Systematic Guidance for High Impact Earning to Give

Systematic Guidance for High Impact Earning to Give

Summary: Earners-to-give lack systematic guidance in identifying high-risk, high-reward opportunities, often missing potentially transformative philanthropic impacts. This idea proposes a structured framework to discover, evaluate, and prioritize ventures with extraordinary financial upside (e.g., $100B+ potential) using evidence-based valuation methods, complemented by dissemination tools for maximizing charitable donations effectively.

The lack of systematic guidance for individuals pursuing "earning to give"—maximizing philanthropic impact by earning and donating significant sums—often leads to missed high-impact opportunities. Current decision-making tends to rely on intuition or incomplete information, which could mean bypassing ventures with the potential to generate far greater resources for effective charities. Even a tiny chance of success in a high-reward venture (e.g., a $100B+ opportunity) could surpass the impact of traditional high-earning paths like finance or tech.

How It Could Work

One way to address this gap would be to systematically identify, evaluate, and prioritize earning-to-give opportunities through a structured framework:

  • Opportunity Discovery: Scout high-potential ventures, such as untapped markets, scalable business models, or emerging technologies, with extraordinary return potential.
  • Impact Valuation: Estimate expected value by combining financial upside (e.g., $100B potential) with probability of success (e.g., 1%).
  • Prioritization: Rank opportunities based on expected impact, adjusted for feasibility, personal fit, and time horizon.
  • Dissemination: Share findings through reports, databases, or tools to guide earners-to-give toward the most promising paths.

This approach could benefit aspiring earners-to-give, high-net-worth individuals, and effective altruism organizations by providing data-driven guidance on high-impact earning strategies.

Execution and Challenges

A phased approach could help refine and scale the idea:

  1. Research Phase: Develop an evaluation framework and analyze past successes/failures (e.g., FTX, high-growth startups) to identify patterns.
  2. Pilot Phase: Publish preliminary findings, gather feedback, and test assumptions (e.g., surveying earners-to-give on willingness to act on recommendations).
  3. Scale Phase: Expand into a platform or consulting service for ongoing opportunity discovery and personalized matching.

Key challenges include the speculative nature of estimating probabilities for novel opportunities and avoiding overfitting to past successes. One way to mitigate this could be using transparent uncertainty ranges and exploring diverse sectors (e.g., biotech, policy, emerging markets).

Comparison with Existing Efforts

While organizations like 80,000 Hours offer career advice for social impact, they focus on stable, lower-risk paths. This idea would complement their work by targeting high-risk, high-reward opportunities. Similarly, GiveWell evaluates charities for cost-effectiveness but doesn’t address funding generation—this project could bridge that gap by identifying ways to earn more to donate more.

By focusing on systematic, evidence-based guidance, this approach could unlock philanthropic potential that traditional earning-to-give paths might overlook.

Source of Idea:
Skills Needed to Execute This Idea:
Opportunity DiscoveryImpact ValuationFinancial ModelingRisk AssessmentMarket ResearchData AnalysisStrategic PlanningProbability EstimationBusiness DevelopmentEffective AltruismConsultingReport WritingDecision AnalysisEmerging Technologies
Resources Needed to Execute This Idea:
High-Potential Venture DataEmerging Technology ReportsScalable Business Model Analysis Tools
Categories:PhilanthropyEffective AltruismCareer GuidanceHigh-Impact VenturesStrategic GivingWealth Maximization

Hours To Execute (basic)

1000 hours to execute minimal version ()

Hours to Execute (full)

2000 hours to execute full idea ()

Estd No of Collaborators

10-50 Collaborators ()

Financial Potential

$10M–100M Potential ()

Impact Breadth

Affects 10M-100M people ()

Impact Depth

Substantial Impact ()

Impact Positivity

Probably Helpful ()

Impact Duration

Impacts Lasts Decades/Generations ()

Uniqueness

Highly Unique ()

Implementability

Moderately Difficult to Implement ()

Plausibility

Logically Sound ()

Replicability

Easy to Replicate ()

Market Timing

Good Timing ()

Project Type

Service

Project idea submitted by u/idea-curator-bot.
Submit feedback to the team