Founders Pledge

Short description: English charitable non-profit

Founders Pledge

Founded| 2015; 11 years ago (2015)[1]
Founder| Dafna Bonas, David Goldberg
Type| Non-profit
Location|

* London, England

Area served

| Global

Membership

| 1,487 (May 2021)[2]
Website| founderspledge.com

Founders Pledge is a London-based charitable initiative, where entrepreneurs make a commitment to donate a portion of their personal proceeds to charity when they sell their business.[3][4][5] Inspired by effective altruism, the mission of Founders Pledge is to "empower entrepreneurs to do immense good".[6]

By May 2021, around 1500 entrepreneurs across 30 countries have signed up to Founders Pledge. Collectively, they have pledged to donate $3 billion in share value, and about $475 million in donations have been completed to date.[3][7]

## Contents

* 1 History
* 2 Activities
* 2.1 Research
* 3 Members
* 4 See also
* 5 References
* 6 External links

## History

Founders Pledge was initially launched in 2015 by the Founders Forum for Good, which focuses on helping social entrepreneurs build and scale businesses.[8] David Goldberg, co-founder and CEO of Founders Pledge, has stated that the ideas of effective altruism, and the work of 80,000 Hours in particular, have influenced the trajectory of the organization.[9]

Founders Pledge was named one of the New Radicals 2016, which are "innovative projects chosen by The Observer and Nesta as making a real difference to society".[10]

Starting in London, Founders Pledge has since expanded and opened multiple new offices in cities such as Berlin,[11] New York and San Francisco.[3] In addition, Founders Pledge has launched partnerships with organisations including Y Combinator,[12] MassChallenge, and Forward Partners.[13] In September 2016, Sam Altman, president of Y Combinator, wrote on the Y Combinator blog: "Many of our founders ask us about how they can donate part of their equity or post exit proceeds, and now we have an answer: Founders Pledge."[14]

Since 2016, Founders Pledge was awarded two major grants⁠—totaling more than $6 million⁠—from the Open Philanthropy Project, a foundation largely funded by Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz.[15][16][17]

## Activities

Founders Pledge runs three main types of activities, all of which are free of charge for its members.[3][7]

* First, they aim to build a community of impact-driven entrepreneurs by organising events to educate members on evidence-backed impact strategies.[18]
* Second, they provide administrative support with donations and offer a donor-advised fund.[19]
* Third, Founders Pledge conducts research into high-leverage giving opportunities and advises its members on where to give based on their personal values.[3][20]

### Research

Founders Pledge partners with GiveWell for its research on cost-effective global health and development charities. In addition, Founders Pledge has written research reports on various topics, including:

* impact investing,[21]
* climate change,[22][23]
* evidence-based policy,[24]
* animal welfare,
* mental health,[25]
* and the mitigation of existential risks.[3]

## Members

Entrepreneurs signing up to Founders Pledge enter a legally binding commitment to donate a portion of their personal proceeds on liquidity to charity. The minimum commitment is 2%, though on average entrepreneurs commit around 7%.[26] Comparing several donation pledging initiatives, Vox writes that Founders Pledge forces The Giving Pledge "to compete for the mindshare of today’s tech community".[27]

A complete list of members is available on the Founders Pledge website.[28] Notable members of Founders Pledge include the following:

* Mustafa Suleyman, co-founder of Google DeepMind[15]
* Kathryn Petralia, Co-founder & COO of Kabbage
* Roy Bahat, Head of Bloomberg Beta[29]
* Niklas Adalberth, Founder of Klarna and Norrsken Foundation
* Andrew Fisher, Executive Chairman of Shazam
* Eric Wahlforss, Founder & CPO of SoundCloud
* Uma Valeti, Founder & CEO of Upside Foods

