Walking the Talk
November 13, 2009 12:00am
AN AUSTRALIAN academic at Oxford University has decided living like a student isn’t so bad, pledging more than half his career earnings to charity.Dr Toby Ord, a 30-year-old ethics researcher with the Future of Humanity Institute, has agreed to give up 10 per cent of his annual salary, plus any yearly earnings above £20,000 ($35,631).Dr Ord says if he lives like a student, he should be able to give away around £1 million ($1.78 million).”My student years were not extravagant, but were immensely enjoyable, with the chief enjoyments such as reading beautiful books and spending time with my wife and friends costing almost nothing,” Dr Ord said.After completing Science and Arts degrees at the University of Melbourne, Dr Ord took his Masters and PhD in ethics at Oxford, where he is in his first year of paid work, expecting to earn about £30,000 ($53,447).
He has calculated that on an academic’s salary, he should earn about £1.5 million ($2.67 million) over the course of his career.
Concerned of Adelaide “I realised that if I were to continue to live modestly like I have as a student, I should be able to give away about £1 million ($1.78 million),” he said.
He says life on his diminished income is “very good”.
“If I spent the extra money on myself I could go on holiday more often, get an iPhone, eat out at expensive restaurants. It would be nice but not all that much better.”
On Saturday, Dr Ord will launch a society called Giving What We Can.
Members take a public pledge to donate at least 10 per cent of their salary to organisations they believe can best use the money to fight poverty in the developing world.
At the launch, Professor Alan Fenwick from Imperial College London will talk about his work fighting neglected tropical diseases through his organisation, Schistosomiasis Control Initiative (SCI).
Dr Ord will give him a cheque for £10,000 ($17,815), an amount he put aside while he was still a student. He is also giving money to a tuberculosis charity, the Stop TB Partnership.
“As an undergraduate, I often argued with my friends about political and ethical matters,” Dr Ord said, “I regularly received the retort: ‘If you believe that, why don’t you just give all of your money to people starving in Africa? This was meant to show that my position was absurd, but as time passed and I thought more about ethics, I found the conclusion increasingly sensible – why not indeed?”
“More purpose in life”
The society will share information about the most effective charities and tax-effective ways to give. Members can choose to give their money wherever they think it will best help eliminate suffering in the developing world.
“Once you get used to the idea, it is actually not much of a burden,” Dr Ord said.
“I feel much more purposeful in life. What is difficult is agonising over whether you can justify each luxury. By making a pledge, you don’t have to do that anymore – you just live within your new means.”
