Singer to commit to donating a large proportion of his income to effective charities.
In November 2009, Toby and fellow Oxford philosopher Will MacAskill launched Giving What We Can as an international community of people who were committed to giving more, and giving more effectively.
Giving What We Can was one of the first in a growing network of like-minded organisations focused on effective altruism, the project of using evidence and reason to figure out how to best contribute to helping others, and taking action on that basis.
The Centre for Effective Altruism (CEA) was incorporated in 2011 as registered charity and an umbrella organization for Giving What We Can and the then newly founded 80,000 Hours. CEA is also the home of EA Funds, and Forethought Foundation. Other organisations associated with the effective altruism movement include Animal Charity Evaluators, GiveWell, The Life You Can Save, Open Philanthropy, and the Future of Humanity Institute.
Watch Toby Ord talking about the history of GWWC and effective altruism
A Growing Movement
We now have 10,034 members, who have pledged to donate at least 10% of their income over the course of their careers, and 34 members who have made other significant commitments. So far, our members have donated more than $115,251,204 to charity and pledged to donate $2,402,713,318 .
