Giving Project

Our Law Firm is Donating $100,000.

WE LIVE IN A GREAT TIME FOR HELPING OTHERS.

It is easier than ever before to make a difference in the lives of other people, thanks to advances in philanthropic thinking and data-driven charity evaluation. For less than the cost of a bicycle or a leather couch, we can save children from death by malnutrition, cure blindness caused by parasitic flies, or distribute hundreds of malaria-stopping insect nets. These opportunities are too good to pass up.

This year, like many years before, we are giving away $100,000.  We want your help in figuring out where the money can do the most good.

Play Video

This is what we want to do.

Play Video

This is Peter Singer’s TED Talk on ‘effective altruism,’ which inspired us.

What Is This All About?

WE WANT TO HELP PEOPLE. IT’S WHY WE GOT INTO THIS BUSINESS IN THE FIRST PLACE.

Today, the opportunities to help others are unparalleled. That is because although the problems that people face in the developing world are very serious, many of them have simple and inexpensive solutions. Polluted water causes fatal diseases that minimal filtration could prevent. Parasitic flies cause blindness that simple, inexpensive surgery could cure.  Malaria causes deaths that $5 mosquito nets could stop.

Our Atlanta injury attorneys have the opportunity to do something about it. Organizations like the Gates Foundation and Georgia’s own Carter Center have provided insight into what the biggest problems are and how they might be solved. Charity evaluators like GiveWell and The Life You Can Save allow us to give money wisely, where the money will be most effective and have alleviated concerns over fraudulent charities. We live in a time, more than any other, in which everyone has the opportunity to make a meaningful difference. You don’t have to give like Bill Gates—an extra $5 buys another net that even the Gates Foundation, with all its millions, didn’t buy.

This is too good an opportunity to miss.

Our accident attorneys help our clients every day, and that is a deeply rewarding experience. By also giving philanthropically—and doing so wisely, with a focus on results—we see an opportunity to double down.

Giving Project

What We're Looking For

  • We want to provide the most help to the most people.
  • We want to hear the best ideas possible.
    • If you’d like to offer your thoughts, we’d welcome them! Please send them to giving@butlerfirm.com.
    • If you’d like to propose that we give to your organization, please follow the “How to Apply” steps below.
  • We want to give to a reputable, 501(c)(3)-registered organization that achieves and tracks results.
  • We highly value placement among GiveWell’s Top Charities, and are likely to give to a charity on that list.
Giving Project Tweet

How to Apply for the 2021 Giving Project

WRITE AN EXPLANATION OF HOW YOUR ORGANIZATION WILL PROVIDE THE MOST HELP TO THE MOST PEOPLE.

CREATE A VIDEO EXPLAINING WHY YOUR ORGANIZATION WILL PROVIDE THE MOST HELP TO THE MOST PEOPLE.

Butler Firm

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Frequently Asked Questions

We do give to those causes, although not in this amount. The reason that this money will probably go to the developing world is that we’re trying to get the most bang for our buck.

Money given to assist people in abject poverty can go a long, long way. In other words, it is the most cost-effective way to make a positive difference. Generally, seeking the maximum return for your dollar means giving money overseas because, for all of the serious problems we have in the United States, the problems in the developing world are more severe and comparatively cheaper to solve. Rampant malnutrition, river blindness, famine, and murderous civil wars are not common in the United States. In other places, they are.

Money goes farther in the developing world because the problems are worse. To use Peter Singer’s example, it costs about $40,000 to acquire a seeing-eye dog, train the dog, match the dog with a blind person in the United States, and train the person to work with the dog. Helping to provide seeing-eye dogs to blind people is good, of course. But we should also think about what else could be done with the money. In developing countries where people suffer from river blindness or trachoma, blindness can be cured for about $50. So if you’re looking to donate $40,000, you can either provide one blind person in the developed world with a seeing-eye dog, or cure fifty blind people in the developing world. We think that Singer made the point well here.

In his book The Life You Can Save, Singer argues that you can save a life in the developing world for $1,000 or less. We don’t mean to diminish the importance of domestic giving, but when it comes to our firm’s big give, we think we can do the most good for the most people by giving abroad. In parts of the developing world, a $5 mosquito net can be the difference between life and death.

LOL no.

We are comfortable, in that all five of the people who work at our firm have roofs over their heads, food on their tables, and no crushing needs. We also have mortgages or rent payments, and some of us have children to take care of. But an income of over $32,400 per year puts us in the top 1% of earners globally, and we think that statistic speaks volumes about the needs of others, particularly in developing countries. Somewhere, a mother is watching her child starve—if we can prevent that, we should.

m dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Ut elit tellus, luctus nec ullamcorper mattis, pulvinar dapibus leo.

Nope. We aren’t claiming to be icons of charity or moralistic philosophers, because we’re not.

We are trying to take a step in the right direction. The bottom line is that when we turn eighty and take a hard look in the mirror, we want to see somebody who made the world a better place. It won’t matter then whether we drove Ferraris or stayed in five-star resorts, but it will matter that we took our responsibilities as humans seriously.

We think lots of people have this question, but are afraid to ask it. We think it’s a reasonable question.

