About
Our Mission
We're ending preventable child death globally
through effective giving
Our Story
One for the World was co-founded in 2014 by two MBA students, Josh McCann and Kate Epstein, at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. During their program, they noticed something simple: their classmates cared about effective giving and wanted to act on high-impact causes, but didn't have the tools to start.
So they built the tools. The first One for the World chapter launched at Wharton, and from that single starting point, it spread. Chapters now span campuses across the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Europe, and Australia, each one a new place for the effective giving movement to continue to grow.
Our Theory of Change
Starting small compounds into lifelong impact. If we introduce people to effective giving early, through a pledge as small as 1%, we set a lifelong wave in motion. Habits formed now become decades of giving. And decades of giving, multiplied across a growing community, is how we help scale the entire effective giving movement and do the most good possible.
Photo courtesy of Hellen Keller International
What is Effective Giving?
Effective giving is the founding principle of One for the World.
It means directing every dollar toward wherever it can do the most good, not toward a cause that is closest, most familiar, or most visible. No guesswork; no proximity bias. Just impact, measured.
The world's problems can feel too big for any one person to move, but making an impact just needs a place to start. When you give effectively, that's exactly what you become: a starting point for change, wherever it's needed most.
Our Approach
Every strategic decision we make is built to do two things: expand awareness of effective giving, and increase the total we give to our nonprofit partners to save the most lives possible.
We focus on three ways to grow the movement:
The 1% Pledge
The starting point for everything we do. We ask individuals to commit at least 1% of their income to our nonprofit partners: organizations working directly on the ground to reduce child mortality due to extreme poverty. Our nonprofit partners are chosen for their cost-effectiveness, transparency, and ability to do the most good possible to keep children safe from preventable disease.
Take the 1% Pledge
Community Ambassadors & Campus Chapters
Every movement needs people who care to carry it forward. We've invested in developing student leaders across university campuses and young professionals at top companies worldwide to build and run One for the World chapters, introducing effective giving at the exact moment lifelong habits start to form.
Get Involved
Community Events
Momentum builds through community. We organize events around the world that bring people together and spread a shared culture of effective giving, turning individual pledges into a community of mission-driven individuals.
Events Calendar
Our Partnership with GiveWell
A small pledge only has impact if it goes toward something real. That's why One for the World partners with GiveWell, the best-in-class charity evaluator, to select every Top Pick charity we fund. 100% of your pledged contributions go directly to the nonprofit partners featured on our site.
2023–2024 Impact Report
At the heart of effective giving is transparency with numbers. If you want to see exactly how far your 1% has traveled, and how One for the World turns pledges into outcomes, our impact report provides the full picture.
Photo courtesy of Against Malaria Foundation