Thank you for your comprehensive and well thought out comment. Sorry for my delay in response—I have been sick and busy.
The aim of this article, at least for me, was to provide some sort of a wiki-how for how to generally be effective at fundraising. I think it does a reasonable job in that regard and I am not sure if a discussion of tradeoffs would fit well with the format and aims.
With that said, I think that your insights are very valuable for us to consider. You have made several points that I realize I need to think more about (for example the differences in operational costs for different approaches, and the need to consider the amount that EAs give as an argument against their small numbers). Thanks for that. In particular I now recognise to a greate extent the potential tradeoff issues for arguments 2 & 4 as these points related to approaches that might work better for the general public but be less effective at persuading EAs. For 1 I think that there is no serious challenge, nor tradeoff, in combining statistics and emotional persuasion—most of the givewell charities do this to differing extents.
I will definitely consider writing a follow up article which discussed potential tradeoffs in more detail. Even if I don’t directly build on the above article I will keep the comments in mind when writing/advising about similar topics.
Hi Vipul,
Thank you for your comprehensive and well thought out comment. Sorry for my delay in response—I have been sick and busy.
The aim of this article, at least for me, was to provide some sort of a wiki-how for how to generally be effective at fundraising. I think it does a reasonable job in that regard and I am not sure if a discussion of tradeoffs would fit well with the format and aims.
With that said, I think that your insights are very valuable for us to consider. You have made several points that I realize I need to think more about (for example the differences in operational costs for different approaches, and the need to consider the amount that EAs give as an argument against their small numbers). Thanks for that. In particular I now recognise to a greate extent the potential tradeoff issues for arguments 2 & 4 as these points related to approaches that might work better for the general public but be less effective at persuading EAs. For 1 I think that there is no serious challenge, nor tradeoff, in combining statistics and emotional persuasion—most of the givewell charities do this to differing extents.
I will definitely consider writing a follow up article which discussed potential tradeoffs in more detail. Even if I don’t directly build on the above article I will keep the comments in mind when writing/advising about similar topics.