I just want to comment on the issue of new cohorts being more likely to drop out because they e.g. signed up online.
I’m not sure if that will happen or not, but even if it does, I don’t think it’s such a bad thing. Let’s say the retention rate for members who join on paper is 80%, and that for those who would only ever join online is 50%. While it would be a shame to have those online members start dropping out, that is still potentially a lot of extra members who we never would have had otherwise. If they never signed up at all, presumably fewer still would continue to give in the long term, because they would not have made any public commitment or received regular reminders from us about giving and updates on the latest research from us and GiveWell.
In the early days of GWWC, having members ‘drop out’ was regarded as very bad. While I understand the reasons behind that, I think this is was a mistake. Being too cautious about accepting new members would prevent us from encouraging a large number of people to give more and give more effectively.
Making it easier to join means more marginal people, with less attachment to the idea, can join. This is still good if their membership adds value, but they dilute the membership, which means we shouldn’t account for the average new member being signed up now as being equally valuable as the members who joined up in 2010.
but just am concerned that this means our forecasts might overestimate the value of adding another member, causing relative over-investment.
I just want to comment on the issue of new cohorts being more likely to drop out because they e.g. signed up online.
I’m not sure if that will happen or not, but even if it does, I don’t think it’s such a bad thing. Let’s say the retention rate for members who join on paper is 80%, and that for those who would only ever join online is 50%. While it would be a shame to have those online members start dropping out, that is still potentially a lot of extra members who we never would have had otherwise. If they never signed up at all, presumably fewer still would continue to give in the long term, because they would not have made any public commitment or received regular reminders from us about giving and updates on the latest research from us and GiveWell.
In the early days of GWWC, having members ‘drop out’ was regarded as very bad. While I understand the reasons behind that, I think this is was a mistake. Being too cautious about accepting new members would prevent us from encouraging a large number of people to give more and give more effectively.
Yup, I agree:
but just am concerned that this means our forecasts might overestimate the value of adding another member, causing relative over-investment.