<aside> 💡 This activity page should act within Operating Principles and adapt with experience.

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Why give?

If giving away $500M is about bragging about giving money away, it’s not about doing good work. How can you make sure you are doing good work? – @Grace B.

My 11:11 Philosophers Group work teaches me the value of giving away money. Philanthropy serves three personal purposes:

1. Moral Tuning: We very rarely meet a kid drowning, but we can tune our morality by deciding where and how to give. Good philanthropy forces you to decide what you value. And why not work to smarter moral understanding?
2. Deeper Connections: When you meet others who have come to similar moral conclusions as you, you form a great bond. Philanthropic projects, like Giving Games, have introduced me to people I trust more than any other venue.
3. Social Strengthening: Good societies benefit the indivudal. If we hope to get the most benefit, we must do what we can to help those who are less fortunate.

Eudaimonic Benefits

Every activity I do must speak to . Here is how philanthropy speaks to those values:

• Strengthening Society by reducing preventable suffering, giving away as much as possible of it Satisfies Life Ambitions. I set $500M as a goal to keep this activity Playful (after @Matthew Cheney promised to give that much away with me). Also, @Sam Anschell has fun games that seem to promote giving - can’t wait to play ‘em!
• I’ve also added the Sun Enjoyment and Physical Exercise, since most of the people I know who would give away their money play golf (@Matthew Cheney and I gotta work on Golf!) Similarly, Tasty Healthy Satisfaction seems to be included in this work since lots of rich people like to talk over meals (we have to watch the booze to keep the activity healthy!)
• The “Effective Altruist” community has been thinking about giving away lots of money for a long time, so I am sure this activity will lead to Strengthening Friendships - both new and old (hoping to rope @Matilda Bathurst @Reuel Reis @Mirais Holden @Sefira @Tim E. @Rachel Smith @[email protected] @[email protected] @A.J. Baghaie @Emilie Dannenberg @John Fraboni @Mark Gilliland @Daniel Shkolnik @Alex Ebert @Taeva @Ezra Bertuccelli @Will Bowling and all my other friends).
• If this activity cuts into Family or Love time, it takes away from Strengthening My Love Partnership and Strengthening My Family - so we probably should make it exclusive to Friday and Sunday (unless it helps me Ethically Achieve My Basic Income by building Ethical Business).

Earning to Give

Anyone who gives 5-11% of their income a year will be able to achieve many of the moral and social benefits of philanthropy. Once you start to live your life to give (”earning to giving”), you start to do crazy things (see Sam Bankman-Fried).

Avoiding Philanthropy as a Career

Donor advised funds and philanthropic consultants take a percentage of the giving amount. @Matthew Cheney had the idea that we could charge, say, 1% to provide impact reports. The reports would give donors the confidence that their cash was making the impact they wanted. The 1% would also cover the costs of developing metric-gathering mechanisms for orgs, so they could focus on their work and understand donor expectations.

I’m not interested in that route. Carreers limit experience. I would not want to spend all my time with philanthropy, just as I have no interest in becoming a wage slave in any other careeer. The greatest good you can do requires the greatest number of data points around the human experince. I am sure of that.

Philnathropic Business

Of course, we do not need to donate cash in order to give. Philanthropic Good is achieved through equity structures that allow employees to devote their working life to a common mission, while working toward their own financial freedom. That is not to say that we should promote unchecked wealth. Employee incentive programs like Basic Income Nest Eggs enable bonus-like incentives for impactful work without sacrificing our ethics.