Charitable Giving and the Giving Pledge

Why we give, and how, and to what causes

If I cannot bring you comfort
Then at least I bring you hope
For nothing is more precious
Than the time we have, and so
We all must learn from small misfortune
Count the blessings that are real
Let the bells ring out for Christmas
At the closing of the year
-The Closing Of The Year, Wendy and Lisa

First off all, hat tip to the extremely unlikely pair of Bentham's Bulldog and Walt Bismarck for inspiring me to write this.

When discussing my pledge and Effective Altruism in general with Bentham’s Bulldog, I told him:

I should actually throw together a Substack article on giving strategies and altruism (and the Giving Pledge and cynical tax mitigation)

Which leads me to kicking off a new set of articles here; you’ll see more of these in the days to come.

Bentham’s Bulldog has also frequently (and recently) advocated for donations to Givewell - a set of curated charities that the Effective Altruist community has crunched some numbers on to determine the maximum number of lives-per-dollar that can be saved. As I write this, they’ve basically come back with four of them, which respectively provide malaria medicine, malaria nets, vitamin A supplementation, and childhood vaccinations, all in various incredibly impoverished areas where relatively modest contributions go a long ways. Now, credit where credit is due - these are bright guys and I trust that this team has done their job correctly; so if your objective in charitable giving is strictly speaking “how many lives can I save or improve as the result of a one time gift” then this is probably your ideal metric.

But most people don’t think of morality in just that one metric, and even if that sounds like a good way to judge it at first blush, try phrasing it slightly differently: “how much can I make the world’s population go up as the result of a one time gift?” And then suddenly - if you have any sort of inclination that the world might actually be sort of already kind of overpopulated, or that we should maybe live more sustainably, or that people who already can’t get by might need some more direct assistance at making themselves sustainable (for instance, education - which tends to, if anything, slow population growth) rather than the disruptive effect of continued charity discouraging them from self-sufficiency - well, then you can maybe see why this wasn’t actually my ideal charitable giving solution. Most complicated problems don’t actually solve down to one simple solution, because unsurprisingly, other people have tried to solve this sort of thing over the years and they were not as a rule all dumb or immoral or easily confused people.

So let me take this opportunity to also plug two causes that are adjacent to this space but still worthy of donations for different reasons.

The first is the one that I was advocating for previously: MIRI, the Machine Intelligence Research Institute, which is an Effective Altruism organization focused on reducing the existential risk of unaligned artificial intelligence. I realize some people may regard this as a little abstract or theoretical or futurist rather than something that can be immediately addressed by giving; but it is in the same category as preventing a nuclear war as far as extraordinarily bad outcomes for humanity goes, and MIRI is one of the groups most effectively working to ensure that future AI developments are actually aligned for a better tomorrow. I would also point you towards the recently released book by Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares, If Anyone Builds It Everyone Dies, Why Superhuman AI Would Kill Us All, which amongst other things serves to summarize the existential risk aspect of this situation. I’ll be back with a book review on this one soonish (it’s tremendously overdue, I read the book very shortly after release and still haven’t gotten around to properly writing up an article about it - mea culpa!)

The second that I will recommend those of you reading this and considering alternative charitable causes is DKT International - a family planning, prenatal care, and AIDS prevention charity focused primarily on the third world: credited with averting 43 thousand maternal deaths (in 2024), preventing 26 million unintended pregnancies, and fighting human trafficking in nearly a hundred countries. Though, ironically, they had to sue the US government to be able to do so - you see, they were supplying contraceptives to save people's lives and refused to sign the Bush era pledge to avoid distributing them to sex workers; even to this day they are ineligible for US government funding because they still continue to work with doctors internationally who provide abortion services as part of family planning and that's on the not-permitted list. This one charity has reduced worldwide maternal mortality rate by ten percent - https://www.dktinternational.org/resources/results/ - and the origin of the group is rather lively as well, I had thought to perhaps write about DKT and Phil Harvey at some point. But let’s take a brief diversion there - it’s a colorful story.

Phil Harvey isn’t a name you’re likely to know off the top of your head, nor necessarily DKT International - the charity he founded. But in order to fund that charity, he became rather famous - some might say infamous - for a brand called Adam & Eve. Famous enough that in the 1980s, Ed Meese and the Department of Justice came looking to put him out of business. There was a rather famous book about it. It’s kind of an entertaining read.

available, as most things, on Amazon

Harvey was born in Evanston, Illinois, to William Dow Harvey and Lucy Smith Harvey as the youngest of five siblings on April 25, 1938. He attended Harvard from 1957 and received his bachelor's degree in 1961 in Slavic languages and literature. Between 1960 and 1962, he served in the army and was based at Ft. Meade, Maryland. He then joined the international charity CARE in 1963 to work in India. His five years' work with CARE on large-scale feeding programs for rapidly growing numbers of Indian children convinced Harvey of the importance of family planning and planted the first seeds in his mind of starting an initiative that could address the issue on a global scale.