## See also

* Earning to give
* GiveWell
* Giving What We Can
* Raising for Effective Giving

## References

1. ↑ "Forbes". https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidprosser/2015/06/10/entrepreneurs-pledge-millions-to-social-good/#5944999c6bb9.
2. ↑ "Founders Pledge Homepage". Founders Pledge. https://founderspledge.com/.
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 Bell, Douglas. "The Radical Founders Raising Billions For Charity - Is This A New Social Movement?" (in en). https://www.forbes.com/sites/douglasbell/2019/08/29/the-radical-philanthropy-group-raising-billions-from-start-up-entrepreneurs--is-this-a-new-social-movement/.
4. ↑ Rovnick, Naomi (2016-05-06). "Wealthy millennials explore venture philanthropy" (in en-GB). https://www.ft.com/content/44c1331e-0232-11e6-99cb-83242733f755.
5. ↑ Schultz, Abby. "The Age of Moonshots" (in en-US). https://www.barrons.com/articles/the-age-of-moonshots-51575900000.
6. ↑ "About Us". https://founderspledge.com/about-us.
7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 "Home". https://founderspledge.com/.
8. ↑ Volpicelli, Gian (2017-06-12). "Brent Hoberman left lastminute.com and formed an empire. This is how he did it". Wired UK. ISSN 1357-0978. https://www.wired.co.uk/article/founders-factory-tech-startups.
9. ↑ "One of the most exciting new effective altruist organisations: An interview with David Goldberg of the Founders Pledge" (in en-US). 2015-11-26. https://80000hours.org/2015/11/one-of-the-most-exciting-new-effective-altruist-organisations-an-interview-with-david-goldberg-of-the-founders-pledge/.
10. ↑ Fallon, Harriet Marsden, Katy (2016-07-10). "More of the best New Radicals 2016" (in en-GB). The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/jul/10/more-new-radicals-observer-nesta-social-enterprise-innovation-charity.
11. ↑ Shead, Sam. "Germany's multimillionaire startup founders are being encouraged to donate to worthwhile causes". https://www.businessinsider.com/founders-pledge-has-launched-in-germany-2017-4.
12. ↑ "Y Combinator signs up to Founders Pledge charity scheme for social causes" (in en-US). http://social.techcrunch.com/2016/09/21/y-combinator-signs-up-to-founders-pledge-charity-scheme-for-social-causes/.
13. ↑ Partners, Forward (2018-02-07). "Our pre-seed termsheet" (in en). https://medium.com/@ForwardPrt/our-pre-seed-termsheet-5f794bc12e62.
14. ↑ Altman, Sam. "YC and Founders Pledge" (in en-US). https://blog.ycombinator.com/yc-and-founders-pledge/.
15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 Shead, Sam. "Facebook's little-known billionaire cofounder is funding a London charity". https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-cofounder-dustin-moskovitz-is-funding-founders-pledge-2017-3.
16. ↑ "Founders Pledge — General Support" (in en). 2016-10-14. https://www.openphilanthropy.org/giving/grants/founders-pledge-general-support.
17. ↑ "Founders Pledge — General Support (2018)" (in en). 2018-01-24. https://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/other-areas/founders-pledge-general-support-2018.
18. ↑ "Community". https://founderspledge.com/community.
19. ↑ "How It Works". https://founderspledge.com/how-it-works.
20. ↑ "Research". https://founderspledge.com/research.
21. ↑ "The difficulty with the EU’s sustainable investment rules". https://www.ft.com/content/56f63be8-1dcb-11ea-9186-7348c2f183af.
22. ↑ Samuel, Sigal (2019-12-02). "Want to fight climate change effectively? Here’s where to donate your money." (in en). https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/12/2/20976180/climate-change-best-charities-effective-philanthropy.
23. ↑ Piper, Kelsey (2019-06-13). "Is climate change an "existential threat" — or just a catastrophic one?" (in en). https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/6/13/18660548/climate-change-human-civilization-existential-risk.
24. ↑ Neal, Meagan (2018-12-21). "It’s hard to design good policies. This simple idea can help governments do it." (in en). https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2018/12/21/18148622/poverty-zambia-government-education-policy-jpal.
25. ↑ Goth, Aidan; Hoeijmakers, Sjir (2020-09-25). "Psychedelic-Assisted Mental Health Treatments Executive Summary". https://founderspledge.com/stories/psychedelic-assisted-mental-health-treatments-executive-summary.
26. ↑ Paynter, Ben (2018-09-25). "Why nonprofits should be courting entrepreneurs as donors" (in en-US). https://www.fastcompany.com/90240242/why-nonprofits-should-be-courting-entrepreneurs-as-donors.
27. ↑ Schleifer, Theodore (2019-05-28). "MacKenzie Bezos signed the philanthropic commitment her ex-husband spurned" (in en). https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/5/28/18641623/mackenzie-bezos-giving-pledge-philanthropy-jeff-bezos-divorce.
28. ↑ "Members". https://founderspledge.com/members.
29. ↑ Bahat, Roy (2019-10-24). "Announcing Bloomberg Beta’s Third Fund" (in en). https://medium.com/@roybahat/announcing-bloomberg-betas-third-fund-677e5d772ee3.

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