Dan's Blog

Just as an intro in case anyone didn’t know, I founded Double Up Drive, a nonprofit that fundraises for other charities. At the time of this writing, we have raised about $25 Million(!).  But this blog is just my personal thoughts and observations during my recent trip to visit one of the charities I’ve fundraised for through Double Up Drive, StrongMinds. It is not indicative of any Double Up Drive positions.  StrongMinds provides group therapy for women in Africa (currently Zambia and Uganda). These groups have been ~75-80% effective at treating conditions like depression at a very reasonable cost.  Women

Two very exciting updates to share! The first one is that Double Up Drive has partnered with The Life You Can Save. Double Up Drive started as a small project with one volunteer (hey Stephanie!) and ended up growing to the point where we were managing millions of dollars every year. In 2020, we had some challenges and growing pains. I felt we had grown past the point of just functioning with some (really really great) volunteers. TLYCS is a great org that already has plenty of infrastructure in place. They are able to help us with plenty of back

Howdy Y’all, One of the most common objections from people who choose not to donate money to charity goes something like this: “I know that I should, but I just don’t think I’m a charitable person who cares enough about others.” Based on my own experiences, the vast majority of the time my decision to donate is not emotional, but intellectual. At a certain point, I also believe those with excess have a moral obligation to help those with very little or none, Peter Singer’s 2009 article in The New York Times first convinced me of this fact. If you

Howdy, y’all. People often ask me how I became a professional poker player, so I thought I’d share a little bit about how I broke into high stakes. Like most Americans who lived through the 2000s, I first saw poker on TV. I started playing with my high school friends, and I seemed to have a knack for it. At the time I was a super competitive chess player (I started playing chess competitively when I was six), but as a teenager I increasingly found myself more interested in the poker games played on the side at all the major

2020 brought change for all and has been a big year for Double Up Drive. We have already run three drives and raised over $900,000 to benefit GiveDirectly, StrongMinds, and Fair & Just Prosecution. I was worried that these would diminish our December matching potential, but we still have almost $700,000 in matching funds available for our annual drive, which launches today. You can find all of the details on our website. In addition, Double Up Drive earned its 501(c)(3) nonprofit status! Thanks largely to the hard work of some really generous volunteers, we can process credit card donations at much

A few years ago when looking to fundraise for criminal justice reform I was turned on to bail funds. Although they are a wonderful cause that I have supported since, they are also band-aids on a broken system. While researching ways to stop the bleeding I spoke to Chloe Cockburn, an expert in the field, who in turn introduced me to Miriam Krinsky from Fair and Just Prosecution (FJP). For the first time, I believe I have found an organization that is trying to efficiently and effectively change the system. FJP is a learning and support network of forward-thinking local prosecutors who are