Harvey was the founder and former president of DKT International, the Washington, D.C.–based charity that implements family planning and HIV/AIDS prevention programs in 57 countries across Africa, Asia and Latin America during his tenure. (Now it's up to 90 or so, although of course Harvey no longer leads the operation.) Harvey was also the president of Adam & Eve, the North Carolina–based company that sells sex toys, adult films and condoms.

Harvey used profits from Adam & Eve to supplement support from international donors to protect millions of poor couples from unwanted pregnancies and HIV infections. In 2019, DKT International provided contraceptive protection to 49 million couples (and as of 2025 that number is, I believe, 63 million). Mother Jones inevitably dubbed him the Hard Core Philanthropist. He passed away in 2021, but his legacy continues. Colorful guy, and not nearly as well known as, say, Hugh Hefner or Larry Flynt. But let me return to the core topic of the day.

So, what really is altruism, and what is a tax dodge? That may sound like a pretty jarring question, but… well, I ran a hedge fund, I was frequently asked for advice of this sort, and believe me, philanthropy and tax mitigation collide all the time.

Well, ultimately comes down to motivation, intent, net behavior, and legality (in whatever jurisdictions you are doing your charity work or looking to mitigate taxes, or the combination thereof)... and as you might expect, that line gets a little blurry. All the more so when you consider foundations, NGOs (non-government organizations), donor-advised funds, trusts... especially esoteric ones like Charitable Remainder Trusts... and similar tax-advantaged structures.

At least ideally, genuine altruism involves selfless concern for others’ well-being as the primary driver. You give because you want to help (whether through direct aid, effective charities, or causes you value), and any personal benefits (tax savings, prestige, warm-and-fuzzy feelings) are secondary or incidental. The more cynical end of the spectrum regards this as just tax avoidance, prioritizing minimizing tax liability as the main goal. Charitable structures or donations become tools to reduce taxes, even if the public good is a byproduct or minimal. In extreme cases, this edges into tax evasion if it breaks laws (e.g., inflated valuations or sham charities), but most “tax dodges” stay legal. Keep in mind, of course, that “legal” can involve choosing from one nation or jurisdiction’s set of laws for one set of rules and carefully picking a means to interact with another set of laws in another, such as the profit shifting tax mitigation strategy that used to be called the “Double Irish With A Dutch Sandwich”. (If you’re not familiar with that one - I’ll cover it another time. It’d be a bit of a digression. Roughly, you arrange a global network of holding companies and book your profits in a variety of ways so as to be taxed as little as possible in higher tax areas and hold your gains in lower-tax areas.)

Of course, most people and corporations operate in a mixed-motivation zone. Pure altruism (zero self-interest) is rare; pure tax dodging (zero concern for the cause) is also uncommon among legitimate donations. And even if you’re tremendously wealthy, you generally do want something from your donation other than just a write-off.

But if I were to broadly characterize, I would say that there are some fairly common categories.

There’s a certain amount of purely altruistic behavior, where people donate without expecting anything in return (or pay full taxes without seeking deductions or optimizations). This tends to be rare at scale, because once you have the resources to graduate beyond it, you tend to realize “this is a lot of money, I should pay some attention to where it’s going.” Though sometimes, when those rewards are spiritual or otherwise ephemeral, they can look pretty close to purely altruistic.

Let’s call the next category “directed altruism”: You give to causes you care about and can influence and happily take available deductions (e.g., itemizing charitable contributions). This is common in most societies and most of us behave this way - I suspect you’d probably think it strange if it didn’t work that way, because without some element of choice in what you support it’s basically just coercion again: taxation or other shakedown. It’s pretty close to purely altruistic, just with with awareness of tax benefits; I’d categorize you as still amongst the saints, and I think most people are not sufficiently fans of the taxman that they would complain about you doing good things.

