Benjamin Todd

Money to live on, $125,000 for the engineer, $65,000 for the CEO.

And direct impact of work, neutral for the software engineer and very positive for the CEO.

Jeff could live on about two times as much as he would have earned in the non-profit sector, and still donate enough to fund the salaries of about two non-profit CEOs.

Jeff's guess is that the direct impact of his job was approximately neutral.

He also thinks that he became happier in his work because he enjoys engineering.

Moreover, Jeff and Julia could switch their donations to whichever organizations were most in need of funds at any given time, based on their research, whereas it's harder to change where you work.

This flexibility is particularly valuable if you're uncertain about which problems will be most pressing in the future.

Making this much difference is possible because, as we saw earlier, we live in a world with huge income inequality.

It's possible to earn several times as much as a teacher or non-profit worker, and vastly more than the world's poorest people.

At the same time, hardly anyone donates more than a few percent of their income, so if you are willing to do so, you can have an amazing impact in a very wide range of jobs.

Earlier we also saw that any college graduate in a developed country can have a major impact by giving 10% of their income to an effective charity.

The average graduate earns $77,000 per year over their life, and 10% of that could save about 40 lives if given to a Gates Malaria Foundation, for example.

If you could just earn 10% more and donate the extra, then that's twice as much impact to gain.

And if you think there are better organizations to fund than Against Malaria Foundation, perhaps working on different problems or doing research or communicating important ideas, the impact is even higher.

Since we introduced the concept of earning to give in 2011, hundreds of people have taken it up and stuck with it.

Some give around 30% of their income, and a few even give more than 50%.

Collectively, they'll donate tens of millions of dollars to high-impact charities in the coming years.

In doing so, they are funding passionate people who want to contribute directly, but who otherwise wouldn't have the resources to do so.

One of the people we advised in 2011, Matt, donated over $1 million, while still in his 20s, and was featured in the New York Times.

He found his new job more enjoyable, too.