Founders Pledge

Last updated
Founders Pledge
Founded2015;9 years ago (2015) [1]
FounderDafna Bonas, David Goldberg
TypeNon-profit
Location
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] Inspired by effective altruism, the mission of Founders Pledge is to "empower entrepreneurs to do immense good". [6]

Contents

By May 2023, 1,776 entrepreneurs across 30 countries [3] have signed up to Founders Pledge. Collectively, they have pledged to donate $9.3 billion in share value (of which $891 million in donations have been completed to date). [7]

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]

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:

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:

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Azim Premji</span> Indian business tycoon, investor (born 1945)

Azim Hashim Premji is an Indian businessman and philanthropist, who was the chairman of Wipro Limited. Premji remains a non-executive member of the board and founder chairman. He is informally known as the Czar of the Indian IT Industry. He was responsible for guiding Wipro through four decades of diversification and growth, to finally emerge as one of the global leaders in the software industry. In 2010, he was voted among the 20 most powerful men in the world by Asiaweek. He has twice been listed among the 100 most influential people by Time magazine, once in 2004 and more recently in 2011. For years, he has been regularly listed one among The 500 Most Influential Muslims. He also serves as the Chancellor of Azim Premji University, Bangalore. Premji was awarded Padma Vibhushan, India's second highest civilian award, by the Government of India.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jaan Tallinn</span> Estonian programmer and investor

Jaan Tallinn is an Estonian billionaire computer programmer and investor known for his participation in the development of Skype and file-sharing application FastTrack/Kazaa.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bruce Friedrich</span> American food company founder

Bruce Gregory Friedrich is co-founder and president of The Good Food Institute (GFI), a Y Combinator funded non-profit that promotes plant- and cultivated meat alternatives to conventional animal meat. He is also a co-founder of the alternative protein venture capital firm New Crop Capital. Friedrich previously worked for PETA and Farm Sanctuary.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charity (practice)</span> Voluntary giving of help to those in need

The practice of charity, which is the voluntary provision of assistance to those in need, serves as a humanitarian act, and is unmotivated by self-interest. Various philosophies about charity exist, with frequent associations with religion.

GiveWell is an American non-profit charity assessment and effective altruism-focused organization. GiveWell focuses primarily on the cost-effectiveness of the organizations that it evaluates, rather than traditional metrics such as the percentage of the organization's budget that is spent on overhead.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dustin Moskovitz</span> American billionaire internet entrepreneur (born 1984)

Dustin Aaron Moskovitz is an American billionaire internet entrepreneur who co-founded Facebook, Inc. with Mark Zuckerberg, Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum and Chris Hughes. In 2008, he left Facebook to co-found Asana with Justin Rosenstein. In March 2011, Forbes reported Moskovitz to be the youngest self-made billionaire in the world, on the basis of his then 2.34% share in Facebook. As of October 2023, his net worth is estimated at US$18.0 billion by the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Giving Pledge</span> Charitable organization

The Giving Pledge is a charitable campaign, founded by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, to encourage wealthy people to contribute a majority of their wealth to philanthropic causes. As of June 2022, the pledge has had 236 signatories from 28 countries. Most of the signatories of the pledge are billionaires, and as of 2023, their pledges are estimated at a total of US$600 billion. However, there is no enforcement mechanism, and no restrictions on the charitable causes that signatories are allowed to support.

Giving What We Can (GWWC) is an effective altruism-associated organisation whose members pledge to give at least 10% of their income to effective charities. It was founded at Oxford University in 2009 by the philosopher Toby Ord, physician-in-training Bernadette Young, and fellow philosopher William MacAskill.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Holden Karnofsky</span> American nonprofit executive

Holden Karnofsky is an American nonprofit executive. He is a co-founder and Director of AI Strategy of the research and grantmaking organization Open Philanthropy. Karnofsky co-founded the charity evaluator GiveWell with Elie Hassenfeld in 2007 and is vice chair of its board of directors.

Good Ventures is a private foundation and philanthropic organization in San Francisco, and the fifth largest foundation in Silicon Valley. It was co-founded by Cari Tuna, a former Wall Street Journal reporter, and her husband Dustin Moskovitz, one of the co-founders of Facebook. Good Ventures adheres to principles of Effective Altruism and aims to spend most or all of its money before Moskovitz and Tuna die. Good Ventures does not have any full-time staff, and instead distributes grants according to recommendations from Open Philanthropy.

