Tuesday, December 3, is a day of giving and a national conversation about how to give back and do good. In an especially tumultuous year when many of us want to give back, but want to be careful with our budgets, here’s an important question: If you want to give to charity, should you go out and pick an organization today? Or should you wait, save your money and leave it to the charity of your choice (or at least donate it down the road)?
There is a case for this approach. To some extent, the answer depends on what you think are the highest priorities for giving—and whether you think you’ll be a more conscious giver later in life.
Overall, though, A close observer of The nonprofit world Tend to think that donating your money now has the potential to achieve more good in the world than saving it to donate after you die. That’s because giving now can in some sense make the giver better at doing good, and because history suggests that many of the best giving opportunities won’t be around in 10 years — let alone 50 years.
If there is “low hanging fruit” it may be better to give
There are reasons to think that giving now will get your money further than later.
Here the case is a bit complicated. In a field like global health, we know of many interventions that are valuable. The more money poured into supporting an important intervention, the more likely it is to spread widely—especially where the conditions are right for it.
Vox guide to giving
The holiday season is giving. This year, Vox is exploring every element of charitable giving — from making the case for donating 10 percent of your income to recommending specific charities for specific causes, to explaining what you can do to make a difference beyond donations. You can find all the guide stories we have given here.
For example, an innovation that improves traffic safety will probably spread first to the rich countries that can afford it, so that after a few years, the places that lack it will be the ones where it is complicated to implement. A new surgery that treats a health problem is likely to be offered first in places with good medical care, without complications of the condition. Once those patients are treated, the rest of the cases will be handled more expensive. This means that money paid now will be more than money paid later, once we have already solved problems that can be solved cheaply.
So for any given entity – whether it is treated Fistula from childbirth or Children’s dewormers — We may expect grants to be most needed early on, when there are many problems that can be easily solved, and to go beyond them later, when most problems remain that are difficult to solve. Donors will find “low-hanging fruit” as a cause.
How seriously to take this argument depends on which factor you find most promising. In 2018, I asked Julia Wise, who was its president Giving what we can A Center for Effective Altruism At that time, for advice. “If you want to work in global health and development,” Wise told me, “the best opportunity is now.” Many organizations are already providing health care, and most of the problems they are working on are improving, so money will probably go further now than it will in five years.
“For factors we know less about, where our understanding is greater in the beginning,” Wise thinks there’s a case for waiting. In a few years, we may discover a new giving opportunity that is better than any existing one. On the other hand, “in these areas where the evidence is thin, the right thing to do is to fund research. If we’re all waiting for someone else to figure out what works, we could be waiting a long time.”
Giving now can allow charities to develop better programs — creating better options sooner
Giving What We Can encourages people to give each year — although some participants give to a donor-advised fund, an account that you control and from which you can later choose a charity to give to.
Wise points out that one of the most important effects of your donation is to encourage a charity running programs you believe in, helping them expand those programs and invest more energy there. If you’re strategic about donating to charities that are testing promising new programs and learning how to get the best results through their research, your donation can actually change what giving opportunities are available in the future.
“We’re really encouraged to see evidence-based charity growing as people support it with their donations,” Wise said. “We see improving the charity landscape and creating it in a way that gives charities an incentive to continue to research and participate in their work, so that everyone knows the best places to donate.”
This incentive effect works best with living, active, engaged donors. Charities will respond to donations this year by thinking about what they need to do to be a good target for donations next year. “If we delay,” Wise said, “we are not contributing to the advancement of the state of knowledge.”
Giving now can help you commit to a generous life
“My husband and I decided to donate now instead of waiting later,” Wise told me. “Part of it is thinking about what works best with our motivation. It makes it a fixed part of our lives, rather than part of an indefinite future.” Telling yourself that you will donate someday in the distant future is not the same as donating every day.
People who have received Giving What We Can’s commitment Often describe the same inspiration. “Donating now builds your own virtue and ensures that you live up to your ideals,” Haseeb Qureshi Wrote an article about this question. “You’re not a perfect creature. Even if you’re willing to do something tough now … you always have to factor in the possibility that you’ll change your mind or backslide.” The best way would be anyone want If you want to pay, pay now.
Wise also thought that habits were important, so much so that he recommended that people donate some money early in life and even if they had built up limited savings. “It can be good to donate regularly so you’re still deciding where to give and keep it a part of your life,” he told me.
Donating later can help you become a more informed donor
But there are good reasons to consider delaying your donation. Some charities are more effective than others. Some highly effective charities are so inundated with money that they don’t use additional donations to expand their programs — meaning your money won’t achieve much.
This difference in effectiveness is one reason you may want to pay later rather than today. If you don’t know much about the opportunities out there, it’s not a good idea to choose a charity without a clear understanding of what it will do with your money and why it’s able to do it. Hundreds of thousands of dollars in charity can save a life. It should be treated as seriously as any other decision that could save a life.
If you want to commit to giving now, but you don’t yet feel equipped to make an informed choice about where to give, one option is donor-advised funds. You donate now (and get a tax deduction now) but can later choose any eligible charity to donate the money to. Donor-advised funds are a way to set aside money for charity and give yourself more time to learn.
But that’s probably a reason to wait five years, not 40 years. You’ll need to do a lot of ongoing research to keep your desire up to date on the opportunity you find most promising — and once you’ve identified all the work and opportunities out there, it’s probably worth giving it a go.
Update, December 2024: This story was originally published in 2020 and has been updated for 2024.
