Prof. Paul Smeets

𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐬𝐞 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐭𝐨𝐩 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐠𝐢𝐯𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐦𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐡

For the third time, Doneer Effectief and the University of Amsterdam present the annual top charity recommendations for your December donations.

The jury of scientists of Dutch and Belgian universities selected the charities based on independent, scientific research from charity evaluators. The focus is on achieving the greatest possible impact per euro donated.

𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐲𝐞𝐚𝐫’𝐬 𝐭𝐨𝐩 𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬:
🌍 𝐏𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐭𝐲 & 𝐇𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐭𝐡 – 𝐍𝐮𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐈𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐧𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥
Every two minutes, a child goes blind due to vitamin A deficiency. For about €1 per capsule, their vitamin A program protects children’s eyesight.

🌱 𝐂𝐥𝐢𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐞 – 𝐅𝐮𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐂𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐜𝐡 𝐀𝐫𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐬
They accelerate the decarbonisation of hard-to-abate sectors such as cement and shipping through European research and policy advocacy.

🐟 𝐀𝐧𝐢𝐦𝐚𝐥 𝐖𝐞𝐥𝐟𝐚𝐫𝐞 & 𝐅𝐨𝐨𝐝 𝐓𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 – 𝐀𝐧𝐢𝐦𝐚𝐥 𝐖𝐞𝐥𝐟𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐎𝐛𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐯𝐚𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐲
They improve the lives of billions of animals through prevention and policy advocacy, with particular attention to often-overlooked animals such as fish and shrimp.

If you want to make your donation count this Christmas, consider donating to one of these charities.

𝗛𝗼𝗲 𝗷𝗲 𝗺𝗲𝘁 𝗲𝗲𝗻 𝗱𝗼𝗻𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗲 𝘃𝗮𝗻 𝟰𝟬 𝗰𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗻𝗲𝘁 𝘇𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗲𝗹 𝗖𝗢₂ 𝗯𝗲𝘀𝗽𝗮𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝗮𝗹𝘀 𝗺𝗲𝘁 𝗲𝗲𝗻 𝗷𝗮𝗮𝗿 𝗹𝗮𝗻𝗴 𝗽𝗹𝗮𝗻𝘁𝗮𝗮𝗿𝗱𝗶𝗴 𝗲𝘁𝗲𝗻

Vandaag is de nieuwe aflevering van de podcast Wat Wel Kan van Trouw verschenen. Ik spreek met Cecilia Adorée over hoe je met jouw gedrag de meeste positieve klimaatimpact kunt maken.

Een Nederlander stoot gemiddeld 10 ton CO₂ per jaar uit. Een jaar lang plantaardig eten verlaagt dat met 0,4 ton. Maar een effectieve klimaatdonatie van 0,40 euro bespaart óók 0,4 ton CO₂.

Je gedrag veranderen helpt, maar het is het voorgerecht op de menukaart. Met effectief doneren bestel je het hoofdgerecht en toetje.

🎙 𝗕𝗲𝗹𝘂𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗱𝗲 𝗮𝗳𝗹𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 🎙 https://open.spotify.com/episode/6IxAADxFp9WCBuiUDgF548?si=v4HOfSaYSOOv5TZimfI5Hg

University of Amsterdam / Universiteit van Amsterdam

Pledge First, Think Later: How You Can Give More Effectively

When donors pledge first and choose later, they give more - and make more impact.

When people are asked on the spot to donate, they face two decisions at once:
1️⃣ How much to give
2️⃣ Which charity to support

This dual burden often limits their attention to cost-effectiveness.

In our new study, co-authored with Janek Kretschmer, we investigated 1,174 U.S. donors to see whether giving pledges can make donations more impactful by separating these two choices.

What we found:

✅ Donors who could pledge gave more often.
✅ They allocated a larger share to highly cost-effective charities.
✅ Pre-committing freed their attention to focus on impact.

Breaking complex giving decisions into manageable steps can meaningfully improve how donations are allocated.

📄 Read the paper:
“Pledge First, Think Later! Breaking Down the Complexity of Donations Through Pledges”
👉 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5425214

Pledge First, Think Later: How You Can Give More Effectively When donors pledge first and choose later, they give more - and make more impact.When people are asked on the spot to donate, they face two decisions at once...

𝗗𝗼 𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗶𝗮𝗹 𝗮𝗱𝘃𝗶𝘀𝗼𝗿𝘀 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗴𝗲 𝘀𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗶𝗻𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗶𝗻𝘃𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘀 𝗮 𝗽𝗿𝗲𝗺𝗶𝘂𝗺?
(𝗮𝗰𝗰𝗲𝗽𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗶𝗻 𝗠𝗮𝗻𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗦𝗰𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲)

Regulators worry that investors who care about sustainability might be charged higher fees. So far, there has been little hard evidence on this.

