Founders Pledge

English charitable non-profit

Founders Pledge

Founded| 2015; 10 years ago (2015)[1]
Founder| Dafna Bonas, David Goldberg
Type| Non-profit
Location|

* London, England

Area served

| Global
Membership| 1,776 (May 2023)[2]
Website| founderspledge.com

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

By October 2024, 1,970 entrepreneurs across 30 countries[3] have signed up to Founders Pledge. Collectively, they have pledged to donate $10.3 billion in share value (of which $1.4 billion in donations have been completed to date).[7]

## History

[edit]

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 work of 80,000 Hours 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]

In 2023, Founders Pledge moved $168 million to the charitable sector on a budget of $8.2 million, implying an ROI of over 20:1.[15][16]

## Activities

[edit]

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 organizing events to educate members on evidence-backed impact strategies.[17]
* Second, they provide administrative support with donations and offer a donor-advised fund.[18]
* Third, Founders Pledge conducts research on high-leverage giving opportunities and advises its members on where to give based on their personal values.[3][19]

### Research

[edit]

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,[20]
* climate change,[21][22]
* evidence-based policy,[23]
* animal welfare,
* mental health,[24]
* and the mitigation of catastrophic risks.[25]

## Members

[edit]

Entrepreneurs signing up to Founders Pledge enter a 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[29]
* Kathryn Petralia, Co-founder and COO of Kabbage

## See also

[edit]

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

## References

[edit]

1. ^ "Forbes". Retrieved 15 December 2019.
2. ^ "Founders Pledge Homepage". Founders Pledge. Retrieved 12 May 2023.
3. ^ a b c d e Bell, Douglas. "The Radical Founders Raising Billions For Charity - Is This A New Social Movement?". Forbes. Archived from the original on August 29, 2019. Retrieved 2019-12-15.
4. ^ Rovnick, Naomi (2016-05-06). "Wealthy millennials explore venture philanthropy". Financial Times. Retrieved 2019-12-16.
5. ^ Schultz, Abby. "The Age of Moonshots". www.barrons.com. Retrieved 2019-12-16.
6. ^ "About Us". Founders Pledge. Retrieved 2019-12-16.
7. ^ a b "Home". Founders Pledge. Retrieved 2024-10-25.
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. Retrieved 2019-12-16.
9. ^ "One of the most exciting new effective altruist organizations: An interview with David Goldberg of the Founders Pledge". 80,000 Hours. 2015-11-26. Retrieved 2019-12-16.
10. ^ Marsden, Harriet; Fallon, Katy (2016-07-10). "More of the best New Radicals 2016". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2019-12-16.
11. ^ Shead, Sam. "Germany's multimillionaire startup founders are being encouraged to donate to worthwhile causes". Business Insider. Retrieved 2019-12-16.
12. ^ "Y Combinator signs up to Founders Pledge charity scheme for social causes". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2019-12-16.
13. ^ Partners, Forward (2018-02-07). "Our pre-seed termsheet". Medium. Retrieved 2019-12-16.
14. ^ Altman, Sam. "YC and Founders Pledge". Y Combinator. Retrieved 2019-12-16.
15. ^ "Our most impactful year yet". Founders Pledge. Retrieved 2024-10-25.
16. ^ "Our most impactful year yet". Founders Pledge. Retrieved 2024-10-25.
17. ^ "Community". Founders Pledge. Retrieved 2019-12-17.
18. ^ "How It Works". Founders Pledge. Retrieved 2019-12-17.
19. ^ "Research". Founders Pledge. Retrieved 2019-12-16.
20. ^ "The difficulty with the EU's sustainable investment rules". Financial Times. Retrieved 2019-12-16.
21. ^ Samuel, Sigal (2019-12-02). "Want to fight climate change effectively? Here's where to donate your money". Vox. Retrieved 2019-12-16.
22. ^ Piper, Kelsey (2019-06-13). "Is climate change an "existential threat" — or just a catastrophic one?". Vox. Retrieved 2019-12-16.
23. ^ Neal, Meagan (2018-12-21). "It's hard to design good policies. This simple idea can help governments do it". Vox. Retrieved 2019-12-16.
24. ^ Goth, Aidan; Hoeijmakers, Sjir (2020-09-25). "Psychedelic-Assisted Mental Health Treatments Executive Summary". Founders Pledge. Retrieved 2020-12-04.
25. ^ "Global Catastrophic Risks Fund". www.founderspledge.com. Retrieved 2024-10-25.
26. ^ Paynter, Ben (2018-09-25). "Why nonprofits should be courting entrepreneurs as donors". Fast Company. Retrieved 2019-12-16.
27. ^ Schleifer, Theodore (2019-05-28). "MacKenzie Bezos signed the philanthropic commitment her ex-husband spurned". Vox. Retrieved 2019-12-16.
28. ^ "Members". Founders Pledge. Retrieved 2019-12-16.
29. ^ Shead, Sam. "Facebook's little-known billionaire cofounder is funding a London charity". Business Insider. Retrieved 2019-12-16.

## External links

[edit]

* Official website

* v
* t
* e

Effective altruism

Concepts|

* Aid effectiveness
* Charity assessment
* Demandingness objection
* Disability-adjusted life year
* Disease burden
* Distributional cost-effectiveness analysis
* Earning to give
* Equal consideration of interests
* Incremental cost-effectiveness ratio
* Longtermism
* Marginal utility
* Moral circle expansion
* Psychological barriers to effective altruism
* Quality-adjusted life year
* Utilitarianism
* Venture philanthropy

Key figures|

* Sam Bankman-Fried
* Liv Boeree
* Nick Bostrom
* Hilary Greaves
* Holden Karnofsky
* William MacAskill
* Dustin Moskovitz
* Yew-Kwang Ng
* Toby Ord
* Derek Parfit
* Kelsey Piper
* Peter Singer
* Brian Tomasik
* Cari Tuna
* Eliezer Yudkowsky

Organizations|

* 80,000 Hours
* Against Malaria Foundation
* Animal Charity Evaluators
* Animal Ethics
* Centre for Effective Altruism
* Centre for Enabling EA Learning & Research
* Center for High Impact Philanthropy
* Centre for the Study of Existential Risk
* Development Media International
* Evidence Action
* Faunalytics
* Fistula Foundation
* Future of Humanity Institute
* Future of Life Institute
* Founders Pledge
* GiveDirectly
* GiveWell
* Giving Multiplier
* Giving What We Can
* Good Food Fund
* The Good Food Institute
* Good Ventures
* The Humane League
* Mercy for Animals
* Machine Intelligence Research Institute
* Malaria Consortium
* Open Philanthropy
* Raising for Effective Giving
* Sentience Institute
* Unlimit Health
* Wild Animal Initiative

Focus areas|

* Biotechnology risk
* Climate change
* Cultured meat
* Economic stability
* Existential risk from artificial general intelligence
* Global catastrophic risk
* Global health
* Global poverty
* Intensive animal farming
* Land use reform
* Life extension
* Malaria prevention
* Mass deworming
* Neglected tropical diseases
* Risk of astronomical suffering
* Wild animal suffering

Literature|

* Doing Good Better
* The End of Animal Farming
* Famine, Affluence, and Morality
* The Life You Can Save
* Living High and Letting Die
* The Most Good You Can Do
* Practical Ethics
* The Precipice
* Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies
* What We Owe the Future

Events|

* Effective Altruism Global

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