EFFECTIVE ALTRUISM

CHAPTER STARTER PACKET

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STARTER PACKET
For Effective Altruism Chapters

So you want to start an Effective Altruism (EA) chapter. Awesome! This packet is designed to guide you through
the process. The following advice assumes that you will be a university-based chapter, but the large majority of
it is still relevant to any kind of chapter. We’d all like to see you succeed, so please feel free to contact us for
further assistance or if you have any questions.

Note that this packet is just to get you started. You should check out our chapter resources Google Drive where
you will find many helpful documents to help you create and run a chapter. Please feel free to add files to the
Google Drive that you think may be helpful to other chapters, so long as you keep it tidy! We also highly
recommend Ben Kuhn's blog post series on what he learned from running the incredibly successful Harvard
Chapter – read it now if you haven't yet.

CONTENTS
Contents .................................................................................................................................................. 2
What is an EA chapter? ........................................................................................................................... 3
Goals: beginning with the end in mind ................................................................................................... 3
How to start a GWWC chapter in 7 steps ............................................................................................... 3
Building a core team ........................................................................................................................... 4
Example timetable (Fall launch; university chapter) .......................................................................... 5
How to run a successful event ................................................................................................................ 6
Advertising for events ......................................................................................................................... 7
Talking about GWWC .............................................................................................................................. 7
Background information ..................................................................................................................... 7
Conversations ..................................................................................................................................... 9
Overcoming objections in 5 steps ....................................................................................................... 9
Running an effective committee........................................................................................................... 11
Committee meetings ........................................................................................................................ 11
How to delegate well ........................................................................................................................ 12
Interacting with the media ................................................................................................................... 12
FAQ........................................................................................................................................................ 13
Contacts ................................................................................................................................................ 14

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WHAT IS AN EA CHAPTER?
A chapter is simply a group of local EA supporters who:

1. Meet to discuss effective giving, the Giving What We Can Pledge, and make friends with like-minded
people
2. Spread EA’s message to new audiences

GOALS: BEGINNING WITH THE END IN MIND

Before embarking on a long-term project like this, it makes sense to get very clear on what we’re trying to do,
and how we will measure our progress. Effective Altruism chapters encourage more people to think about the
effectiveness of their charitable activities, and they spread the message that you can do an incredible amount
of good by thinking carefully about how to maximise your impact. Excellent ways to make a difference are
donating to highly effective charities, or choosing a high-impact career path.

You could therefore try to measure the long-term progress of your chapter by looking at several indicators:

 Number of people who have taken the Giving What We Can Pledge
 Additional money donated to highly effective charities
 Amount of donations redirected to more effective charities
 Significant career plan changes (see 80000hours.org)

Though these indicators will be imperfect measures of impact, they will give us some idea about how effective
our efforts have been. As you plan your work, think about how what you’re doing is related to your ultimate
goals.

HOW TO START AN EA CHAPTER IN 7 STEPS

1. FIND A CORE GROUP OF INTERESTED PEOPLE AND DECIDE TO LAUNCH
Quality over quantity is a good rule of thumb - it is probably preferable to have 2-3 very dedicated
people rather than 10 who can “help out”. A good time to decide to launch is a few months in advance.

2. PLAN YOUR LAUNCH EVENT

We’ve had success using large public lectures as our launch events. If you plan to do the same, look for
a speaker who a) can give a talk broadly in line with EA’s mission, b) is a good presenter, and c) is likely
to draw a sizable crowd. We’ve had success featuring philosophers Peter Singer and Larry Temkin, and
economist Jeffrey Sachs. Looking for a speaker early is a good idea, so you can coordinate his or her
schedule with room or venue availabilities. There are speaker recommendations in the Google Drive.
If starting out with a large event sounds daunting, it can be a good idea to organise a more low-key
event first, to build your skills and gauge how many people an event is likely to attract. An easy event
to organise is showing Peter Singer's TED talk about effective altruism, followed by a Q&A.

3. ADVERTISE THE EVENT

We suggest you get the word out to as many people as you can. There are many ways to get the word
out, such as: creating a Facebook event and inviting your Friends, setting up posters, making class
announcements, emailing listservs, and enlisting the help of a press office. If you can, get a professor
to offer class credit for attending your event.