Effective altruism (EA) is a 21st-century philosophical and social movement that advocates "using evidence and reason to figure out how to benefit others as much as possible, and taking action on that basis". People who pursue the goals of effective altruism, sometimes called effective altruists, may choose careers based on the amount of good that they expect the career to achieve or donate to charities based on the goal of maximising positive impact. They may work on the prioritization of scientific projects, entrepreneurial ventures, and policy initiatives estimated to save the most lives or reduce the most suffering.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">80,000 Hours</span> Non-profit organisation that conducts research on which jobs have most positive social impact

80,000 Hours is a London-based nonprofit organisation that conducts research on which careers have the largest positive social impact and provides career advice based on that research. It provides this advice on their website and podcast, and through one-on-one advice sessions. The organisation is part of the Centre for Effective Altruism, affiliated with the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics. The organisation's name refers to the typical amount of time someone spends working over a lifetime.

Earning to give involves deliberately pursuing a high-earning career for the purpose of donating a significant portion of earned income, typically because of a desire to do effective altruism. Advocates of earning to give contend that maximizing the amount one can donate to charity is an important consideration for individuals when deciding what career to pursue.

GivingTuesday, often stylized as #GivingTuesday for the purposes of hashtag activism, is the Tuesday after Thanksgiving in the United States. It is touted as a "global generosity movement unleashing the power of people and organizations to transform their communities and the world". The organization of the same name is an independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit that supports the global movement.

<i>Doing Good Better</i> 2015 book about effective altruism by William MacAskill

Doing Good Better: Effective Altruism and How You Can Make a Difference is a 2015 book by William MacAskill that serves as a primer on the effective altruism movement that seeks to do the most good. It is published by Random House and was released on July 28, 2015.

Jim Greenbaum is a former telecom entrepreneur who made a fortune through his telecom company Access Long Distance, and then switched to full-time philanthropy through his foundation, the Greenbaum Foundation.

The Humane League (THL) is an international nonprofit organization that works to end the abuse of animals raised for food through corporate, media and community outreach. It operates in the United States, Mexico, the UK and Japan. THL promotes plant-based diets, conducts research on the effectiveness of different interventions, and works to obtain animal welfare commitments from companies. It was founded in 2005 in Philadelphia by Nick Cooney.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Effective Altruism Global</span> Recurring effective altruism conference

Effective Altruism Global, abbreviated EA Global or EAG, is a series of philanthropy conferences that focuses on the effective altruism movement. The conferences are run by the Centre for Effective Altruism. Huffington Post editor Nico Pitney described the events as a gathering of "nerd altruists", which was "heavy on people from technology, science, and analytical disciplines".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Good Food Institute</span> Nonprofit promoting animal product alternatives

The Good Food Institute (GFI) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that promotes plant- and cell-based alternatives to animal products, particularly meat, dairy, and eggs. It was created in 2016 by the nonprofit organization Mercy For Animals with Bruce Friedrich as the chief executive officer. GFI has more than 150 staff across six affiliates in the United States, India, Israel, Brazil, Asia Pacific, and Europe. GFI was one of Animal Charity Evaluators' four "top charities" of 2022.

References

  1. "Forbes" . Retrieved 15 December 2019.
  2. "Founders Pledge Homepage". Founders Pledge. Retrieved 12 May 2023.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 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. 1 2 "Home". Founders Pledge. Retrieved 2019-12-16.
  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. Fallon, Harriet Marsden, Katy (2016-07-10). "More of the best New Radicals 2016". The Guardian. ISSN   0261-3077 . Retrieved 2019-12-16.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  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. 1 2 Shead, Sam. "Facebook's little-known billionaire cofounder is funding a London charity". Business Insider. Retrieved 2019-12-16.
  16. "Founders Pledge — General Support". Open Philanthropy. 2016-10-14. Retrieved 2019-12-16.
  17. "Founders Pledge — General Support (2018)". Open Philanthropy. 2018-01-24. Retrieved 2019-12-16.
  18. "Community". Founders Pledge. Retrieved 2019-12-17.
  19. "How It Works". Founders Pledge. Retrieved 2019-12-17.
  20. "Research". Founders Pledge. Retrieved 2019-12-16.
  21. "The difficulty with the EU's sustainable investment rules". Financial Times. Retrieved 2019-12-16.
  22. Samuel, Sigal (2019-12-02). "Want to fight climate change effectively? Here's where to donate your money". Vox. Retrieved 2019-12-16.
  23. Piper, Kelsey (2019-06-13). "Is climate change an "existential threat" — or just a catastrophic one?". Vox. Retrieved 2019-12-16.
  24. 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.
  25. Goth, Aidan; Hoeijmakers, Sjir (2020-09-25). "Psychedelic-Assisted Mental Health Treatments Executive Summary". Founders Pledge. Retrieved 2020-12-04.
  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.