Like many things – falling in love (great), falling down the stairs (not so great) – I fell into effective altruism by accident. My family’s exploration of effective altruism has been shared previously in The Life You Can Save’s blog – and I look forward to sharing further stories on the blog in the future.
But what I really would love to share today, is how my interest in effective altruism led me to an idea earlier this year. I was in the shower when I had the idea. I don’t know about you, but I find that’s where my best ideas tend to happen…
The idea was a little niggly thought at first. But it grew and grew, until before I knew it the idea had become a project. Which is now happening. Like this week. The idea in a nutshell: Write the World notebooks, unique notebooks designed to make the world a better place.
The point of difference? 100% of the A$10 purchase price of every single Write the World notebook sold goes to The Life You Can Save to direct towards effective charities. That’s right, 100%. The whole A$10.
I jokingly call it the love project. But it’s such an apt name for it – there’s so much I love about it…
Selfishly, I love that it allows me to use my skills – working with specialists like designers and printers, creating, writing, implementing, organising. Who knew that doing good could be so much fun? I love that it’s increasing my horizons, allowing me to talk to and meet interesting people I wouldn’t have otherwise come across. It’s broadening my own world. I love that the whole family is engaged in the project, offering ideas and suggestions and ever so patiently listening to my constant updates and latest Write the World thoughts. I love that the idea has been so positively embraced by every single person I’ve told about it. It’s a project that seems to bring out the best in people.
But perhaps most of all, I love that The Life You Can Save has agreed to be our project’s donor charity. It means the project is totally aligned to where our family has been putting our effective altruism efforts for the past 24 months. It means we know that our efforts are channelled in the most effective way to do the most good. And, to me, The Life You Can Save are the rock stars of the effective altruism world; to be able to partner with them on this project is so satisfying, in a very 80s groupie sort of way.
Our family is directing our monthly effective altruism donations to Write the World for the next few months. We are funding the design and printing of the first six hundred notebooks ourselves. For an initial outlay of A$3,500 – which we would have donated to effective charities anyway over the course of the coming months – we will eventually be able to direct A$6,000 in notebook sales to The Life You Can Save. Almost twice what we would have otherwise been able to donate.
Because that is another thing I love about the love project. It has this ‘magical multiplier’ thing going on. The more we print, the less the notebooks cost. The more we sell, the more we donate. Say, for example, we increase our print quantities in the future – with economies of scale, the notebook production price goes down and for a $10,000 initial investment, we’d see $60,000 donated to The Life You Can Save in notebook sales.
How magical is that?
If you agree, there are a few ways you can get involved:
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Buy notebooks – for yourself, for your friends, for your mum, for your neighbour, for your local grocer. Shop now on our website.
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Spread the word – follow us on social and share with your friends… and your mum and your neighbour and your local grocer. We are on Facebook and Instagram.
Want to chat more about the love project? Drop us a line at savinglives@writetheworldnotebooks.org – we would love to hear from you.