4. LAUNCH!
The key to executing a smooth launch event is ample preparation. Set up your room and equipment
well in advance of the scheduled time, and double-check that your core team know their roles (like

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 giving people directions, seating people, striking up conversations after the talk). It is also important
when planning to allocate extra time for each part of the event, because people may show up late,
speakers may run overtime, etc.
The parts of an event may include: a) a welcome speech by a core organizer (thanking those that helped
make the event happen, saying a few words about EA, and introducing the speaker); b) the talk; c) a
Q&A with the speaker; d) a brief closing speech (thanking the speaker, letting people know there is
food, making announcements for future events); and e) post-talk mingling.
Distributing questionnaires to your audience can help in gathering information useful to future
organizing, such as information about their backgrounds, their experience of the event, and their
interest in taking action (helping out with the chapter, taking the pledge, and so on).

5. HOST A FOLLOW-UP MEETING SHORTLY AFTER THE LAUNCH EVENT

Keeping the momentum from the launch event is crucial. While people are thinking about your and
your speaker’s messages, and how to get involved, you’ll want to host an event that will do two things:
let you say a bit more about GWWC, and get people involved with the organization. GWWC: Rutgers’
follow-up event involved 3 core members giving presentations on common myths about development
aid, assessing cost-effectiveness of interventions, and the relationship between giving and
happiness. But you could also just have a short presentation on EA’s main messages and then a
discussion; audience interaction is valuable. For getting people involved with the organization, you’ll
want to mention some concrete actions they can take, like taking the pledge, volunteering to help with
future organizing, and bringing friends to events.
When your event is over, don’t forget to promptly thank your volunteers and anyone else who helped
you along the way. A quick thank-you e-mail will go a long way the next time you ask for their help.

6. ENGAGE WITH MEDIA

If you and your core members take a Giving What We Can Pledge (especially the Further Pledge), that’s
not only awesome, but newsworthy. If you’re a student, it also reflects well on your institution, so
speak with your institution’s press office about sharing your story with the media, especially local
newspapers. The Oxford, Rutgers, and Princeton chapters had great press coverage for their founders’
Further Pledges, landing stories in major newspapers and on national television. If media attention is
attracted before your launch event, use the opportunity to advertise the event. Oh, and if you haven’t
had media training, there are many reasons not to worry: a) we didn’t have media training either; b)
interviewers for this kind of story are on your side and will help you look good; c) we have tips for you
later in this document; and d) we can even provide media relations training, if you’re so inclined.

BUILDING A CORE TEAM

When starting a new EA Chapter, the first thing you’ll want to do is to find a group of committed people to help
you along the way. This is important because you’ll be more confident in your decisions if you can run them by
some people working alongside you; and you’ll stay motivated if you have people working with you and counting
on you to do your part. It's much more important to have two or three core, committed team members (which
is usually enough to run a chapter) than to attract large numbers of helpers who may not be as reliable.

Who should you ask to join you? Here are some options that have worked well in the past:

 Current members of Giving What We Can that live near you. Ask a Giving What We Can chapter
coordinator to check if there are any.
 Philosophical utilitarians/consequentialists that you know personally.
 Friends/acquaintances who you think are likely to want to help.

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  Quantitatively inclined people that you know personally, like math/physics folks.
 Philosophical utilitarians/consequentialists that live in your vicinity. You might seek these people
through contacts at a philosophy department.

The next step is to ask the contacts you just got on board to go through the same process as you. Hopefully,
they can find some additional people to help you out.

What do you do once you have a core team? Have your first committee meeting, with the purpose of creating
a gameplan. The gameplan will outline your approach to each of the steps in starting the chapter - finding a
speaker, enlisting volunteers, and so on - and may include:

 A timeline, with estimates for when things should be done by. Note that things tend to take longer
than expected (even when we’re aware of this).
 An organizational structure, so that each person knows his or her role. It could be very structured,
with a Project Leader, Secretary, Treasurer, Volunteer Coordinator, Advertising Specialist, and so on. Or
it could be fairly unstructured - e.g. one person does most of the emailing, and each person takes
responsibility for tasks as they arise, depending on what they’d like to do.
 A division of tasks or action plan, listing the first actions to take for each step, and who will do them.

EXAMPLE TIMETABLE (FALL LAUNCH; UNIVERSITY CHAPTER)

This is an example time-table for starting a University Chapter during a Fall semester. You shouldn’t feel that
you have to follow this schedule exactly. It is very feasible to get started in the middle of a semester, but it is
easier if you get started early.

