It’d be good to discuss how this fits with the EA Donation Registry which I and others spent a fair bit of time building earlier this year. We created it partly to provide a place for EAs who were interested in publicly stating their donation plans but weren’t giving to global poverty charities and so might not take the GWWC or Life You Can Save pledges. (We’d earlier had a place for animal welfare donors to do this on the old Effective Animal Activism website which I built for Eitan Fischer, but this hasn’t been up for a while.) We mentioned this to GWWC in April, and put the website up in May with donation plans shared by people who took the annual EA survey—there’s a recent EA Forum post describing it, and notes on the .impact project page.
Of course, it’s quite different to Giving What We Can or The Life You Can Save—they’re organisations with members who take a set pledge, whereas the Donation Registry is simply a website on which EAs can share any donations plans they choose to, even if they’re not lifelong pledges or 10% of income, and has more public information alongside the EA Profiles. So it’s not like they’re in competition! People can sign up on the EA Donation Registry and then take the Giving What We Can pledge too if/when they meets its conditions, since neither’s going to take fees from people who join. However, the Registry already provides a place for people who donate to other causes, and a clear action they can take in moving from initial interest in EA to donating. It’s also designed to be better suited to this than the pledge, as it’s more flexible and a substantially lower bar than a lifetime commitment to give 10%.
Hey Tom! Yes, we’ve discussed a bunch how this relates to the donations registry, and considered whether the registry fulfils the purpose we’re looking for already, or will in the future. On balance they seemed, as you say, to fulfil somewhat different purposes. It seems useful to have a place for EA profiles, which is flexible enough to allow people to challenge themselves to give whatever amount they’d like and tell others about that, as well as to make public what they’ve so far given. In particular, I imagine this being used by hard-core EA people to share information with each other. But it also seems sensible to have something which brings people together under one banner, in which everyone pledges to give at least 10% to the most effective causes, and are brought together into a community to do that. GWWC has also done quite a bit of work in learning how to create a cohesive community and encourage people to join, which might be quite time-consuming to replicate. I’d be very happy to discuss this more! Seems very valuable to coordinate these things thoroughly. I hear you’re in my part of the world for a change?
GWWC has also done quite a bit of work in learning how to create a cohesive community and encourage people to join, which might be quite time-consuming to replicate.
I’m not sure how strong that rationale is. You could use the same reasoning to argue that GWWC should be the only organisation where people make commitments or donation plans, and that other pledging organisations like The Life You Can Save should be subsumed into it which does not seem plausible. What does GWWC’s work on maintaining a cohesive community and encouraging people to join on the ground involve, and what are the reasons why this couldn’t be done through another platform like the Donation Registry or something else cause-neutral?
Hey, I’m glad to hear that, and would be happy to coordinate ways to make it clear that they’re complementary, and to make them as complementary as possible (we could continue by email). I agree that having the 10% pledge serves a valuable purpose which is distinct from having a flexible donation registry, such as providing a clear benchmark and message, and also a good story for the media to pick up.
I’d likewise guess that that the donation registry and EA Profiles will mainly get used by people who are ‘hardcore’ in the sense of already being somewhat into EA and sold on sharing their donations, as opposed to the average person who hasn’t heard of EA but might get interested in pledging a share of their income to well-evidenced global poverty charities. (Re your post’s question, this seems to me to be an advantage of GWWC keeping clear, relatively concrete messaging on poverty.) Though pulling against that is the fact that, as you say, the registry’s flexible enough to allow people who are just starting to dip their toes into effective giving to challenge themselves to donate whatever amount they feel comfortable with.
It’d be good to discuss how this fits with the EA Donation Registry which I and others spent a fair bit of time building earlier this year. We created it partly to provide a place for EAs who were interested in publicly stating their donation plans but weren’t giving to global poverty charities and so might not take the GWWC or Life You Can Save pledges. (We’d earlier had a place for animal welfare donors to do this on the old Effective Animal Activism website which I built for Eitan Fischer, but this hasn’t been up for a while.) We mentioned this to GWWC in April, and put the website up in May with donation plans shared by people who took the annual EA survey—there’s a recent EA Forum post describing it, and notes on the .impact project page.
Of course, it’s quite different to Giving What We Can or The Life You Can Save—they’re organisations with members who take a set pledge, whereas the Donation Registry is simply a website on which EAs can share any donations plans they choose to, even if they’re not lifelong pledges or 10% of income, and has more public information alongside the EA Profiles. So it’s not like they’re in competition! People can sign up on the EA Donation Registry and then take the Giving What We Can pledge too if/when they meets its conditions, since neither’s going to take fees from people who join. However, the Registry already provides a place for people who donate to other causes, and a clear action they can take in moving from initial interest in EA to donating. It’s also designed to be better suited to this than the pledge, as it’s more flexible and a substantially lower bar than a lifetime commitment to give 10%.
Hey Tom! Yes, we’ve discussed a bunch how this relates to the donations registry, and considered whether the registry fulfils the purpose we’re looking for already, or will in the future. On balance they seemed, as you say, to fulfil somewhat different purposes. It seems useful to have a place for EA profiles, which is flexible enough to allow people to challenge themselves to give whatever amount they’d like and tell others about that, as well as to make public what they’ve so far given. In particular, I imagine this being used by hard-core EA people to share information with each other. But it also seems sensible to have something which brings people together under one banner, in which everyone pledges to give at least 10% to the most effective causes, and are brought together into a community to do that. GWWC has also done quite a bit of work in learning how to create a cohesive community and encourage people to join, which might be quite time-consuming to replicate. I’d be very happy to discuss this more! Seems very valuable to coordinate these things thoroughly. I hear you’re in my part of the world for a change?
I’m not sure how strong that rationale is. You could use the same reasoning to argue that GWWC should be the only organisation where people make commitments or donation plans, and that other pledging organisations like The Life You Can Save should be subsumed into it which does not seem plausible. What does GWWC’s work on maintaining a cohesive community and encouraging people to join on the ground involve, and what are the reasons why this couldn’t be done through another platform like the Donation Registry or something else cause-neutral?
Hey, I’m glad to hear that, and would be happy to coordinate ways to make it clear that they’re complementary, and to make them as complementary as possible (we could continue by email). I agree that having the 10% pledge serves a valuable purpose which is distinct from having a flexible donation registry, such as providing a clear benchmark and message, and also a good story for the media to pick up.
I’d likewise guess that that the donation registry and EA Profiles will mainly get used by people who are ‘hardcore’ in the sense of already being somewhat into EA and sold on sharing their donations, as opposed to the average person who hasn’t heard of EA but might get interested in pledging a share of their income to well-evidenced global poverty charities. (Re your post’s question, this seems to me to be an advantage of GWWC keeping clear, relatively concrete messaging on poverty.) Though pulling against that is the fact that, as you say, the registry’s flexible enough to allow people who are just starting to dip their toes into effective giving to challenge themselves to donate whatever amount they feel comfortable with.