Note: This page summarizes the rationale behind a grant to One for the World. One for the World staff reviewed this page prior to publication.
Summary
GiveWell recommended a grant of $299,285 in May 2022 to One for the World (OFTW)—an organization that encourages people to pledge a percentage of their annual income to GiveWell-recommended charities.1 This grant was intended to support 50% of OFTW's operating costs for one year. GiveWell previously recommended grants to OFTW in July 2018, October 2019, and May 2021.
Published: December 20232
Grant activities
One for the World (OFTW) aims to persuade undergraduate and graduate students, and young professionals, to pledge 1% of their annual income to GiveWell-recommended programs. It does this by training on-campus student leaders and speaking to young professionals to promote effective giving.3 This grant was intended to cover approximately 50% of OFTW's budget for one year.4
Case for the grant
We believe that OFTW is likely to introduce students and young professionals to GiveWell's research and lead them to contribute to high-impact, cost-effective giving opportunities. We think that targeting students in particular has the potential to be effective and valuable; many current donors to GiveWell-recommended charities learned about GiveWell while they were students.5
OFTW has successfully increased its fundraising year over year. The number of OFTW's donors increased from 702 during the 2019-2020 academic year to 1,100 in 2020-2021 and 1,404 in 2021-2022.6 Overall donations to GiveWell-recommended programs greatly increased during that same period: $317,300 in 2019-2020, $790,400 in 2020-2021, and $1,600,000 in 2021-2022.7 About half of OFTW's donations in 2020-2021 came from donors that were newly acquired in that same academic year.8
To the extent that OFTW's pledge is successful, we expect that most of its impact will come from students and young professionals who take its pledge early in their careers and then donate larger amounts over the course of their careers as their earnings increase. Those gains could take several years or decades to fully materialize, but might have a substantial impact.
Risks and reservations
- Though OFTW has an increasing number of donors and donations, it remains a young organization with a limited track record.
- OFTW has faced challenges engaging campuses; both the number of people it recruited to take its pledge and the overall value of the pledges decreased between 2020-2021 and 2021-2022.9
- It is possible that many of the organization's donors, particularly young professionals, would have donated to effective giving opportunities anyway.10 As a result, the increase in donations to effective giving may not be substantially greater than the grant amount. Whether this is the case depends on the level of counterfactual donations, which is difficult to assess.
- The 1% pledge that OFTW suggests is a small amount, substantially less than the average level of giving among people of all income levels in the United States.11 As a result, the organization may lead donors to give less overall, not more.
- We believe that one of the main paths through which OFTW may have an impact is by introducing students to effective giving, preparing some of them to eventually give very large donations in the future. We are uncertain about the extent to which donors who learn about GiveWell through OFTW will remain connected to GiveWell and our recommended charities over a long period of time.
Despite these risks and reservations, we think OFTW is a valuable enough opportunity to be worth supporting at this stage. GiveWell's grant was intended to permit OFTW's continued operation while Open Philanthropy considered further funding. We expected Open Philanthropy to consider further funding to OFTW, as part of Open Philanthropy's Global Health and Wellbeing portfolio, after GiveWell's grant had been expended.12
Process
Because of the relatively small size of this grant in relationship to our overall grantmaking,
this funding opportunity did not receive the same scrutiny as larger grants we recommend. Instead, we more minimally evaluated the case for the grant and any potential risks or downsides.
Relationship disclosures
Stephanie Stojanovic, GiveWell's Director of Development, is married to Steve Hind, a former member of OFTW's Executive Committee.
A former member of OFTW's Board of Trustees, Rossa O'Keeffe-O'Donovan, worked with GiveWell as a contractor in 2017.
Sources
- 1
This grant was funded by Open Philanthropy.
- 2
We failed to publish our rationale behind this grant in a timely manner, in part because the grant investigation fell outside our standard process. Since 2022, we’ve set internal timeline targets for publishing new grant pages and have put processes in place to publish pages more quickly. You can read more about our areas of progress and improvement related to publishing our research on our mistakes page.
- 3
- "Our Chapter Leader program continues to be the core of our operations.This work educates and trains on-campus leaders around the world to promote effective giving and encourage their fellow students to take the 1% Pledge with One for the World." One for the World, Impact report, 2021-2022, p. 2.
- "We have also found significant success in our Corporate Outreach program - led by our Executive Director, we have conducted 54 Giving Talks at in-person and virtual corporate offices throughout this year. During these 1-hour presentations we present donors with the potential impact of including effective giving in their portfolio and present the 1% Pledge as a convenient route to quick, reliable, transparent impact." One for the World, Impact report, 2021-2022, p. 2.
- 4
- OFTW's expenses for the year ending June 2022 were $777,494. One for the World, Audited financial statements, June 2022, p. 4.
- We expected its expenses for the 2023 fiscal year to be approximately $589,000. One for the World, Fiscal year 2023 forecast (redacted).
- 5
We've learned this from conversations with our donors as well as from donor surveys.
- 6
- 7
- 8
Percent of 2021 donations from donors that first pledged in the 2021 academic year: about 50%
- 2021 donations from donors that first pledged in 2021: $388,900
- 2021 donations from donors that first pledged in 2020: $60,901
- 2021 donations from donors that first pledged in 2019: $164,404
- 2021 donations from donors that first pledged in 2018: $65,965
- 2021 donations from donors that first pledged in 2017: $26,545
- 2021 donations from donors that first pledged in 2016: $48,705
- 2021 donations from donors that first pledged in 2015: $4,318
- 2021 donations from donors that first pledged in 2014: $12,055
- $388,900 / ($388,900 + $60,901 + $164,404 + $65,965 + $26,545 + $48,705 + $4,318 + $12,055) = 0.504
OFTW, Founders pledge figures, 2022, "Cohort Donations by Academic Year Donated" tab.
- 9
In 2020-2021, 1,110 people made OFTW's 1% pledge, with pledges totaling $732,000; in 2021-2022, 697 people made the pledge, with pledges totaling $463,000. One for the World, Impact report, 2021-2022, p. 6.
- 10
- According to OFTW's surveys, 68% of its donors were not familiar with GiveWell-recommended programs prior to taking OFTW's 1% pledge. Those donors familiar with GiveWell may have already been somewhat likely to donate to effective charities.
- "We survey all of our donors at the time of checkout. 68% of our donors noted that they were ‘not familiar’ with GiveWell’s list of recommended nonprofit organizations before encountering One for the World and deciding to take the 1% Pledge. We infer from this that at least 68% of all donations occurred outside of GiveWell's influence." One for the World, Impact report, 2021-2022, p. 7.
- 11
According to OFTW, "In fact, the average American at every level of income gives more than 1% of their income to charity." One for the World, "FAQs", "What if I want to give more than 1%?"
- 12
Open Philanthropy made a grant of $870,000 to OFTW in January 2023.