Sonia’s Story

Sonia, based in California, aims for a career in computer hardware design that will enable her to give to effective charities.

Due to a disability, I spent most of my adult life living below the American poverty line, without much hope of getting out. Eventually I recovered enough to go to college, and I now plan to use my career in computer hardware design to help people who cannot access the treatment that saved my life. Here’s how I arrived at my decision.  

“Jesus tells us that living a life closer to him will give us joy that makes the sacrifices necessary seem small, and that has truly been my experience.”

In Matthew 25:31—46, Jesus calls us to treat the people who suffer most in this world as if they are Jesus himself. All the love and praise we feel for Jesus and what he did for us on the cross should be poured out upon them. One way we can do that is to donate to charity. I thought I wasn’t making enough as a student to donate more, but I discovered during the chaos of the 2020 American presidential election that donating large amounts can be a far more rejuvenating use of money than anything else. However, I later learned that the organizations I’d donated to weren’t particularly effective. I started googling charity effectiveness and stumbled upon the charity ranker GiveWell and the wider effective altruism community. I’m teaching myself to live more frugally without compromising my productivity the way I did when I was poor, so that I can donate more. More importantly, I’m working harder at school so that I can maximize my future income. After graduation this will enable me to donate most of my income. I also hope to do good directly with my career by working on technological solutions to the world’s most pressing problems. I’m living on less and working harder, but I feel like I’m living on more. My life is more full of meaning, and I am free from comparing my income primarily to other rich-world people. Jesus tells us that living a life closer to him will give us joy that makes the sacrifices necessary seem small, and that has truly been my experience.  

Empathy for the Global Poor

“I’m tremendously grateful for the soup kitchens and other charities that helped me when I was poor. However, my experience makes me empathize more, not less, with people who have none of these rich-world options.”

In Jesus’ time, almost everyone in the world was as poor as the poorest people in the world are today, so his disciples did not have to look far to find the people that Jesus called us to love so dearly (1) (2). However, the world economy is different today. Even when my income was half the American poverty line, I was richer than 70% of people alive today (3)(4). Throughout the Gospels, Jesus encourages his disciples to treat people of different communities as well as we do our own. Today Gentiles are not who we struggle to feel compassion for, but seeing everyone as equal in the eyes of God continues to elude us; in the United States, only 6% of our donations went abroad in 2017 (5). I’m tremendously grateful for the soup kitchens and other charities that helped me when I was poor. However, my experience makes me empathize more, not less, with people who have none of these rich-world options. We should encourage funding any charity that does more good than harm, but I can personally make the greatest difference by donating to the most neglected charities, and that means donating to charities that help the global poor. 

Unfortunately, we understand so little about faraway circumstances that international charities are susceptible to being ineffective. However, God has met that need with the gift of numerous high quality studies about the effectiveness of different charities (6). After looking into these studies and seeing the dedication to constant open-minded self-improvement in the effective altruism community, I came to have even more confidence in international charities recommended by effective altruism than in local charities. Local charities are less likely to be underpinned by high-quality academic studies, and our personal experiences with the few people we know well are very limited compared to the thousands of experiences summarized in even one study. 

Maybe my donations will enable enough children to reach their full potential so that, if their children are cursed with a disability such as mine, their country will be able to provide them the kind of healthcare my country has. I know when I meet God face to face someday, I want to have done all I can to glorify him by helping others receive this gift that I have been so blessed with. 

— Sonia

1. https://ourworldindata.org/extreme-poverty-in-brief

2. Sachs, Jeffrey D. 2015. The Age of Sustainable Development. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.

3. https://howrichami.givingwhatwecan.org/how-rich-am-i?income=6440&countryCode=USA&household%5Badults%5D=1&household%5Bchildren%5D=0 

4. https://aspe.hhs.gov/topics/poverty-economic-mobility/poverty-guidelines/prior-hhs-poverty-guidelines-federal-register-references/2021-poverty-guidelines

5. https://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=content.view&cpid=42

6. https://www.givewell.org/