All dates are presented in month/day format.

1. FIND A CORE GROUP OF INTERESTED PEOPLE AND DECIDE TO LAUNCH 7/1-7/20

 Contact friends that may be willing to help 7/1
 Meet with those friends to discuss EA and a timeline 7/10
 Have this group reach out to additional contacts 7/11
 Research student organization policies and procedures at your university 7/11
 Meet again to finalize the decision to launch, assign roles, prepare an official timeline, and
create a list of potential speakers 7/20
2. FIND A SPEAKER 7/21 to 9/1
 E-mail potential speakers, wait for replies, try again, etc. 7/21 to 9/1
3. ENLIST VOLUNTEER HELP 9/1 to 9/15
 Request support from department
 Start an official student organization
 Participate in “getting involved” events at your university
 Have a “welcome meeting” for volunteers and early contacts
4. ADVERTISE THE EVENT 9/15 to 10/15
 Meet with volunteers to discuss your advertising strategy and delegate responsibilities 9/15
 Create posters (templates available in the EA chapter folder) 9/15 to 9/22
 E-mail professors about class visits 9/23
 Create chapter website (speak with your chapter coordinator if you need help) 9/25
 Create Facebook event 10/1
 Put up posters 10/1
 Visit classes 10/1 to 10/15
 Participate in “getting involved” events at your university

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 5. LAUNCH! 10/15
 Reserve a space 9/1
 Visit the space to confirm suitability 9/2
 Plan the program for the launch event 9/15
 Find someone to film your launch event (optional) 9/15
 Order refreshments (if you choose to have them) 10/1
 Get volunteers to host the event (EA representatives, ushers) 10/1
 Create “day of” checklist 10/5
 Planning meeting with GWWC reps/ushers 10/8
 Launch event! 10/15
6. HOST A FOLLOW-UP MEETING SHORTLY AFTER THE LAUNCH EVENT 10/16
 Reserve a space 9/15
 Create Facebook event 10/1
 Reminder at launch event 10/15
 Follow-up event 10/16
 E-mail/Call contacts from launch event 10/16
7. ENGAGE WITH MEDIA 9/15 to 11/1
 Contact the press office at your university to discuss a media plan 9/15
 Post News Advisory to appropriate media outlet for immediate release 10/10
 Be available for interviews, contact Giving What We Can for advice if an interview is scheduled
10/15 to 11/1

HOW TO RUN A SUCCESSFUL EVENT

 Have one person be the “project leader” for that event. If one person feels “in charge,” that person
is more likely to make sure that all the necessary steps get taken so that the event goes smoothly. If it
goes badly, it will seem like their responsibility, and this will be a powerful motivator.
 If you aren’t familiar with the site of the event, check it out in advance. You don’t want to have a hard
time finding it the day of the event, and you don’t want to find out that they don’t actually have a
screen for your PowerPoint presentation.
 If you are hosting a large event, arrive one hour early. You’d be surprised how many things will come
up at the last second.
 If you are hosting a large event, create a checklist of everything that needs to happen. Is the camera
in place? Is the projector working? Are your ushers in place? Did the refreshments arrive? Is the
seating arranged properly? Did you put up your banner? Do you have your surveys on each seat (see
below)?
 If you are hosting a large event, get people to act as ushers. Ask these people to arrive 45 minutes
early and make sure each person knows what is expected of him/her. Ask these people to stay after
the event and start conversations with people that stick around. Often, people that stick around after
events to talk with you will be interested in getting involved with EA. Let these people read the sections
on “How to Talk about EA,” “Overcoming Objections in Five Steps,” and “Background about EA.”
 Ensure that you have an opportunity to talk to the event attendees after the event, there is room in
the chapter budget for providing refreshments after events.
 Print surveys in advance and have people fill them out so that you can 1) get contact information from
interested people, and 2) get feedback about how well your event is working. (there are survey
templates in the Google Drive)

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  After the event, thank your volunteers and debrief. This means talking about what went well or poorly
(but mostly talk about what went well) and assigning responsibilities for following up with your new
contacts.
 Submit an event report to central Giving What We Can. Go to this form to input the results. This
benefits you because it makes you think about how well your event went in objective terms, and it
benefits GWWC because we gain knowledge about which events work and which don’t, and we have a
repository of events to look at when we need ideas for what to do next.
 Call or e-mail your new contacts the next day, inviting them to an event or to have lunch with a GWWC
member to talk about taking the 10% pledge or getting involved with your organization.

