Thanks for writing this, Aidan! As a fundraiser, this take resonates. One of the strategies we use to acquire new donors is encouraging our existing supporters to engage in relational fundraising, whether that’s a peer-to-peer birthday fundraiser as you suggest, or a larger time investments (and potentially $, as hosts will also sometimes offer matching gifts to incentivize their friends) like hosting a fundraising event in your home or leading a giving circle. (I’ve also participated in non-EA giving circles that do political education as part of the gift allocation process, which EAs could emulate, but that’s an aside.) Your network likely shares many of your values, and educating them about effective giving opportunities is super helpful to charities.
That said, it is difficult to convince people who don’t care about a particular cause area to care. For those in the farmed animal advocacy space, consider how difficult it can be to get people to reduce or eliminate their animal product consumption. It’s more about presenting values-aligned people with opportunities to enact those values, rather than changing people’s values altogether, in my experience.
Hey Caroline! Fun to interact outside of emails. I agree it’s not about changing people‘s values, but I think that most people’s values (if they allow themselves to think about it) support taking action against factory farming. They just have other forces like food preferences, social norms and misinformation about the issue holding them back. What’s great about donating is that people can do it without changing their diet or dealing with the social costs that come with that. So I’m hopeful that this can be the easier on-ramp that gets far more people to begin taking action on this issue 🤞
Thanks for writing this, Aidan! As a fundraiser, this take resonates. One of the strategies we use to acquire new donors is encouraging our existing supporters to engage in relational fundraising, whether that’s a peer-to-peer birthday fundraiser as you suggest, or a larger time investments (and potentially $, as hosts will also sometimes offer matching gifts to incentivize their friends) like hosting a fundraising event in your home or leading a giving circle. (I’ve also participated in non-EA giving circles that do political education as part of the gift allocation process, which EAs could emulate, but that’s an aside.) Your network likely shares many of your values, and educating them about effective giving opportunities is super helpful to charities.
That said, it is difficult to convince people who don’t care about a particular cause area to care. For those in the farmed animal advocacy space, consider how difficult it can be to get people to reduce or eliminate their animal product consumption. It’s more about presenting values-aligned people with opportunities to enact those values, rather than changing people’s values altogether, in my experience.
Hey Caroline! Fun to interact outside of emails. I agree it’s not about changing people‘s values, but I think that most people’s values (if they allow themselves to think about it) support taking action against factory farming. They just have other forces like food preferences, social norms and misinformation about the issue holding them back. What’s great about donating is that people can do it without changing their diet or dealing with the social costs that come with that. So I’m hopeful that this can be the easier on-ramp that gets far more people to begin taking action on this issue 🤞
Agree on all counts, Aidan!