I’m thrilled to announce that I’ve just started my new role as Head of Giving What We Can at The Centre for Effective Altruism.

Giving What We Can has been a meaningful part of my life since I took The Pledge in 2016 (and engaged with the ideas even earlier), and I’m honoured to dedicate my next chapter to motivate people to give more, and more effectively. Effective giving is a way that many people can have an outsized impact. I also believe that creating a culture of effective giving expands our moral circle and increases the number of people taking tangible actions to solve some of the worlds most important problems.

If you’re interested, you can read more at the Giving What We Can blog.

If you’re inspired, I encourage you to consider taking The Pledge (or Try Giving), subscribing to updates, or learning more.

If you want to help (…thanks!):

• Introduce me to relevant influencers (e.g. podcasters, journalists, corporate social responsibility managers)
• Give feedback on GWWC
• Volunteer with GWWC

What is Giving What We Can?

Giving What We Can is a community of effective givers. We inspire people to donate significantly and as effectively as possible; creating a culture of giving more, and more effectively.

And for the visually inclined, here’s some of my favourite videos explaining more about GWWC and effective giving.

I was sorting through some Europe photos and had a queasy moment when I got to Dachau in light of the last 18 months but especially the last week.

The German guide (pictured on left) we had was very good at explaining the context of the time and even read some newspaper quotes from editorials of Jews at the time who were defending most Germans as good people and saying that the worst would never happen and taking it on themselves to make it better by being good citizens. We came away feeling a lot of empathy, compassion for everyone involved but also an aching awareness of the train wreck that can happen when things start to snowball out of control and we as human beings do things to others that we would never have imagined.

I’m humbled to be living in the context that I am in.

As many monuments all across Europe say, forgive but never forget.

No person and certainly no society is infallible and incapable of falling.

Our greatest lessons come from history and we must know it, warts and all.

I admire the way the German people have learned this better than most and are now often more of a shining light than the former allied nations.

History is how you get where you are, it’s not who you are.

I hope those in the USA who are protesting the removal of confederate statues know that where they’ve come from isn’t who they are, it isn’t their identity and it shouldn’t determine who they will be.

History, especially the ugly parts, is something to be remembered but not revered. It’s irrational and unhelpful to take pride in the ugliest parts.

If we’re going to be the flourishing species that we truly can be then we have to be a species of progress not regress. We need to be a species that values compassion and critical thinking. We need to be a species that recognises it’s part of a global (or galactic) community, we are the stewards of our planet and our future is in our hands.

Let’s remember the past while we walk, or run, forward into a better future.

As promised, here’s the next instalment of what I’ve learned living on less.

If you haven’t yet read the prequels this may make very little sense to you. Go read them first. I’ll wait.

The power of habit

While doing this challenge I re-read one of my all-time favourite books, The Power of Habit. The timing couldn’t have been better reminding myself how habits work really helped me get through the first two weeks especially.

Part of the reason living on less than $2 was so hard for the first few days was that so many of my habits were working against me.

I’m sure you can empathise – just imagine these scenarios and see if they’re at all familiar:

• Every morning after my ride… I crave a coffee.
• Having friends over for a BBQ… I crave a beer.
• After 40km on the bike or at 3pm in the office… I crave a snack.

Using the ideas covered in ‘The Power of Habit’ I was thrilled to find ways of replacing the routine part of the habit loop that were within my budget.

For these three habits I managed to use about 1-2 tea cheap tea bags per day to replace both coffee and beer (iced tea!). Making a large thermos or jug helped my sanity enormously for only a couple of cents of ingredients. For snacking I introduced peanut button on white bread – not the healthiest but I would be in serious calorie deficit without substituting my snacking with something half-decent.

Fortunately I was already equipped better than some people to take on this challenge because of the habits I already formed prior to starting it.

I’m already a very frugal guy, I do a lot of mental maths and love my spreadsheets as well as things like packing my lunches, cooking in bulk, traveling by bike and drinking less alcohol. I also have a daily practice of gratitude, journaling and mindfulness that helped me keep my brain in the right place for this (reminding myself daily what I am doing, why I am doing it and what actions I need to take).

Restricting my spend would have been much harder had I not found ways replace various routines in the habit loop with sufficient replacements and started with a few helpful habits already.

What about you?

Do you have any stories of habits you’ve changed – or any ones you’re struggling with?

Let me know in the comments below and I’ll send one of my favourite books to the author of my favourite comment.

