I can understand that a winner selecting a non-EA cause might end up having to convince CEA of their decision,
See Sam’s comment below:
“to emphasise this, as CEA is running this lottery for the benefit of the community, it’s important for the community to have confidence that CEA will follow their recommendations (otherwise people might be reticent to participate). So, to be clear, while CEA makes the final call on the grant, unless there’s a good reason not to (see the ‘Caveats and Limitations’ section on the EA.org Lotteries page) we’ll do our best to follow a donor’s recommendation, even if it’s to a recipient that wouldn’t normally be thought of as a strictly EA.”
Are there advocacy-related reasons for donating directly to charities instead of joining such a lottery?
One data point: last year Jacob Steinhardt put a majority of his donations into the lottery for expected direct impact, and then allocated the remainder himself for practice donating and signaling value.
See Sam’s comment below:
“to emphasise this, as CEA is running this lottery for the benefit of the community, it’s important for the community to have confidence that CEA will follow their recommendations (otherwise people might be reticent to participate). So, to be clear, while CEA makes the final call on the grant, unless there’s a good reason not to (see the ‘Caveats and Limitations’ section on the EA.org Lotteries page) we’ll do our best to follow a donor’s recommendation, even if it’s to a recipient that wouldn’t normally be thought of as a strictly EA.”
One data point: last year Jacob Steinhardt put a majority of his donations into the lottery for expected direct impact, and then allocated the remainder himself for practice donating and signaling value.