Our history

The Life You Can Save was founded by Peter Singer, widely recognized as one of the world’s most influential contemporary philosophers, to advance the ideas in his 2009 book, The Life You Can Save: Acting Now to End World Poverty. In it, Peter argues that if we can provide immense benefit to someone at minimal cost to ourselves, we should do so. In 2019, we worked with Peter to launch the 10th Anniversary Edition – The Life You Can Save. This fully updated book is available for free download as a celebrity-narrated audiobook here.

In 2013, Charlie Bresler, formerly the president of a large apparel company, approached Peter about expanding his organization. Charlie and his wife, Diana, provided funding for The Life You Can Save to become a registered 501c3 charity, and Charlie began serving as the organization’s non-salaried Executive Director.

Since then, we’ve worked to introduce the ideas from Peter’s book to new audiences, inspiring people to help the world’s poor and empowering them to make the greatest impact possible. We provide tools that make it easy for people to make smart donations, including a curated list of evidence-based charities, in-depth reports on their impact, and a calculator that helps donors see how far their dollars can go in a developing country.

An extraordinary giving opportunity

Since 2013, Charlie Bresler and his wife have watched the effects of their seed funding multiply the money raised for charities: we generate an average of $17 to our recommended nonprofits for every dollar we spend on total operations. We do this through our website, personal outreach to donors, talks by Peter Singer and Charlie Bresler, media appearances and stories, and writing.

Transition

In 2021, our Managing Director, Rickard Vikstrom, became the Executive Director and Stacey Black, our Marketing Director, became Deputy Director. Charlie remains active as a member of the Board of Directors and along with his wife he continues to be a major funder of the Organisation.

We also provide philanthropic advisory services to help donors consider where their gift can do the most good. If you’re interested in making a sizable donation to The Life You Can Save or one of its recommended charities, please contact Charlie directly: charlie@thelifeyoucansave.org

Expansion to Australia

In 2019 we established The Life You Can Save (ABN 90 623 716) as a charity in our founder, Peter Singer’s, home country Australia. The Australian organization is a Public Benevolent Institution endorsed as a Deductible Gift Recipient by the Australian Taxation Office and donations of A$2 or more made on our Australian website are tax-deductible in Australia.