Shameless plug

Please donate to help end poverty, read about what I’m doing, check out the other blog posts, and share if you haven’t yet.

As promised, here’s the next instalment of what I’ve learned living on less.

If you haven’t yet read the prequels this may make very little sense to you. Go read them first. I’ll wait.

I’ve already discussed some of the parts of fundraising relating to people’s psychology so without further adieu here’s what I’ve learned about the nuts and bolts of charity fundraising during my first 24 days of living on less.

The focus

For years I followed a fairly normal trend of saying yes to fundraising when asked to, and in whichever manner was offered to me. This meant doing World Vision’s 40 Hour Famine with my friends growing up or doing Movember when my office did and maybe raising a couple hundred dollars along with thousands of other people.

The organisations I fundraised for were incredibly optimised for fundraising.

However, when it comes to giving and fundraising I’ve taken to being directed more by my head, aiming for impact. I’ve learned that if I figure it out I can use my heard to train my heart to motivate myself. I shifted my focus to try and have the rider (my analytical brain) gently steer the elephant (my emotions) and then in turn embrace the energy that emotions give towards rational well-thought-out positive outcomes.

It was 2014 that I actively started to change my approach. I decided I would do infrequent fundraisers, aim big and only fundraise for some of the most impactful organisations.

That year I did a 600km Cycle to End Poverty to raise funds for GiveReturn using the GoFundraise platform. In many ways the 2014 fundraiser was much easier and more successful fundraiser than it’s been so far in 2017.

There are three big difference here which I feel may have contributed:

1. Sport / physical challenges seem to work
2. Donation platforms matter
3. Donor-matching is simpler

The challenge

I’m not entirely sure of the psychology behind it but I had a lot more positive responses with my riding challenge than this challenge. In hindsight that’s not entirely surprising given that it’s now a booming industry and you’d be hard pressed to find a large charity that doesn’t have physical challenges, nor a big sporting event which isn’t tied to a charity.

The execution

This year I narrowed in even further in trying to squeeze out every bit of value from the funds of all my supporters. This meant that I chose the most thoroughly vetted effective charities with room for funding and listed them so that they would be tax-deductible for all my donors. However, there’s a downside to prioritising charity effectiveness over fundraising effectiveness.

There wasn’t single platform that I could use to run this fundraiser according to my desired specifications. I instead had to rely on people following my instructions and for many it just seemed too hard (I had several people reach out and tell me so). For the first 20 days of the campaign the top link on my donation page required people to do a bank transfer instead of accepting a credit card (this has now changed).

In doing this I broke a ‘golden rule’ of web design – I forced people to think too much before they could take action. People were primed and I lost them.

It needs to be easy for people to take the most important action. Defaults really matter. Choice architecture matters.

My ideal solution would look like this:

• An undirected donation to wherever the funds are most needed (but allow people to specify if they desire)
• Credit card facility  (but allow other options if they desire)
• Tax-deductibility already accounted for (just select your country and the appropriate charities will be selected – or select that you don’t care about tax-deductibility)
• Personalised fundraising page (e.g. my GoFundraise page from 2014)

There is a big opportunity to improve in this space.

The incentives

Even though I’ve committed over an an order of magnitude more money out of my own pocket this time around ($2,500 in 2014 vs 30% of my salary in 2017) I actually had more success with simple donor matching. There’s something in the psychology of incrementally seeing each donor getting matched versus my supporters just knowing that I truly back the cause significantly with my own money.

The lesson

It is a hard ask to raise funds for charities that haven’t been highly optimised to raise funds (these charities been optimised for their program effectiveness instead). It poses a real marketing challenge to engage people if it isn’t super easy and obvious to donate.

As a marketer I should know better, people emotionally and it must be simple, easy and convenient. In the end I found it was easiest to primarily direct people to the one charity (Against Malaria Foundation) that was the best set up to raise funds via a fundraising page.

Fundraisers are a great way of drawing attention to a cause (not just the money it raises) so if we’re going to end poverty it must be easy for us to fundraise for the most effective charities. People’s first interaction cannot be ‘gosh, that was hard and confusing’.

I hope to find a way of helping to solve this problem.

What’s worked well in 2017

While passive posting nice images of my training via social media was effective at getting donations in 2014, social media is a much more crowded space in 2017.

I’ve had much more success with directly emailing people and speaking directly with people.

Another successful way of getting the word out was when Joni set up a Facebook event to celebrate the end of the month that emphasised a target donations to end the challenge a few hours early to host a dinner (1 hour before midnight for every $100 raised – limited to 7pm).