ADVERTISING FOR EVENTS

Here are some brief recommendations about advertising.

1. Definitely make a Facebook event.

2. Definitely email as many listservs as possible.
3. If you can afford the time, make posters.
4. Email professors asking them to advertise your event to their classes. They will often say yes if you've
made the effort of writing a personal, high-quality email to them.
5. If possible, get Professors to offer extra credit for coming to your event.
6. Fliers have been, in our experience, not worth the amount of time they take.

If you try other methods of advertising, then please let us know whether or not they work

And don’t be disheartened if you get a small audience – it often means that each person is much more likely to
ask questions and talk to you at the end.

TALKING ABOUT EA
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
THE MAIN MESSAGE
It’s possible to do huge amounts of good in the world for very little cost to oneself. One can do this by giving
more and giving better.

We estimate that the average person who joins Giving What We Can will donate roughly $70,000 to the most
effective charities. (This figure takes into account the fact that some people will stop donating and that some
members will, unfortunately, not donate to the most effective charities.) This amounts to saving over 40 lives
through preventing malaria, or producing approximately 700 years of healthy life by deworming schoolchildren
(+ 20,000 extra years of school attendance). That’s impressive!

GIVING MORE
Industrialised countries (both individuals and governments) give less than 0.4% of their national income to
development aid. That’s four dollars for every thousand earned.

We overestimate how much a change in income will affect our well-being, because we tend to forget about all
the positive aspects of our lives that we will still have and forget to take into account that, the higher our income,

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the more expensive our tastes become. Psychological research suggests that once you reach a sufficient level of
income to provide for your basic needs and occasional luxuries, additional income no longer increases happiness.
There is also evidence to suggest that those who spend money altruistically feel happier after they have done
so (the “warm glow” effect).

Finally, it is worth knowing that if your salary is over £25 000 (~ $40 000) then you are in the richest 1% of the
world’s population!

GIVING BETTER
Most charity evaluators focus on what turn out to be fairly irrelevant details, such as the percentage of charity
expenditure that goes on administration costs. Rather, the important question is: for every dollar given to the
charity, how much benefit do people receive?

The main sources of economic research in order to answer that question are:

 GiveWell
 WHO-CHOICE (part of the World Health Organisation)
 The Disease Control Priorities Project (DCP2, a World Bank project)
 The Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab
 The Copenhagen Consensus Centre

The most cost-effective charities that we currently know of are deworming charities, such as Schistosomiasis
Control Initiative (SCI) and Deworm the World (DtW), and the Against Malaria Foundation. You may also hear
“deworming” referred to as treatment of Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs). They don’t affect people in
developed countries; having them is hard to empathise with. So they are chronically underfunded, even though
they are incredibly cheap to treat (between $0.12 and $0.50 per person treated). Parasitic worms infect over 1
billion people worldwide and result in physical and cognitive impairment, anaemia, liver damage, malnutrition,
loss of earnings (someone suffering from a hookworm infection has a 40% lower expected income) and
sometimes death. One influential study found deworming to be the most cost-effective education program, as
well as an extremely cost-effective health program. The DCP2 estimates that it costs $3.41 (US dollars in 2005)
to avert one DALY (produce one QALY) through deworming. The NHS in the UK spends more than this (£2.30) to
produce one hour of life at full health!

USEFUL FIGURES & CONCEPTS

 QALYs (Quality-Adjusted Life-Years) are a way of measuring benefit that take into account benefits both
from extending someone’s life, and by making someone’s life of higher quality when it is lived; one
QALY is equivalent to one year of life lived at full health. This metric is used by the National Health
Service in the UK.
 DALYs (Disability-Adjusted Life-Years) are basically the opposite of QALYs, so that helping people live
longer and healthier lives involves averting DALYs. For example, Blindness has a disability weight of 0.6
so curing one person’s blindness for one year would avert 0.6 DALYs. Extending a blind person’s life for
4 years would avert 2.4 DALYs. The DALY metric is used by DCP2 and WHO-CHOICE.
 Saving a life is equivalent to producing approximately 30 QALYs (based on life expectancy, at what age
you save a person’s life, how healthy the rest of a person’s life will be etc.).
 Based on GiveWell’s research, we estimate that it costs approximately $1600 to save a life by donating
to the Against Malaria Foundation.
 The median income in the UK (among taxpayers) is £18 500 pre-tax for 2007/8 (most recent figures
available) and the mean is £25 000 pre-tax for 2007/8.

