Why people believe it
The gifts that make the news are the giant ones: the nine-figure pledge, the name on the building. Next to a problem as large as hunger or disease, $20 can feel like nothing. And a small donor rarely hears what their particular gift did.
What’s true
One small gift rarely changes an organization or a problem by itself, and its effect is usually invisible to the giver. Where a gift goes also matters more than its size. Comparing estimates for health programs, the philosopher Toby Ord found that moving money from the median program to the most cost-effective one would produce about 60 times the benefit. A small gift in the right place can outdo a much larger one in the wrong place.
What’s false
That small gifts don’t matter. Added together they are a large part of the system. Giving USA estimates that charitable giving in the United States reached $617.2 billion in 2025, and individuals gave $394.2 billion of it, far more than foundations, bequests or corporations. That figure includes wealthy donors as well as small ones. After the 2010 Haiti earthquake, donors sent an estimated $43 million in small gifts by text message alone.
A small gift can also do real work on its own. The World Health Organization says a treatment with oral rehydration salts, which counter the dehydration that is diarrhea’s most severe threat, costs a few cents. GiveWell estimates that its top charities have typically saved a life for $3,000 to $5,500. At that rate, a $100 gift covers roughly 2 to 3 percent of the cost of saving a life, and GiveWell expects these costs to rise over time.
What to ask instead
Not “is my gift big enough?” but “where will it do the most?” See Most charities are about equally effective and, on why big gifts get the glory, the Prestige Economy.