Furthermore, nothing quite brings attention to your cause like a major behaviour change. As I mentioned, food is social, so it was much more obvious that there was something going on this time.

This lead to many interesting conversations, which if I’m honest is actually a big part of me doing this. I want to encourage people to talk more about giving and how as ordinary people we can help to effectively solve big problems. The blog has been a useful arena for that discussion.

Final notes

Please use what I’ve learned for good – find something truly worthwhile and apply it…. and share what you’ve learned in the comments below!

Let’s not just normalise a culture of giving, but usher in a generous culture that experiences the joy of giving to highly impactful, underfunded interventions solving the worlds most pressing problems.

Shameless plug

Please donate to help end poverty, read about what I’m doing, and share if you haven’t yet.

As promised, here’s the next instalment of what I’ve learned living on less.

If you haven’t yet read the prequels this may make very little sense to you. Go read them first. I’ll wait.

Without further adieu here’s what I’ve learned about poverty during my first 23 days of living on less to help raising money for highly effective poverty-alleviation charities.

We live in abundance

Almost everywhere I go there is food I could have just grab if I hadn’t limited myself in the rules. Chocolates lying around the office. A pantry full of food at home. Biscuits brought to the table at a cafe. A fruit bowl in reception for a meeting.

Food is everywhere around me if I want it.

Yet while I’ve been limiting what I purchase for my menu this whole time I’ve still benefited greatly from the luxuries of a fridge, freezer, running water, stove, electricity, a roof above my head and bedding and clothes to keep me warm, a shower and toothbrush to keep me clean. (Not to mention the appliances that have made food prep a lot easier – a slow cooker, rice cooker, food processor, pasta maker, blender, etc.)

I haven’t included these in my budget and on global standards, they are a true luxury.

I’ve also benefited from living in a place of the world with great infrastructure like roads to ride my bike on and public healthcare (I sliced my thumb open last week and a doctor was at my house within 2 hours – fortunately no stitches, and I can easily afford the $10 in extra bandages he recommended).

Contentment makes you rich

The first week was the hardest because my brain couldn’t help but focus on what I was missing out on. Someone offering to buy me a coffee was a stab in the heart.

But then things changed…

Meditations on those feelings made me stronger.

Focusing on what I have deepened my gratitude.

I feel so much richer for it.

Inequality

While the focus of this has been on relieving extreme poverty this experience increased my rating of inequality being morally important compared with absolute wealth.

While the lowest hanging fruit for having a big impact on people’s lives is still definitely extreme poverty, I cannot deny that inequality is a big issue.

While smelling my wife’s delicious cooking and trying to stomach another bean patty, the reality of inequality that others experience started to sink in.

Not only is it an issue in developed countries with wide income distributions but it makes it worse for developing countries when people see the lifestyles of the rich countries.

It’s hardly surprising that China is building 2 coal-fired power plants a week and Myanmar has tripled its per capita meat consumption in 7 years when they see what the rest of the world has.

Being your own Robin Hood (taking from the rich and giving to the poor) not only vastly improves the lives of those who need it by making them richer, but it lowers inequality and lowers the distance between you and your fellow man – your neighbour, whether they live across the street or across the ocean.

If we can all learn contentment the world will be vastly better.

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It's all too easy to click like and move on with your day. Stop. Breathe. Think, "what can I do today that actually makes a difference?" I'm sure you'll think of many things and the world will be that much better for it. I hope for some of you it includes taking action and doing something that's very easy for you and goes a long way to help end extreme poverty. Find out how at lukes.me/donate

A post shared by Luke K. Freeman (@lukekfreeman) on Feb 5, 2017 at 3:24pm PST

If we want the world to change we need to take charge – to be the change we want in the world.

Poverty has real problems

Poverty isn’t simply a low calorie, boring diet.

Poverty is nothing remotely like my little experiment of limiting my menu to $2.50.

The effects of poverty are cyclical and we need to be attacking it on all fronts.

Poverty is both caused by and leads to disease, crime, unemployment, ignorance, revolt, environmental destruction and gender inequality. To put salt on the wound – it can even be more expensive to be poor.

A child born in poverty starts so far behind and faces the steepest possible route to climb out of it.

First world problems are also real

I’ve had a lot of discussions over the last month covering topics from zoning in my local neighbourhood, events in the lives of my friends and family right through to global geo-political and economic mega-trends.

