My giving goal is to pick an organization that means something to me upon graduation and to give my time to monthly over the next five years.

I pledge to live my life in a way where I keep the lessons of philanthropy in mind. My plan is to not only give financially, but to give my voice and my time to help the missions of non-profits. After I graduate from law school, I plan to donate at least 5% of my salary to local and international organizations and continue too give my time (and potentially my legal knowledge) to organizations. I know that I have been blessed with immense privilege and opportunity in my life and I want to be able to give responsibly as a means of affording others the chance at having these same opportunities.

Once I land a stable job after graduation, I plan to give at least $50 a month to a local organization that is doing high-quality work in an area of need that I support. I will undoubtedly apply some of the analytical methods of investigating philanthropic organizations that I have learned in class. Upon finishing law school a few years down the road, I want to make my giving goal more of a percentage of my income. For starters, if I make less than $100K per year, I will give 5% of my income. If I make more than $100K, I will give 10%. Beyond simply writing checks and letting others do the work, I will find a place where I can use my abilities to serve others on a personal level. In my first year out of college, I will commit at least 4 hours a week to an organization whose mission I am passionate about. Those numbers are definitely open to alteration, but they represent a concrete, attainable goal by which to live. At the end of every year, I will reevaluate these goals as well as my performance in meeting them.

My goal is start giving financially at a percentage that is indicative of the salary I make. This means right out of college I hope to give at least 5 percent of my income towards charitable organizations that work on issues that I care about (this includes immigrant and refugee rights issues as related to the United States, criminal justice reform causes in the United States, and women and girls health and education issues in developing countries). After working a while and after obtaining advanced degrees that enable me to earn more income, I hope to contribute even more of my money as a percentage of my income. For example, I hope to move towards 10%, 15%, 20%, and maybe even up to 25% and beyond if I’m fortunate enough to be in a position to do so. In all my contributions, I will be very mindful of organizations that I’m giving to and donating only to those that I know will be doing more good than harm and will be mindful of the effects that their work has on marginalized groups. Additionally, I will mostly be contributing to organizations whose work extends to areas and populations that do not easily have access to resources and otherwise might not be considered for aid at all as I think this has the most impact. Finally, while it might not always be possible to give a lot financially, I hope to give time in the manner of 4 hours a week volunteering with organizations directly serving the local community in the area that I live in (for example: volunteering for organizations that provide monetary and legal aid to migrants navigating the American immigration system). While my contributions might not make much of a difference on a global scale, hopefully they will have at least some positive impact at the local scale towards the communities that they will be going to.