Daniell delivers big impact for charity
The Kiwi tells David Long he wants top tennis players and athletes to support his effective altruism project.
NEWZealand doubles player Marcus Daniell will talk to some of highest profile athletes in the world to support his new charitable initiative.
The world No 45 has launched awebsite called High Impact Athletes, where top sportsmen and women can support and promote specific charities that could have the biggest influence.
Daniell has been involved in a movement called effective altruism for five years, which uses research to work out how help solve some of the world’s most dire problems.
‘‘I discovered this idea in 2015, when I’d won enough money to feel secure about a tennis career and felt like I had to think of ways to give back,’’ Daniell said.
‘‘Since then, I’ve donated between five and 10 per cent of my own income to effective organisations, or organisations recommended within the effective altruism movement.
‘‘In late March I started thinking about how I could do more and landed on the idea of starting an organisation myself.
‘‘The idea of the organisation to use my personal connections to athletes, especially tennis players, but also athletes within New Zealand.
‘‘I know a broad range of athletes through being at the Olympics and I’ve been trying to convince them to get some skin in the game, in donating to these highly effective charities.
‘‘Ideally then use the social leverage and influence they have to try to bring as many fans and followers along as possible.
‘‘The ultimate goal is to get as much money as possible to the charities, where it can do a huge amount of good.
‘‘One of the keys points is that the charity world is extremely diverse, in terms of how much impact a charity makes on its chosen cause area.
‘‘There are plenty of examples within the charity world where $1000 given to one place, will do 1000 timesmore good than to another place.
‘‘I’m relying on research that’s been done, to try to channel money into the most effective places.’’ On his highimpactathletes.com website, the charities he is looking to support are highlighted.
‘‘There are two main areas of focus,’’ Daniell said.
‘‘The area that has the most charities through High Impact Athletes is global health and poverty.
That’s everything from protecting against malaria, to deworming, to the education of women and girls, fighting preventable malnutrition, or lack of nutrients, like Vitamin A supplementation.
‘‘Even through to access to clean water and sanitisation and things as basic as iodine.
‘‘The other section is environmental impact, that covers carbon offsetting, but only the most effective programmeswithin carbon offsetting.
‘‘Then climate change initiatives or charities, and also the food production system farmed animalwelfare.
‘‘Trying to eradicate factory farms, which have a huge amount of impact, not just for the animals, but also the environment and implications for global health, through things like 80 per cent of the antibiotics in the States and other western countries going into animals to keep them healthy, while they’re in these crowded, terrible conditions.
‘‘That’s a breeding ground for antibiotic resistance, so there are global health implications with that.’’
The 31-year-old Daniell is a well known face on the tennis circuit around the world.
He already has last year’s ASB Classic finalist and current world No 36 singles player JanLennard Struff on board, as well as top doubles players Phillip Oswald, Ben MacLaughlin, Freddie Nielsen, Sander Gille and Gabriela Dabrowski.
New Zealand canoe slalom Olympic silver medallist Luuka Jones is also supporting, as is Black Sticks hockey repHugo Inglis, but this is just the start.
‘‘I haven’t done a huge amount of outreach yet,’’ he said. ‘‘It’s been a pretty long process trying to get the website and all of the backend, but now I’m at a position where I can start chatting to people and seeing what they think. I’ve already got a bunch of financial commitments for this year.
‘‘I’ve approached a few of the big dogs in tennis, they’ve been interested — a couple said they’re happy to push it out on social media.
‘‘If I can get that ball rolling the exposure will
be immediately huge.’’