Benjamin Todd

Earning to give provides flexibility because you can easily change where you donate, or even save the money and give later.

Though money isn't the only thing that's transferable.

Many skills, including those we cover below, can easily be transferred across problem areas.

Or, you want to contribute to an area that is particularly funding-constrained, rather than primarily talent-constrained.

Common objections to earning to give are

Don't many high-earning jobs cause harm?

We don't recommend taking a job that does harm in order to donate the money, and we've written an entire article about why, which you can find in Appendix 5.

In practice, most people who earn to give work in the fields of technology, asset management, medicine, or consulting.

And we think there are many positions in these industries that have roughly neutral or a small positive impact.

For instance, many, but not all, financial traders make profits at the expense of other traders.

So they're moving money around, mostly from rich people to other rich people.

Of course, some high-earning jobs can cause a lot of harm.

A particularly stark illustration is Sam Bankman-Fried.

Sam founded a cryptocurrency exchange with the stated goal of earning to give.

In fact, we featured him on our website as an example of someone pursuing a positive career.

But Sam ended up being charged with fraud.

We've written more about Sam below, but here's the bottom line.

While we think you can do a lot of good through earning to give, we think doing harm for the greater good is almost never a good idea, even if you think the donations might outweigh the costs of a harmful career.

Can people actually stick with it?

Won't people earning to give end up being influenced by their peers to spend the money on luxuries rather than donating?