Giving What We Can in Canada

Giving What We Can is an international community of effective givers who are on a mission to make giving effectively and significantly a cultural norm. They’re best known for The Giving What We Can Pledge to donate at least 10% of their income to highly effective charities.

Giving What We Can was founded in 2009 by two philosophers from Oxford University (Toby Ord and Will MacAskill), and is at the origins of the effective altruism movement. They have more than 8,000 members who’ve given over 250 million dollars and pledged over 3 billion to effective charities.

Many of the Canadian members of Giving What We Can (including RC Forward staff) make their donations through RC Forward for several reasons:

• RC Forward aims to make effective giving easy, through featuring high-impact charities and funds on our platform and by offering low-fee payment methods.
• To choose which charities we feature on RC Forward, we rely on the research of GiveWell, Animal Charity Evaluators, Founders Pledge, and The Life You Can Save, which are among the evaluators that Giving What We Can also uses to determine charity recommendations.
• Donors can recommend support up to 6 charities or funds at once when giving through RC Forward.
• Donations made through RC Forward are eligible for Canadian donation receipts, estimate the value of your credits with our calculator.

Giving What We Can recommends charities and funds working on important global problems, across a range of causes. These causes include animal welfare, global health and development, and the long-term future.

Through RC Forward, you can make a tax-deductible donation from Canada that is recommended for most of the charities and some of the funds currently recommended by Giving What We Can in 2022.

Below are Giving What We Can’s currently recommended expert-advised funds as of December 2022.

Note: Keep in mind that RC Forward also has cause area funds (Global Health, Human Empowerment, Animal Welfare, Climate Change, Long-Term Future), in some cases advised by the same experts overseeing the GWWC recommended funds.

Below are Giving What We Can’s currently recommended charities as of December 2022.

Would you like to learn more about Giving What We Can? Have you taken The Giving What We Can Pledge and would you like to have contact with other Canadian effective givers? Do you have any other questions? Contact us to start the conversation.