Our paper, co-authored with Marten Laudi and Utz Weitzel, has just been accepted for publication in Management Science. We ran two lab-in-the-field experiments with 415 professional financial advisors from the US and Europe to explore this issue.

𝗢𝘂𝗿 𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀:
✅ Financial advisors charge higher fees to sustainable investors than to conventional investors.
✅ This premium cannot be explained by differences in effort, skill, or costs.
✅ Advisors charge the highest fees to sustainable investors with low financial literacy, while those with high financial literacy face no premium.
👉 The results point to price discrimination against less financially literate sustainable investors.

Paper:
“Do Financial Advisors Charge Sustainable Investors a Premium?” Management Science

Read it here:
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3887716

-- Verkiezingsdebat over het belang van goede doelen in Nederland --

Maandag nam ik deel aan het verkiezingsdebat over goede doelen, georganiseerd door Goede Doelen Nederland bij Nieuwspoort, samen met politici uit de Tweede Kamer der Staten-Generaal.

Mijn vraag aan de politici: hoe zorgen we dat het maatschappelijk middenveld steun blijft houden vanuit de overheid, met name via de giftenaftrek?

Een recent ambtelijk rapport van het Ministerie van Financiën stelt namelijk voor om de giftenaftrek te versoberen: de drempel voor giften zou omhoog gaan van 1% naar 1,6% van het inkomen, en ook periodieke schenkingen van vijf jaar zouden onder deze drempel vallen.

Zoals Don Ceder (ChristenUnie) mooi verwoordde: “de overheid moet geen belasting heffen op goed doen.” Goede doelen leveren cruciaal werk voor de maatschappij, met miljoenen vrijwilligers die zich belangeloos inzetten. Goedkoop is hier echt duurkoop.

Positief was dat ook Joost Sneller (D66), Mohammed Mohandis MSc (GroenLinks/PvdA) en Derk Boswijk (CDA) het belang van de giftenaftrek benadrukten en zich uitspraken voor behoud ervan.

Bekijk het debat hier terug: https://goededoelennederland.nl/agenda/goede-doelen-verkiezingsdebat-2

EFA 2025 - The Impact of Sustainable Finance

On Friday, I hosted a session about the impact of sustainable finance at the European Finance Association Conference in Paris.

Claudio Rizzi showed that the presence of government backed green banks increases VC funding for green startups.

Hélène Mathurin (Iung) created a greenwashing index. They demonstrated that institutional investors reduce their sustainable investments when greenwashing coverage is more prominent in newspapers. Retail investors do not adjust their investments based on greenwashing coverage.

Dries Laurs measures how the stock market punishes firms that do not comply with the emissions cap set by the EU-Emissions Trading System. The stock price falls for those firms that violate the caps for the first time but not for repeated offenders.

I would like to thank the discussants, Olivier Darmouni , Zacharias Sautner and Mathias Kruttli , as well as this year’s EFA organizer Laurent Calvet.

𝗪𝗶𝗻𝗻𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟱 𝗔𝗺𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗱𝗮𝗺 𝗜𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗰𝘁 𝗜𝗻𝘃𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗖𝗮𝘀𝗲 𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗲𝘁𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻

We are thrilled to announce that Team FLUX has won the 2025 Amsterdam Impact Investment Case Competition at the University of Amsterdam - Amsterdam Business School.

Team FLUX stood out with their proposed investment in Enhanced Rock Weathering in Kenya. Enhanced Rock Weathering is a carbon removal technique that involves spreading crushed silicate rocks on agricultural land. As these rocks naturally weather through contact with rainwater and soil, they absorb CO₂ from the atmosphere while simultaneously releasing nutrients that improve soil health and crop yields.

Their investment proposal? A regionally grounded pilot program that leverages this dual benefit, removing carbon from the atmosphere while providing tangible agricultural benefits to smallholder farmers in Kenya. The model features a fair revenue-sharing mechanism for farmers and realistic financial projections, presenting a compelling early-stage investment opportunity in the fast-emerging carbon removal sector.

Congratulations to Ziyun Xu, Tijs Quaak, Timur Abemanov, Filip Karawajczyk and Chenyao Li

Over the past weeks, as part of the Honours Programme at the University of Amsterdam, five outstanding student teams tackled real-world challenges at the intersection of finance and impact—developing investment proposals with the potential to shape a more sustainable future. Each team conducted thorough financial analyses, risk assessments, and impact evaluations.

We were genuinely impressed by the quality of thinking, teamwork, and dedication across all participating teams. These students represent the next generation of leaders who want to make a positive impact.

Thanks to the co-jury Monika Riecken de Chavarría from Westbridge Advisory. Also thanks to the coaches throughout the course: Jochem Wieringa and Tom Doornik for their valuable guidance and feedback.