Hi there,

A quick thought experiment

Imagine you’re walking by a pond and you see a child drowning. You’re wearing an expensive suit and you have your iPhone in your pocket. You can jump in and rescue the child but you’d ruin your suit and your iPhone. What do you do?

If you’re like most people, the answer is quite clear: you jump in and rescue the child.

Singer then points out that we are all in this position every day: money that we spend on new clothes, iPhones, or other personal items could instead be sent to charities that are saving lives.

Just $5, for example, is enough to buy a bednet to protect around two people from malaria for two years…a disease that causes around 600,000 deaths per year.

By the way, this isn’t to say you should never shop…or to make you feel guilty about spending on everyday items. We all have to live in the world we live in, and it’s okay to spend money on ourselves sometimes. But awareness that we do, in fact, have a choice where to spend our money….that can be very motivating. And eye-opening.

So what does Singer’s shallow pond experiment have to do with the “drop in the bucket” object to charity?

Well, let’s consider that there are ponds like the one in Singer’s thought experiment all over. You can’t possibly walk by all of them, but you can walk by some of them. Would you still choose to rescue the children you do walk by?

Most people likely would. And if you aren’t sure, consider that this child you can rescue has parents, grandparents, friends, and other loved ones. Put another way, if someone decided not to rescue my child because it was impossible to rescue all children, I don’t think I’d be on board with that line of thinking!

The point here is that it is surprisingly easy to be distracted by looking at our impact in relative terms. But it is our impact in absolute terms that matters.

There are so many evidence-based, life-saving interventions that simply don’t have enough funding to reach everyone who needs them. By helping fund these interventions, we could save many lives over our lifetime.

That seems like an opportunity worth taking, at least to me!

Okay, so let me get off my soapbox and introduce today’s resource, which dives into some common concerns about charitable giving like the “drop in the bucket” objection — concerns that bring up valid points, but which would often benefit from deeper examination before letting them stop the conversation completely.

Have a look and then reflect: what concerns have stopped you from donating in the past? Is there anything right now? I'd love to know if you want to hit reply and tell me.

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