The 2021 EA Funds Donor Lottery is now open
The 2021 EA Funds donor lottery is now open, with block sizes of $100k, $500k, and $2 million. To enter a lottery, or to learn more about donor lotteries, head to the EA Funds donor lottery page.
You can also enter the lottery through the EA Giving Tuesday Facebook Match (base donation only; any matched funds can be allocated to a Fund or non-profit of your choice). See this document for more information about entering the lottery through EA Giving Tuesday.
Update: Winners have been drawn on Monday Jan 24 2022.
Why enter a donor lottery?
We’ve written before about why you should give to a donor lottery this giving season. If you’re intrigued about what a donor lottery is, or why you might want to enter, I’d recommend reading that article, including the comments (note that it’s from last year, so some specifics like block sizes and dates are different). I’ve copied in some of the key points below:
A donor lottery allows you to turn your donation into a larger donation with some probability, while holding the expected donation amount constant. E.g., you can trade a $1,000 donation for a 1% chance of allocating $100,000 worth of donations. Your expected donation size stays constant at $1,000.
If you win, it will be worth the time to think more carefully about where to allocate the money. Because extra time thinking is more likely to lead to better (rather than worse) decisions, this leads to more (expected) impact overall, even though your expected donation size stays the same.
For this reason, we believe that a donor lottery is the most effective way for most smaller donors to give the majority of their donations, for those who feel comfortable with it.
If you win, we can put you in touch with experienced grantmakers who can help you with the decision.
You should only participate in a donor lottery if you think there’s a good chance you (or someone who you trust) will spend additional time thinking about your donation if you win.
We also think there’s a good case for continuing to make some fraction of your donations directly, to keep engaged with EA donation opportunities.
You can participate anonymously if you like.
Continue reading the original article here.
Practical information about the 2021/2022 EA Funds Donor Lottery
The EA Funds Donor Lottery is open now. The lottery will close to new entries on Monday, Jan 10 2022, 12:00 PM UTC. Any payments not confirmed by EA Funds by Monday, Jan 17, 2022, 12:00 PM UTC will not be accepted as entries.
The lotteries will be drawn starting at Mon, Jan 24, 2022, 12:00 PM UTC (drawings for each block size will be spaced five minutes apart).
There will be three block sizes:
$2,000,000 (offered for the first time this year)
Which block you decide to enter is up to you (there are no minimum entry sizes on any of the blocks). If you’re not sure, we suggest that you aim to enter with a 1%-30% chance of winning.
Donations are tax-deductible in the US, the UK, and the Netherlands. However, if you live somewhere else, you should still consider entering if you think the expected value of the lottery (including the potential to allocate winnings to projects that are more effective than the most effective charity that’s tax-deductible where you live) is a larger value-add than tax-deductibility.
It is possible to participate anonymously, such that your personal details will only be visible to EA Funds and CEA operational staff, even if you win. By default, all grants will be made public, unless winners or recipients request otherwise.
For more in-depth information about the lottery process (including the important Caveats and Limitations section), please see the donor lottery website.
Update: Winners have been drawn!
The lotteries have been drawn and results are in!
$100k – No winner
$500k – Lorenzo Buonanno
$2M – Anonymous Winner
Congratulations to the winners and thanks everyone who participated this year!
Nice, excited to see the $2m block!
What’s the logic here? Expected value is the same in all cases right?
Can you share who the guarantor is this year?
Yep, the expected value remains the same, it’s just a suggestion to encourage people make an entry that has a non-negligible chance of winning. As we say in the preceding sentence, there’s no minimum entry size, so if you want to enter with a very long shot, that’s entirely possible.
As in previous years, the lottery is guaranteed by funds held at CEA on behalf of Carl Shulman.