First, studies have shown that the best way to reduce population growth rates is by educating women in developing countries, where birthrates tend to be highest. (Click here for Singer’s explanation from his book The Life You Can Save, beginning at the word “Nevertheless . . .”) That is most definitely a type of giving that we would consider with this money.

Second, charities that address health conditions—such as those that address malnutrition, or work to prevent malaria—contribute indirectly to the advancement of education and society as a whole. On the most basic level, that’s because women don’t spend time in classrooms if their children are starving or dying of malaria. So you have to address problems like malnutrition or malaria before you can do meaningful work on education or social structure, which in turn leads to lower birthrates.

Third, some of the charitable causes that we’d consider—such as curing river blindness or repairing obstetric fistulae—don’t save lives directly, but do help people move from being nonproductive members of their communities to being productive members. That helps their communities and societies as a whole. That, in turn, is a good thing from a population perspective because more advanced, more sophisticated societies tend to have lower birthrates.

This is another question that we think lots of people have, but sometimes don’t ask because they don’t want to be impolite. We think it’s a good question.

We do give some time to charitable causes, as noted on our Community page, but we spend far more time practicing law. We think that’s a good decision because we’re better at practicing law than running charities, and by doing what we’re best at, we’re able to generate money that we can donate to people who are best at running charities. Those people can use the money efficiently, and can accomplish more good than we could if we tried to do their jobs.

We do give to those causes, although not in this amount. The reason that this money will probably go to the developing world is that we’re trying to get the most bang for our buck.

Money given to assist people in abject poverty can go a long, long way. In other words, it is the most cost-effective way to make a positive difference. Generally, seeking the maximum return for your dollar means giving money overseas because, for all of the serious problems we have in the United States, the problems in the developing world are more severe and comparatively cheaper to solve. Rampant malnutrition, river blindness, famine, and murderous civil wars are not common in the United States. In other places, they are.

Money goes farther in the developing world because the problems are worse. To use Peter Singer’s example, it costs about $40,000 to acquire a seeing-eye dog, train the dog, match the dog with a blind person in the United States, and train the person to work with the dog. Helping to provide seeing-eye dogs to blind people is good, of course. But we should also think about what else could be done with the money. In developing countries where people suffer from river blindness or trachoma, blindness can be cured for about $50. So if you’re looking to donate $40,000, you can either provide one blind person in the developed world with a seeing-eye dog, or cure fifty blind people in the developing world. We think that Singer made the point well here.

In his book The Life You Can Save, Singer argues that you can save a life in the developing world for $1,000 or less. We don’t mean to diminish the importance of domestic giving, but when it comes to our firm’s big give, we think we can do the most good for the most people by giving abroad. In parts of the developing world, a $5 mosquito net can be the difference between life and death.

Lorem ipsu

LOL no.

We are comfortable, in that all five of the people who work at our firm have roofs over their heads, food on their tables, and no crushing needs. We also have mortgages or rent payments, and some of us have children to take care of. But an income of over $32,400 per year puts us in the top 1% of earners globally, and we think that statistic speaks volumes about the needs of others, particularly in developing countries. Somewhere, a mother is watching her child starve—if we can prevent that, we should.

m dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Ut elit tellus, luctus nec ullamcorper mattis, pulvinar dapibus leo.

Nope. We aren’t claiming to be icons of charity or moralistic philosophers, because we’re not.

We are trying to take a step in the right direction. The bottom line is that when we turn eighty and take a hard look in the mirror, we want to see somebody who made the world a better place. It won’t matter then whether we drove Ferraris or stayed in five-star resorts, but it will matter that we took our responsibilities as humans seriously.

We think lots of people have this question, but are afraid to ask it. We think it’s a reasonable question.

First, studies have shown that the best way to reduce population growth rates is by educating women in developing countries, where birthrates tend to be highest. (Click here for Singer’s explanation from his book The Life You Can Save, beginning at the word “Nevertheless . . .”) That is most definitely a type of giving that we would consider with this money.

Second, charities that address health conditions—such as those that address malnutrition, or work to prevent malaria—contribute indirectly to the advancement of education and society as a whole. On the most basic level, that’s because women don’t spend time in classrooms if their children are starving or dying of malaria. So you have to address problems like malnutrition or malaria before you can do meaningful work on education or social structure, which in turn leads to lower birthrates.

Third, some of the charitable causes that we’d consider—such as curing river blindness or repairing obstetric fistulae—don’t save lives directly, but do help people move from being nonproductive members of their communities to being productive members. That helps their communities and societies as a whole. That, in turn, is a good thing from a population perspective because more advanced, more sophisticated societies tend to have lower birthrates.

This is another question that we think lots of people have, but sometimes don’t ask because they don’t want to be impolite. We think it’s a good question.

We do give some time to charitable causes, as noted on our Community page, but we spend far more time practicing law. We think that’s a good decision because we’re better at practicing law than running charities, and by doing what we’re best at, we’re able to generate money that we can donate to people who are best at running charities. Those people can use the money efficiently, and can accomplish more good than we could if we tried to do their jobs.