Tuesday, 9 March 2010

givingwhatwecan.org - the pledge of 10%

Hiya,

I think this website is a really good starting point for thinking about charity, and how to give and think about giving. It's got some cool essays on ethics, tools on inequality, reports on effectiveness, explanations of how to evaluate a charity's impact, and recommendations for who to give to if you want to make your pound count.

Giving what we can also have a pledge that you can sign up to:
"I recognise that I can use part of my income to do a significant amount of good in the developing world. Since I can live well enough on a smaller income, I pledge that from today until the day I retire, I shall give at least ten percent of what I earn to whichever organizations can most effectively use it to fight poverty in developing countries. I make this pledge freely, openly, and without regret."


I've decided to take the pledge and to give at least 10% of my future earned income to the most effective charities working in development until I retire IF 9 more people also do it with me and we can stay in touch and make sure we carry on with it, talk about who we've decided to give to, how we're feeling about continuing with the project etc. etc. etc. It's mainly so that I have 9 people that are doing this with me and can support me and hold me accountable, as I don't trust my future self!

http://www.pledgebank.com/give10percent

Thanks for considering it,
Tom Stocker.

Saturday, 6 February 2010

Tom and Jun's consultation

Hi Everyone, well done for checking out the website, please can you put up what your passions are in terms of organizations, social justice issues etc. so we can get a feel for what people care about. Also, it would be great if you had any ideas or suggestions, activities you want to see done but haven't seen happen yet. If there isn't much of a response then the focus will probably be fund raising as much as possible for charities working in global health and emergency medical relief, with some speakers from different causes coming to speak and an attempt to foster more considered questioning as to why people are poor in the first place and what can be done about it.

Justice x