A somewhat hairsplitting difference, perhaps, but I’m going to call out a differentiator here and draw a line around “strategic philanthropy” - you choose donation methods that maximize impact and tax savings (e.g., donating appreciated stock to avoid capital gains tax while supporting effective charities or other causes you believe in). This is generally the modus operandi indicated in effective altruism circles as net-positive for good causes - seek to become prosperous so that you can benefit society. (If this sounds a little bit Star Trek: “Live Long And Prosper” - well, the Effective Altruist crowd would as a rule probably appreciate that.) Consider this to be basically a somewhat sophisticated version of the last category - really, the primary differentiator is how much you (or your accountant/tax advisor) know the relevant tax laws. Also, this tends to be the sort of thing where you plan your donation strategy over a multi-year period, for instance, to divest an appreciated asset over a five-year schedule. (Why does this matter? Well, funny you should ask. Let’s come back to that.)

Tax-advantaged giving as primary motive - You donate mainly to cut the tax bill, with little regard for social impact - often in this case, you’ll see people or companies putting the actual social impact third in priority behind both the tax benefit and the public relations / social-climbing benefit. Examples include overvalued art donations (possibly to “friendly” museums), donor-advised funds used as personal slush funds, or corporate giving that correlates more with poor earnings performance (suggesting it’s a publicity-management tool rather than sincere giving). In certain circles, it’s pretty common (even expected, a sort of noblesse oblige) to donate for publicity purposes here as a socialite / social climber; you buy your way into certain circles and it’s a socially acceptable way to show off your wealth in a fashion that gauche “bling” isn’t necessarily. If you’re familiar with the Pet Shop Boys song Rent, the “kept boy” (or girl) off-Broadway performer with the rich patron is a stereotype with more than occasional truth to it.

And then of course there’s blatant tax dodging - Using fake or low-impact charities, illegal schemes, or structures that provide no real public benefit. There’s probably more of that than we’d like to think, too. But really, there’s not much reason to call that anything related to charity at all, is there?

If there’s a rule of thumb to decide whether this is an altruistic action, you might oversimplify to “would you still give if there were no tax benefit?” Conversely, “would you make this donation if it didn’t benefit anyone just for the tax writeoff” is a similarly simplistic question - and really, there are occasions where you might reasonably answer “yes” and still think it’s a legitimate charity because the purpose of the charity isn’t necessarily to directly benefit any one given person. Carnegie’s libraries benefit a lot of people indirectly and continue to, but arguably soup kitchens would have more directly benefited people in the immediate term and plenty of people would have rather seen his money socialized. And not to beat the drum too much here, but I happen to think that MIRI’s work preventing a potential AI apocalypse could be highly beneficial - and yes, I’m aware than other people think it’s just hot air and that the money should instead be spent on vaccinations or malaria nets. But a reduction in risk is still a benefit. (Which is why we wear our seat belts these days, a statement that probably sounds nonsensical to anyone who isn’t GenX or older - but it wasn’t always mandatory.)

Culturally of course, there’s also the question of “is it a net societal good” - critics of charitable giving say it undermines collective obligations and public goods funded by taxes, believing the government knows best how to spend the money for the common good. Let’s be polite and say this doesn’t usually seem to be the case. If the tax savings are reinvested into something that produces more good than government spending would have, it seems like a natural win - whether that be a local volunteer community religious program or an international effective altruism effort. But there’s always someone who seems to think that the best answer is that the best answer is for the the government to confiscate it all and spend it for the greater good.

But if you have to pick, “intent and impact” is probably the rubric for how altruistic a given donation is. This is, of course, inevitably complicated by the fact that we don’t all morally weigh the outcomes the same - one person may think it’s far more important to help local children with cancer, another to help veterans, another to help the greatest number of people possible, another to educate the most people possible, another to help people throw off oppression - or to save a particular endangered species from extinction (whales, rhinos, or elephants are popular - what people like to euphemistically call “charismatic megafauna”) - and hey, I’m not going to speak out against local causes either.

So, somewhat circuitously, this brings us around to the other topic of this piece: the Giving Pledge… and the related if lower-profile Giving What You Can pledge, which for those of you who recall the old concept of tithing might find that it’s been given new life in secular form.

The Giving Pledge is a high-profile philanthropic initiative launched back in 2010, which encourages the world’s wealthiest individuals and families to commit to donating the majority of their wealth (at least 50%) to charitable causes, either during their lifetimes or through their wills. Most of them have begun this process but only a few have really immersed themselves in it (notably, MacKenzie Scott is kind of knocking it out of the park, and Chuck Feeney gave away his entire $8 billion fortune during his lifetime - he passed away in 2023.)

It was founded in 2010 by Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett, in particular when they were especially focused on the Gates Foundation as a cornerstone and command center for global philanthropy. The idea emerged from discussions among wealthy philanthropists about encouraging more substantial giving among billionaires to address pressing global issues. It began with 40 particularly high profile signatories in the United States and has since expanded globally.

