Indeed, the purpose of the InIn experiment is to use research-based marketing strategies to promote giving to effective charities. Notably, we are not pursuing explicit EA outreach, so as not to attract people to the movement who are not really value-aligned, but just leaving hooks to the EA movement in the article for those who want to follow them. This is why we at InIn prefer to talk about promoting effective giving rather than explicitly effective altruism for what we do.
I hear you about the concern of the article not standing out. I think what helps it stand out is the combination of emotional engagement, authentic narrative, and scientific backing, with the latter an element not typically found in nonprofit messaging. I think that’s the only reason the newspaper accepted the article—it stands out in a distinct way. So hopefully that will have the intended impact.
The Plain Dealer reaches over 400,000 people with its Sunday edition, which is the only venue where editorials are printed, and has 5,000,000 unique visitors online per month. Making a rough Fermi estimate, if even .1% of the Sunday edition readers and .01% of the monthly website visitors try out this strategy, this is 400 50 2 + 500 50 2 money redirected toward charity from consumerism.
The asterisks in the comment got interpreted as Markdown. 400 * 50 * 2 + 500 * 50 * 2 = 90k. Cool! Maybe the newspaper has some estimates on the number of people that read a given article on a certain page of the print version; they’ll surely have that data for the the online version. Then you can make a more precise estimate.
In terms of the ability-motivation-trigger framework, the article provides ability (links to charities) is deliberately cautious about the motivation, and uses Valentine’s Day as trigger. Providing a credible trigger is always a bit tricky, since it’s almost necessarily contrived and often overused.
Maybe a meta approach may work too, where you explain the need people have for such triggers for behavior change, pick something funny for them, and ask them to try it out?
I will think about the meta approach. My intuition suggests that meta works only for people who are already meta, and won’t work for the broad populace, but something to think about.
Indeed, the purpose of the InIn experiment is to use research-based marketing strategies to promote giving to effective charities. Notably, we are not pursuing explicit EA outreach, so as not to attract people to the movement who are not really value-aligned, but just leaving hooks to the EA movement in the article for those who want to follow them. This is why we at InIn prefer to talk about promoting effective giving rather than explicitly effective altruism for what we do.
I hear you about the concern of the article not standing out. I think what helps it stand out is the combination of emotional engagement, authentic narrative, and scientific backing, with the latter an element not typically found in nonprofit messaging. I think that’s the only reason the newspaper accepted the article—it stands out in a distinct way. So hopefully that will have the intended impact.
The Plain Dealer reaches over 400,000 people with its Sunday edition, which is the only venue where editorials are printed, and has 5,000,000 unique visitors online per month. Making a rough Fermi estimate, if even .1% of the Sunday edition readers and .01% of the monthly website visitors try out this strategy, this is 400 50 2 + 500 50 2 money redirected toward charity from consumerism.
The asterisks in the comment got interpreted as Markdown. 400 * 50 * 2 + 500 * 50 * 2 = 90k. Cool! Maybe the newspaper has some estimates on the number of people that read a given article on a certain page of the print version; they’ll surely have that data for the the online version. Then you can make a more precise estimate.
In terms of the ability-motivation-trigger framework, the article provides ability (links to charities) is deliberately cautious about the motivation, and uses Valentine’s Day as trigger. Providing a credible trigger is always a bit tricky, since it’s almost necessarily contrived and often overused.
Maybe a meta approach may work too, where you explain the need people have for such triggers for behavior change, pick something funny for them, and ask them to try it out?
Oh, thanks for catching the asterisks issue!
I will check with the newspaper.
I will think about the meta approach. My intuition suggests that meta works only for people who are already meta, and won’t work for the broad populace, but something to think about.