Some people in the effective altruist community have argued that small donors should accept that they will use marginal charitable dollars less efficiently than large actors such as Open Phil, for lack of time, skill, and scale to find and choose between charitable opportunities. Sometimes this is phrased as advice that small donors follow GiveWell’s recommendations, while Open Phil pursues other causes and strategies such as scientific research and policy.
The argument that I have heard is a little different. It is that the entry of big players like Open Phil has made it harder to have the old level of marginal impact with one’s donation.
Basically:
Marginal impact of one’s donation now that Open Phil is plucking a lot of low-hanging fruit < Marginal impact of one’s donation a few years ago … (1)
Whereas the claim that you are critiquing is:
Marginal impact of one’s donation < Marginal impact of Open Phil’s donation … (2)
Why does (1) matter? Some donors have fixed charity budgets, i.e., they wish to donate a certain amount every year to charity. For them, then, the challenge is just to find the best use of money, so even if marginal impacts are down across the board, it doesn’t matter much because all the matters is relative impact.
For other donors and potential donors, charitable donations compete with other uses of money. Therefore, whether or not one donates to charity, and how much one donates to charity, would depend on how large the marginal impact is. If the entry of players like Open Phil has reduced the marginal impact achievable, then that’s good reason to donate less.
So I feel that the argument you are attacking isn’t the actually correct one to attack. Though you do address (1) a bit in the post, I think it would have made more sense to make it the main focus.
So I feel that the argument you are attacking isn’t the actually correct one to attack. Though you do address (1) a bit in the post, I think it would have made more sense to make it the main focus.
This sounds like a fine topic for another post to me.
Re diminishing marginal returns, note that some of the change is Open Phil finding areas that it tentatively guesses may be higher return than GiveWell top charities. That affords room for increase in expected returns via research and allocation (I discussed the balance of improved knowledge with diminishing returns above).
For donors who were already trying to pursue low-hanging fruit in areas OpenPhil hadn’t reached, advantage has declined some, but not collapsed due to the continued presence of scale diseconomies discussed in the post (such as organizational independence and nonmonetary costs).
The argument that I have heard is a little different. It is that the entry of big players like Open Phil has made it harder to have the old level of marginal impact with one’s donation.
Basically:
Marginal impact of one’s donation now that Open Phil is plucking a lot of low-hanging fruit < Marginal impact of one’s donation a few years ago … (1)
Whereas the claim that you are critiquing is:
Marginal impact of one’s donation < Marginal impact of Open Phil’s donation … (2)
Why does (1) matter? Some donors have fixed charity budgets, i.e., they wish to donate a certain amount every year to charity. For them, then, the challenge is just to find the best use of money, so even if marginal impacts are down across the board, it doesn’t matter much because all the matters is relative impact.
For other donors and potential donors, charitable donations compete with other uses of money. Therefore, whether or not one donates to charity, and how much one donates to charity, would depend on how large the marginal impact is. If the entry of players like Open Phil has reduced the marginal impact achievable, then that’s good reason to donate less.
So I feel that the argument you are attacking isn’t the actually correct one to attack. Though you do address (1) a bit in the post, I think it would have made more sense to make it the main focus.
This sounds like a fine topic for another post to me.
Re diminishing marginal returns, note that some of the change is Open Phil finding areas that it tentatively guesses may be higher return than GiveWell top charities. That affords room for increase in expected returns via research and allocation (I discussed the balance of improved knowledge with diminishing returns above).
For donors who were already trying to pursue low-hanging fruit in areas OpenPhil hadn’t reached, advantage has declined some, but not collapsed due to the continued presence of scale diseconomies discussed in the post (such as organizational independence and nonmonetary costs).