What sets apart Kellogg students from students at other MBA students is that we deeply care about others. Not just our friends and family. Not just our classmates. But about society as a whole.

At what other school would students compete hard to become a board member for a Not For Profit, even if it means that they have to forego other opportunities such as exchange overseas.

Kellogg students are special.

So as you start to think about finishing up at Kellogg and moving into the real world, I’m sure that many of you are thinking about how you can make a real difference in the world.

The biggest difference we can make is with our $$$ instead of our time

Close your eyes and think about your work life post-MBA.

If you’re a consultant, you’re going to be flat out during the week, working 10-12 hour days in a random city somewhere in the middle of the country. Any time you have in the evenings is going to be spent on staying somewhat healthy and trying to keep your relationships alive. By the time the weekend rolls around, you’re ready to cut loose and spend the weekend partying or hungover. Suddenly, it’s Sunday evening, you’re packing your bag for the next morning’s flight and you’re mind is running through all the things you wanted to do but didn’t. Volunteering at the local shelter, helping out at a soup kitchen, buying some groceries so that your near empty fridge has more than just wine and La Croix.

If you’re in tech or another corporate role, you might have more time during the week and be based in your local city. But you’re quickly going to fill up that time with random activities such as bouldering, SoulCycle or Orange Theory.

And any time that you do have will be spent on low-level, flexible social impact activities such as ladling soup or helping clean an animal shelter.

Instead, what if you took the significantly above-average salary that you are going to earn and put a small portion of that towards the causes that you most care about, or the causes that matter just the most. Think about the impact that we could all have.

If each our classmates donated just 1% of their salary, we could raise over $700,000 a year. That is a lot of money.

So how should this money be spent?

The best use of our $$$ is on the most effective causes

There is a theory of social impact called Effective Altruism. The basic premise is that you should donate towards the causes that have the largest impact on lives for the least amount of dollars.

This is where our post-MBA donation dollars should go towards.

The causes that Effective Altruism tends to focus on are those addressing people in the developing world and issues where many people are effected but the solutions can be implemented in a systematic way. For example:

• Malaria can be addressed through anti-malarial bednets

• Providing money (with no strings attached) to households (but more than often women) in developing countries helps improve their lives and empowers not only the household, but the entire village, our of a cycle of poverty

Spending money in these areas (and many others) has the biggest impact on humanity. And on the people in the world who often need help the most.

Now I know what you’re thinking at this stage. But what about the other things I love and care about. Things that are important but aren’t just about saving lives in a far away developing country.

You’re right! Just because you give to Effective Altruism causes doesn’t mean you stop donating to other things completely.

I’m passionate about art and politics and I donate a lot of money to causes in both (including UNHCR, The Australian Labor Party, The Australian Republic Movement, and various Art Galleries across the world).

However, a chunk of my donations goes towards the most deserving causes in the world. And I hope that more people do the same.

The best time to sign up is now

I believe that the best time to get our classmates to think about donating to Effective Altruism causes is now.

Many of our classmates are actively moving their minds beyond business school and recruiting towards their purpose/mission in life and what they want to accomplish outside of work. As people think through these ideas, I want them to think about how they will contribute to the world and make an impact on the causes that matter the most.

For this reason, I want to bring a program called ’One For The World’ to Kellogg. OFTW aims to get business school students to sign up NOW to commit 1% of their post-MBA salary to Effective Altruism causes.

They want to do this by having people sign up to an ongoing monthly donation for $100 that starts in next year (when we start working). This makes it incredibly painless for students to sign up and removes a lot of the pain associated with giving up money that you actually have (instead, you are sacrificing ephemeral future income). 1% might be a small number, but it’s a start. And given that the average American donates around 2.5%, that’s almost half of the charitable donations that our classmates will give.

I truly believe this is the best way to have students increase their social conscience and start thinking about the impact on the world.

I need your help

To make this happen, I need your help.

My goal is to get 100 of our Kellogg classmates commit to donating 1% of their post-MBA income to Effective Altruism through OFTW, coming to a total of ¬$120k per year.

To make this happen, I need you help in:

• spreading the word about OFTW on campus

• hosting information sessions and small group/1-on-1 chats

• actually signing up people

If you’re interested in joining me on this exciting journey, please let me know!