These problems are just as real, and we need to care about them also.

However, they are just on a different scale and they need an entirely different approach.

They are much harder to solve, and they involve people changing themselves. In fact, one kernel of truth to the overly simplistic #firstworldproblems retort is that much of our first world problems would in fact be more easily solved solved if we focused more on gratitude, compassion and generosity instead of the rat race and an us-vs-them mentality.

This all comes full circle because gratitude, compassion and generosity can all be practiced by giving to those who need it most.

There is hope for fighting poverty

The great news is that that we are making huge progress in fighting poverty.

We are living in the safest and most prosperous time in history.

There are many other problems to solve after extreme poverty – so how about we make poverty history in our lifetime and then move on to everything else. With a coordinated effort and a commitment to the future it’s mind-blowing what we can do beyond ending extreme poverty.

I seriously recommend watch the point at 3:30 into the video below when Beth Barnes reveals how much we can achieve if the richest 10% gave 10% of their annual income (which almost certainly includes you).

“the first year would give us enough to eliminate extreme poverty and hunger, eradicate all neglected tropical diseases and many others besides, triple medical research, give everyone secondary education, permanently save every rainforest in the world, get us well on the way to fixing climate change, fund an unparalleled renaissance in the arts, and have enough leftover to launch several manned missions to Mars.”

The charities I’m supporting are all contributing to this progress.

The money goes directly to evidence-backed, thoroughly vetted, underfunded organisations. These include interventions from anti-malarial bednets right through to deworming programs or direct cash transfers.

All of these interventions are high-impact and directly alleviate the daily suffering of our fellow human beings and reduce poverty over the long term.

Shameless plug

Please donate to help end poverty, read about what I’m doing, and share if you haven’t yet.

As promised, here’s the next instalment of what I’ve learned living on less.

If you haven’t yet read the prequels this may make very little sense to you. Go read them first. I’ll wait.

Today I’m covering off what I’ve learned about food during my first 22 days of living on less to help raising money for highly effective poverty-alleviation charities.

A budget of $2.50 is very restrictive, but it’s certainly not impossible.

Here’s what I’ve learned (plus my menu and costs)…

Snacks, drinks and nutrition

So far I have lost at least 3 kilos. For a lean guy that’s a lot – about 5% of my bodyweight.

Looking through the data I can see three main causes:

1. Drinks & snacks normally give me 15-20% more energy
2. It’s hard to eat when you’re bored of your food
3. Protein, vegetables, and variety are expensive

I normally eat very healthy but snacks are expensive or if they’re cheap then they are super unhealthy. Snacks are also my rewards that I use for doing good things like exercising.

By the third day I was already in calorie deficit. Although I’d planned to eat close to ten thousand kilojoules it was hard to stay interested in the same food.

To keep up my interest and introduce snacking I re-introduced simple carbs like rice, pasta and white bread (for peanut butter sandwiches). This helped but it also meant that my protein consumption is down to the bare minimum.

Food is social

One of the hardest parts is removing the social aspect from food. I’m a really social person, I use food as a way of spending time with people. I see my morning coffee as payment for a seat and a chat with a friend.

This month the choice has often been to either (a) excuse myself attending events at pubs, restaurants, cafes, or anything that’s catered or (b) pre-eat or bring something along (if appropriate).

To avoid the awkwardness I’ve tried inviting people to ours more, or inviting people into my office for a cup of tea. However, only having people over really limits your options.

The saying goes that you’re the average of your 5 closest friends. I guess that probably applies to the cost and nutrition of your food also.

Food is also much easier to prepare more cheaply and with more variety if you eat in a group.

Brands and convenience are costly

Some things can be up to 10 times the cost for brands and convenience. You may not notice much on smaller items (“What’s the huge difference between 85 cent and 4 dollar pasta?”) but they certainly add up.

Buying brand name black beans by the tin can cost over $3 whereas buying them dried by the kilo worked out to cost about 50 cents for the same amount.

Solving the brand problem was easy but solving for convenience was harder.

After almost bonking on the bike for lack of anything convenient to eat while riding I had to find a solution.

That’s when I introduced peanut butter on white bread. It’s about the only conveniently palatable thing I could afford.

My menu

At the time of writing this my menu has included:

For the first 21 days here’s my daily spend totals:

If you’re interested in more details (such as the ingredients to all the recipes) you can find it all in my food log.

Shameless plug

Please donate to help end poverty, read about what I’m doing, and share if you haven’t yet.