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CONVERSATIONS
Having a conversation about EA can be tricky. Moreover, people often suffer from dissonance between their
thought and actions: they know they aren’t doing as much as they believe they should be doing about global
poverty, and so can be hostile to the suggestion that they could improve the way they act.

So here are some pointers that we have found come in useful when discussing EA with others, both in academic
and more informal settings. The summary message is to make the whole experience as pleasant as possible for
both parties.

BE POSITIVE
 Often, global poverty is discussed in negative terms: how great the suffering is; how huge the problem
is. This can be demotivating: the thought that one can help towards only a small part of the problem
of global poverty can make one think there’s no point.
 Better, therefore, is to focus on the positive side: not on how bad the problem is, but on how much,
in absolute terms, one can do towards solving it.
 Being enthusiastic, rather than reluctant, about giving turns it into something that other people want
to do. It helps to make the idea seem normal and obvious.

BE RELATIVIST
 No-one likes sanctimony, and no-one likes to feel that they are being preached to, by someone
imposing their idiosyncratic ethical beliefs onto others. In particular, some people object if giving is
dressed up in moral language: that one has a duty to give; or that one should be blamed if one doesn’t
give.
 In truth, one doesn’t need to use moral language at all. Most people genuinely want to help other
people, and think it personally very important to make a real positive impact on the world. You are is
explaining an opportunity that those in developed countries have: the opportunity to save hundreds of
lives. In this sense, you show people a way to do something that, when they reflect on the issue, is
what they really want to do.

KNOW WHEN TO MOVE ON

 Some people just aren’t interested, and won’t ever be convinced. This is true even of people who
profess to have ethical commitments that entail that they should be giving more. Only a small
percentage of people are likely to be interested in joining.
 It can be demoralizing to pursue it with people who really aren’t interested (especially if they are
hostile). Don’t judge, but just move the conversation on to a new topic.

OVERCOMING OBJECTIONS IN 5 STEPS

In this section, we present a formula for overcoming objections and explain why it works.

Suppose you are talking to someone about GWWC after an event that was just put on, and suppose the person
you’re talking to raises the following objection:

Objection: Whether or not you and I decide to give 10% or even 100% of our income away, poverty
isn’t going to go away any time soon.

And now consider two responses:

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 Direct Response: Why should we care about ‘solving the problem’? All we should care about is
the absolute level of benefit that we give people. And giving 10% is doing more benefit than
anything else.

Persuasive Response: I understand how you feel--many people I talk to feel the same way. Even
if you and I could save a few lives each or a few hundred lives each, we aren’t going to change the
fact that a 1.4 billion people live on less than $1.25/day. Is that what you’re getting at? [Wait for
reply...”Yeah, that’s what I mean. We can’t change that.”] Right. Many people in GWWC felt the
same way originally, including me. Then I thought about it more, and I found that for me, I didn’t
need to be the one who swept away all the poverty in the world to make a difference. So I started
giving to Deworm the World, and I’ve paid for 10,000 kids to get treated for parasitic worms. I
haven’t really changed the world, but I feel really good about making a difference in those people’s
lives. Do you know what I mean? [Wait for reply.]

The first response has the details right--it gets right to the heart of things. But it won’t persuade--the person
you’re talking to will feel like you’re arguing with them, and that you haven’t really understood their objection.

The second response is better in several ways:

1. It acknowledges the truth in the objection. This makes the other person feel like you’re on his side,
that you’re similar to him, and that you can be trusted. When you go on to explain what’s wrong with
the objection, the person will feel more like he is coming the conclusion himself.
2. It repeats the objection. If you don’t repeat back the person’s point, you risk that person thinking that
you haven’t really responded to his objection. This happens very frequently because people often don’t
know exactly what their objection was.
3. There is a check for understanding at the end. This way, you can find out whether the person was
convinced. This is a good way to draw out more objections, to get to the heart of what is preventing
someone from moving forward.

However, effective persuaders do not stop by answering a particular objection. They continue with the process:

4. Address further objections. If you get another objection, repeat the process. If you keep getting
objections and don’t get anywhere, change the subject. If that doesn’t work, exit the conversation.
5. Redirect the conversation. If the person is persuaded (“that makes sense”, “yeah, OK”), then redirect
the conversation to something useful. For example, you might ask, “So here’s a question: If you were
going to give to a charity, how would you decide which to give to?” Try to redirect using open-ended
questions that get the person thinking about important things.