The pledge is not a legally binding contract - it’s a public, moral commitment - and let’s be fair, that might be more effective, the social obligations of ones peer group at that level is probably more important than the difficulty in finding some clever lawyers to seek loopholes. Each signatory (individual or couple, or - I think - also trust or corporation) publishes a letter on the official website explaining their motivations for joining and their approach to philanthropy. The initiative aims to shift social norms toward greater generosity rather than hoarding, inspire “giving more, giving sooner, and giving smarter,” and at least in theory foster a community where signatories connect, learn from each other, and collaborate on effective philanthropy. (That last part I suspect may be a bit of a challenge because philosophical goals differ. But I shall try not to go off on a tangent.)

There was a great deal of consensus at the start of the Giving Pledge initiative that directed giving to highly targeted causes that were focused on solving problems - rather than amorphous “giving to generically good causes that seemed to simply prolong the problem” was a productive goal, a sort of philanthropic entrepreneurship mindset - I don’t think this has mostly held, in practice. By comparison, McKenzie Scott has taken the “let a thousand flowers bloom” policy of seeding many different charities and leaving them to their own goals rather than trying to pick a few that can be tightly overseen a la the Gates Foundation, who focused on building a private philanthropy structure to provide central command of their vision of societal change. And to be fair, if you have a grand vision and tens of thousands of people involved in seeing to it that this is carried out, that may be very impressive: they take a more direct role to oversee, direct and fund central command toward their goal of reducing inequities by fighting poverty, disease, and lack of opportunity… and they do this basically by funding partners like NGOs, governments, researchers, and institutions, and influencing others to do the same. This sounds great if you concur; but probably not so much for those who think Gates is a bad guy - given either Microsoft era monopoly practices or Epstein Files misbehavior or whatever other conspiracy theories you’d care to name - in which case this looks like a James Bond supervillain plot. In practice: these concerns arise any time there’s any centralization of power; the Gates foundation is fundamentally doing much what the Rockefeller or Ford foundations did: Rockefeller Foundation brought us the Green Revolution in Latin American and Asia just as the Gates Foundation is trying to do with AGRA in Africa; the Ford Foundation has significant contributions to reducing poverty, inequality, and injustice and promoting democratic values - and at least prima facie, the Gates Foundation agrees. But in practice, when these sorts of things become neo-colonialist interventions by foreign powers, demanding that things change because Westerners say so, locals object; likewise, it will not escape the reader’s attention that these three example foundations are all seen as highly progressive “social justice” oriented politically and thus a bit of a stealth lobbying arm for the globalist/progressive movements.

Now, that’s not to say that the Giving Pledge is purely one political faction - it’s an attempt to unify a vision for the future as far as what to do with your wealth. From that perspective, laudable - and I can’t expect that everyone (or some days, anyone) will agree on what the best thing to do is. The official website is givingpledge.org, where you can read the full list of pledgers, their letters, and updates. But you’ll know a lot of names on this list.

From the world of tech there’s Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates - who have both affirmed their commitment individually despite their split, Warren Buffett, Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan, Elon Musk - who appears likely to eclipse most of the others if only due to astronomical wealth (pun intended), Jeff Bezos, MacKenzie Scott - as noted, a prolific donor, Larry Ellison, Pierre Omidyar, Sergey Brin, Larry Page, Steve Ballmer, Paul Allen (now deceased), Michael Bloomberg, Michael Dell (and the Dell Family), Reed Hastings, Sam Altman, Craig McCaw, Drew Houston, and more than a few others. Finance gives us - at a quick glance - Warren Buffett, Ray Dalio, Leon Cooperman, Stephen Schwarzman, Paul Tudor Jones, Seth Klarman, Bill Gross, John Arnold, Michael Milken, T. Boone Pickens, and undoubtedly others. Other high-profile people you might know include George Lucas, Ted Turner, David Rockefeller (now deceased), Barry Diller, Diane von Furstenberg, Sidney Kimmel, Barron Hilton, David Green, Edgar Bronfman, Arthur Blank, and of course again many others.

As I write this - February 2026 - the Giving Pledge has grown to more than 250 signatories (individuals, couples, or families) from 30 countries. The combined wealth involved is substantial, at least on paper eclipsing a trillion dollars (though exact figures vary as fortunes fluctuate) - invariably, the largest few “whales” of the lot very much distort the numbers, by which I mean Musk, Bezos, Gates, Ballmer, Bloomberg, Buffett, Brin, Page and Ellison very much “move the needle.” Probably also Altman, depending on how OpenAI does.

