Virtuewashing versus True Altruism: The Rise of Grassroots Philanthropy

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In looking towards 2023, I wanted to weigh-in with my perspective on rethinking Effective Altruism and the pretension of plutocratic benevolence, along with a few how-to ideas for making the world a better place in 2023.

The former plague of insouciance as to charitable giving seems to have been replaced with mercenary showboating of billionaires’ largess. To me it’s an odd situation that a very public crypto flameout would somehow bring up the topic of effective altruism (a type of philanthropic giving that has a focus on using outcomes and efficacy as an evidence-base in order to look at one’s charitable giving ROI). The approach is not based on billionaires or the rich although there are guidelines and organizations for those folks, such as:

• The Founders Pledge allows founders of start-ups to choose what percentage (starting at 2%) they will donate when they sell their company.
• One for the World, asks its student members to pledge an undemanding 1% of their post-graduation income.
• Pledge 1% similarly asks companies to devote 1% of their resources to charities.
• And the well-known Giving Pledge taken by billionaires to commit to giving away half of their wealth, either during…