If you incorporate these five steps, you will quickly become skilled at overcoming objections.

Let’s look at one more example illustrating the 5-step method.

Objection: But won’t giving 10% make my children worse off than they would have been? I’m not
willing to do that to my kids.

Direct Response: If you give 10%, you’ll still be in the richest [e.g.] 1.5% of the world’s
population. Do you think it’s really legitimate for your kids to be complaining that they aren’t in
the richest 1.2%?

Persuasive Response: I understand how you feel. Many of the people in GWWC have families or
want to have families in the future, and we used to worry about the same things. I don’t want to
make any sacrifices on my kid’s behalf--that’s what you’re getting at, right? Yeah, I feel the same
way. When I thought about it more, I realized that people have been raising families and giving

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 10% to charity for a really long time. Tithing is an ancient tradition, and people who tithe tend to
find that their families don’t have to make big sacrifices. To the contrary, they feel that they
actually improve their children’s lives by demonstrating important values. That’s the way I see it,
anyway. Does that make sense? Great. [Redirecting] So, here’s a question: If you were going to
give to a charity, how would you decide which to give to? What do you think about the DALY
metric?”

Again, the Persuasive Response will be more successful.

We have only looked at two examples. Fortunately, there aren’t that many objections to EA. You can learn
about some of the most common objections and persuasive replies to those objections by seeing “Myths About
Aid”, one of the most popular pages on Giving What We Can’s website. It is easy to apply the 5-step method to
any of these objections if you just think about it in advance and give it some practice.

RUNNING AN EFFECTIVE COMMITTEE

COMMITTEE MEETINGS
WHAT?
There will typically be one theme that is to be discussed e.g.:

 Planning an event
 Event follow-up (discuss what went well, what didn’t, coordinate how to get in touch with people who
showed interest at the event)
 Brainstorming and deciding on ideas for events
 Revising strategy (perhaps there are some aims or structural aspects that need altering)
 Introducing new people

WHERE?
Possible venues:

 A public place e.g. pub, café, park

 A meeting room e.g. a university room
 A committee member’s house
 Skype (if a physical meet-up is for some reason not possible)

WHO?
One person should lead the meeting. The default leader should be the president, but a nice way to make every
committee member feel valued and involved is to take turns leading meetings. Leading meetings is also valuable
experience for people and should encourage those who rarely attend to make the effort!

Leading the meeting involves:

 Introducing the meeting

 Introducing each point on the agenda
 Rounding off at the end
 Preventing the conversation from straying too far off-topic
 Making sure that everyone gets a chance to speak
 Checking that all the points in the agenda are covered

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One person should also take minutes (generally the secretary).

HOW?
Someone (probably the person leading the meeting) should produce an agenda and share it with the committee
prior to the meeting.

Minutes should be typed up/finalised after the meeting and shared with the rest of the committee, with Action
Points highlighted.

Finally, keep it enjoyable! You could turn it into something of a picnic (if the venue allows) and/or head to a pub
afterwards. The atmosphere should be comfortable and friendly, although lots of general chat and jokes are
more suited to smaller meetings of two or three people and less so for larger meetings where you are using up
a lot of people’s time who may have other important things to be getting on with.

HOW TO DELEGATE WELL

Typically one or two core organizers are or end up being project leaders - people who are tasked with making
sure things get done, and on time. It’s important to have someone be aware of all the moving pieces, at least
from a bird’s-eye perspective, so that you can see how things are going. Project managing can be time-
consuming, leaving little time for sustained work on particular tasks. If you are a project manager, delegate
often and wisely! Here are some tips for delegating:

 Give specific-enough instructions to people, so they know what to do. If you don’t have a clear idea
of what exactly needs to be done, they probably will not either.
 For example, instead of saying “contact press office for media coverage”, you may want to
request of a volunteer: “First, create a rough pitch for your story, like ‘I will be taking a pledge,
with an organization called Giving What We Can, to give 50% of my annual income to charity,
and was wondering whether this would make a good personal interest story’; second, call our
press office, and deliver the pitch; and third, request an appointment with a press officer”
 Bundle unglamorous tasks with glamorous tasks. Unglamorous tasks, like picking up material from
the printing shop, can be boring. Keep morale up by bundling these tasks with more interesting tasks,
like designing the posters or fliers to be printed.
 If your chapter is university-based, when you move on from your institution you’ll want to hand over
the reins to a competent team. You can create a competent team out of core organizers that are
earlier into their programs, if you gradually train them up. To gradually train them up, give them
increasing responsibility for tasks.
 Consider creating and assigning official positions within the chapter, like Advertising and Media
Relations Specialist, or Research Assistant. This makes their role more concrete (they can put the title
on their resume, for example), which can increase motivation.
 Be a considerate communicator. Deliver tasks as requests rather than instructions. Thank
people. Give constructive feedback and encouragement. Announce successes and jobs well done at
meetings.
 Help people work their way up to doing bigger and bigger things. Once someone has successfully
performed a smaller task, give them a chance to do something larger, like being the project leader for
a small event. If they do that well, ask them to be the project leader for a larger event. This is a great
way to transition someone into a leadership position in your organization.

INTERACTING WITH THE MEDIA

Here is a good method for generating media attention:

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 1. Figure out a way to contact local media outlets. If you are at a university, you should be able to do
this by contacting and working with your university’s “media office.” If you don’t have a media office,
then contact Giving What We Can’s press officer will help you to create a media campaign. You could
try and go alone, but the press officer has access to journalists that you probably won’t have at this
stage.
2. Produce a “news release.” A “news release” is a short document you send to media outlets that tells
them about your story and tries to get them to write about it. It should be short and to the point, and
it should play up the features of your chapter that would make a good story. Here is an example news
release I wrote, which should give you some idea: There is a ‘how to’ on writing a press release here:
Our press officer can help you with writing this document.
3. Send out the news release along with your contact information to interested journalists.

Here is how you should prepare for media interviews:

1. Talk to the Giving What We Can press officer. The press officer is a media expert who is happy to help
prepare you for speaking to the media. You email the press officer directly at
sam.deere@givingwhatwecan.org
2. Practice as much as you can. We have found that doing mock interviews helped a lot. If you need
someone to mock interview you, we’d be more than happy to do so.

FAQ
1. What about a constitution?

It is by no means necessary for your chapter to draw up and abide by a constitution, although some
universities require this for university-affiliated student groups. It can be helpful to outline your goals and how
you will operate in order to guide your activities and so if you would like to prepare a constitution, feel free to
do so.

2. What about funding?

Sometimes you will need money in order to carry out certain activities e.g. hire a room for a talk, cover a
speaker’s travel expenses or provide refreshments at an event. At other chapters, this is provided by a mixture
of personal contributions from the committee (but please don’t feel obliged to do this!), fundraising events run
by the chapter, and funding from the university.

3. What events and activities can we organise?

Here are some ideas:

 Giving Games (read more)  Film/documentary screenings

 Speakers events/panel discussions  Training sessions
 Follow-up events (often called “GWWC:  Having stalls at relevant fairs
Getting Involved” and following a large talk)  Attending relevant networking events
 Informal discussions  Research week - coordinated with central
 Socials GWWC
 Fundraisers  Surveys
 Letter-writing/political lobbying
 Delivering talks at workplaces, old high
schools etc.

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4. Can I get hold of some Pledge forms to bring to an event?

You can download them here and then you can print them on white, laid, A4, 100gsm paper. The envelopes
we use are vellum laid, in case you need to use them.

5. How do I set up a large mailing list?

GroupSpaces has proved useful for some of our chapters. It's free for non-profit student groups.

CONTACTS
We really care about making sure your chapter is a success, so you should never feel bad about asking Giving
What We Can for lots of help. A Giving What We Can Chapter Coordinator can also arrange regular individual
and group meetings with you.

Position Name Contact details Contact for…

Director of Jon jonathan.courtney@givingwhatwecan.org General queries/suggestions about

outreach Courtney the Chapter Team, or GWWC more
broadly, that you feel your Chapter
Coordinator is unable to answer.

Chapter Jon uk@givingwhatwecan.org Any help with your particular

Coordinator Courtney chapter, if you are in the UK.
(UK)

Chapter Caleb calebomusic@gmail.com Any help with your particular

Coordinator Ontiveros chapter, if you are in the US.
(US)

You can also gain a lot from staying in contact with each other. There is a Facebook group specifically for chapter
committees.

- Good luck, and keep in touch! -

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