Member Profile: Duncan Hamra

This profile is part of the "People of Giving What We Can" series.

We recently spoke with Duncan Hamra, a Startup Founder from Williamsburg, Virginia (USA). Duncan and his wife Ingrid McGuckin (pictured above) donate 33% of their household income and are working on a new project to reorganize the traditional Sunday church service so that everyone has a voice and donations go directly to highly effective charities!

Tell us about yourself. What keeps you busy and what makes you tick?

I'm a happy husband and can't wait to be a dad. I co-founded a small software company with 20 employees and 2800 customers (more on that in a bit!)

Things I'm excited about:
→ Podcasts (On Being, 99% Invisible, MBMBaM, etc).
→ New ways of doing church (By incorporating new technologies, psychology, formats, etc.)
→ Tiny living and van life (my wife and I are currently living in a converted van!)

Did you want to tell us more about that software company you founded?

Yes! This was actually a key part of my effective giving journey. My best friend and I launched a software company called Memberstack during college, and ultimately decided to raise venture funding because of the advice we read on 80,000 Hours — that even a very small/very difficult opportunity might be worth it if the payoff was quite high!

Memberstack enables web developers to turn websites into web apps with memberships and user accounts. We have 2,800 customers from first-time business owners to teams at Slack, Reddit, and American Airlines.

We’ve been in business for about 5 years now. While I can't say I've been able to donate millions of dollars (yet), my wife and I are able to collectively donate 33% of our income to highly effective charities! Today, I'm working 20 hours a week for my company and 20 hours on a new project called Flipped Church.

What is Flipped Church?

We are reorganizing the traditional Sunday church service so that everyone has a voice, and donations go directly to highly effective charities.

We got the name from the “flipped classroom.” In a flipped classroom, students are provided with materials to be studied at home. In-person class time is devoted to asking questions, working in groups, and practicing what’s been learned. We appreciate how much respect this model has for the students, and wanted to bring it to the church setting.

Wow! Can you tell us more about how you’re doing that?

Instead of listening to the same person lecture each week, participants watch, read, or listen to a short conversation starter at home. Then gathering time becomes conversation time. We hope to create fun and intentional spaces where folks can learn from each other and practice vital skills like gratitude, kindness, patience, humility, etc. We are an interfaith organisation with an initial focus on helping Christian communities (since that’s the tradition we grew up in) to experiment with new formats.

Instead of asking folks to tithe to cover a church mortgage or staff salaries, we spend a few minutes each week discussing the potential good that can come from donating directly to highly effective charities. We’re able to cover our own costs by meeting in public spaces and splitting the leadership responsibilities.

We’ve only had a few events so far, so we’re still very much in the learning phase. If you want to follow along for updates, you can subscribe on our website, flippedchurch.com.

What are the issues in the world that you care most deeply about?

Preventing unnecessary death and suffering from treatable illness. I hate being sick, even though I have access to medical care. So I really feel for folks who are suffering without that same level of support. Donating is a concrete and attainable way to help prevent this kind of suffering.

On that note, which organisations do you give to (and why)?

We give 95% to GiveWell's Top Charities Fund and about 5% to DonorSee. We’ve read through most of GiveWell’s website and are blown away by their attention to detail, humility, and high standards. DonorSee was cofounded by a friend we trust and they do a great job of helping donors to see and feel their impact. It’s not highly effective, but it’s still meaningful for recipients and rewarding for us.

Do you ever find it difficult to give?

Yup! My wife and I want to buy a house and are waiting a few extra years so we can continue to donate and be able to buy in cash. It's tempting to stop the donating so we don't have to wait. But we try to sit with the question "how much do we really need?" which helps us to feel more free to let go of the resources we don’t need and share them with others.

Do you try to effect change in any other way?

Yes, mainly through the Flipped Church project we discussed earlier. Two of our goals are raising money for effective charities and helping people to communicate more effectively. Quoting directly from our website, “these [Flipped Church] gatherings give us space and structure to practice the fundamentals of being in community with each other.”

No matter what problems we decide to solve as a society, we are not likely to get far without civil conversations. And communication skills are vital regardless of your personal circumstances — doesn’t matter how much money you have or where you live; you still have to be able to communicate effectively!

What effective giving tips would you like to share?

I know I’ve mentioned this once already, but the question “how much is enough?” is really helpful for me. I’d recommend taking time on a regular basis to sit with it — everything gets easier once you know your answer to the question of how much you really need. If you want to be happier with less, educate yourself about global poverty and watch some talks on gratitude.

What are your visions for the future?

I would like to see the majority of church goers giving a % of their income to highly effective charities. I’d also like to see more spaces where everyday people can gather to talk about things like effective giving.

Have any books or documentaries or articles or studies significantly changed the way you see giving?

I enjoyed Peter Singer’s Ted talk and the 2011 documentary “What Matters?”

Have you found anything to be helpful in talking to people about effective giving?

I think it’s helpful to have multiple conversations over multiple sittings. The ideas of EG felt pretty shocking/counter-cultural to me at first.

Before learning about EG, my biggest financial question was “How can I maximize my savings and investments?” After learning about EG, that’s still one of my questions, but I’ve had to make room for new (related) questions like “How do I maximise my impact?” and “How do I find joy in less, so that I can give away more?”

It took me several years to incorporate those new questions, so I expect the same will be true for my conversation partners.