The Opportunity Motivation: Effective Altruism and Our Impetus to Give
What are the factors that encourage charitable giving and how should people decide where to focus their efforts? Effective altruism is a social movement and research initiative with unique (and controversial) responses to these questions.
In this episode of Impact Audio, you’ll hear Luke Freeman, Executive Director of Giving What We Can, discussing the guiding principles behind his organization. Luke also talks about motivational psychology, CSR, impact measurement, the pandemic, and criticisms of effective altruism.
Listen in to learn about:
- What actually motivates people to give back
- How businesses can support employee giving and lead by example
- Giving What We Can’s process for choosing charities and measuring impact
- The movement’s responses to trust-based philanthropy and criticism about causality
- How US philanthropy sets itself apart from global giving
We hope you enjoy the conversation.

Luke Freeman manages Giving What We Can. He is also an active volunteer with various social impact focused projects (EAGxAustralia, Effective Altruism Australia, EA Sydney, Global Shapers Community). He has a background in marketing with a focus on growing early-stage technology startups (Positly, Sendle, TuShare, Coviu). He holds degrees and diplomas in media and communications from Macquarie University and Simon Fraser University.

Rachel Mindell is Special Projects Editor at Submittable. One of the highlights of her job is talking with social impact leaders about their work and learning more about how technology can help accelerate positive change.
You might also like