Over time, the Giving Pledge has evolved beyond just the initial promise into more of an active global community and lobbying group, looking to extend its clout to drive change in the world. Signatories participate in learning sessions, discussions, and collaborations with governments, lobbyists, and NGOs to address issues like health, education, poverty, climate change, and more. There’s also a “Next Generation” group for younger family members and heirs involved in philanthropy - because in general, the families involved in the Giving Pledge are still retaining generational wealth for their descendants; this is, as a rule, quite a lot of money we’re talking about here after all.

While the pledge has inspired significant giving and set new public standards for billionaire philanthropy, it has also (of course) faced criticism. Analyses such as a 2025 report from the Institute for Policy Studies note that many signatories’ wealth has grown faster than their donations - which is probably what you’d expect - and fulfillment of the “at least half” commitment varies - thus far, only a small number have fully met it by giving away half or more while alive. For instance, Paul Allen’s estate is still in the process of divesting his various holdings to fulfill his various charitable giving plans even though he passed away in 2018. Much giving goes through private foundations or donor-advised funds rather than direct charity. Others have criticized the implementation of the Giving Pledge for front-loading philanthropy, pointing out that if Gates had focused less on giving away wealth earlier and more on making more money, he’d be able to do more now to benefit society since Microsoft stock has continued to become more valuable. (This seems like 20/20 hindsight - I suspect the same people would complain if he hadn’t given more and the stock had gone down.) Despite these various objections, the Giving Pledge remains one of the most visible efforts to encourage large-scale philanthropy among the ultra-wealthy, and I recommend it to everyone in a position to do so.

For those of us who aren’t billionaires (or aspirationally so) - let me point you to something a little more practical on a day-to-day basis. Also from the same era (2009), the Giving What We Can pledge (sometimes called the “🔸10% pledge”) is a concept much like the traditional tithe - it’s a voluntary, public commitment promoted by Giving What We Can (GWWC), an effective altruism nonprofit founded in 2009 by Oxford philosophers Toby Ord and William MacAskill.

It encourages people to donate at least 10% of their income (typically post-tax) to the charities or organizations they believe can most effectively improve the lives of others - the theory being that you should choose highly evidence-backed ones like global health, poverty reduction, animal welfare, or longterm risks, but in practice, they’re not going to choose for you, it’s ultimately up to you. The pledge is for the rest of your life (or until retirement), making it a lifetime commitment rather than a one-year promise.

Similarly to the Giving Pledge: it’s not legally binding; it’s a moral and public commitment but nobody’s coming after you if you have trouble: you can adjust or resign if circumstances change (though the goal is accountability through transparency). But if you get hit by a bus and you spend the next three years in physical therapy it’s totally understandable that you’re gonna be a little bit off course from your life goals; you’re not at the same level of financial independence as the billionaires doing the Giving Pledge.

Now, of course GWWC has some suggestions as to what charities they think are high-impact - and they do a good job of laying out what those evaluation criteria are (they’ll also point you to GiveWell and Animal Charity Evaluators for other analyses). The focus is on effectiveness: some charities can achieve 100x more good per dollar than average ones. But there’s no requirement to use their recommendations. They aren’t pushy about their causes in particular - just that altruism is something you should do and promote.

There’s also suggestions of other altruistic lifestyle pledges, like the🔹Trial Pledge where you give a chosen % (minimum often 1%) for a set period (6 months to 5 years) to basically see if this sort of thing will work for you. There’s the Further Pledge, where you commit to give everything above a personal “good life” allowance. Also, they’ve proposed a Company Pledge wherein businesses commit 10% of profits.

I am favor of both a near term giving strategy like that in the Giving What We Can pledge - to support charitable needs today - as well as a longer term giving strategy for your estate akin to the Giving Pledge, and I realize that this does not necessarily map well to everyone reading this. But as I see it, there is the combination of factors here: the need for near-term solutions to be addressed because there are problems now that require help, and the desire/ability to invest further and deploy a larger contribution later to make a bigger impact to charitable causes if your returns outgrow the need (and also, heaven forbid, if you need that money to survive in the meantime - less of a concern if you’re already a billionaire and faced with the prospect merely being a centimillionaire, but that’s not the usual quandary).

As to precisely how you structure this sort of thing? That will be the subject of various future articles. Some are rather generally applicable, some are esoterica for ultra high net worth sorts. But in any case, I encourage all of you to determine what doing the right thing for the world is, in your own view - it need not be merely what the fashionable cause du jour happens to be, though there is no reason to dismiss something merely because it draws the public eye - and set out a long term plan by which that might be achieved.