I agree that this is misleading. If you are telling these new donors that this is a counterfactual match, that is another way of saying that if these new donors do not put up money than the funds in the the matching pool will not go to this good cause. Which is not the case: if there was a real danger that these matching funds would go unallocated then the announcement wouldnât be asking us not to donate!
Hi Jeffâthanks very much for taking the time to comment. In the case of FarmKind, however, I think this specific critique is a little wide of the mark. We address this specific concern on our page about the matching fund (just click âMore detail on how it worksâ for a drop down with a detailed review). Link here.
In short, donating with us determines where the money in the bonus fund goes, including which favourite charity they choose, which super-effective charity they choose, and how much to allocate to each.
More broadly, weâve tried to be as transparent as possible about how things work with our entire system. In an ideal world, weâd have loads of information right up front with plenty of footnotes, but we have to recognise that this is going to put off the majority of donors. So, weâve had to strike a balance: all the info is there if for those who want to look for it.
But, weâre always listening and happy to take on board critiques :)
After reading through FarmKindâs materials, I do think my criticism is accurate. FarmKind has the same issues I previously documented with GivingMultiplier. The âbonusâ is presented to users as if it (a) will go in part to their favorite charity and (b) is money that would not otherwise be going to help animals, but neither of these are true. The system is fully explained on other pages, as you say, but the typical person going through the site is donating under a false impression of their effect.
I donât think the problem is that itâs difficult to explain things transparently without putting people off with verbosity, but instead that the core thing that makes the site work (convincing people to give more by giving the impression of greater counterfactual impact) is misleading.
I appreciate that youâre trying to help people give more effectively and improve conditions for animals, but this kind of fundraising is corrosive and does not belong in the EA movement.
Hey Jeff, I just want to correct a couple of false claims: (a) The bonus WILL in part go their favorite charity, as you can see when you step through the donation process (see this screenshot: https://ââdrive.google.com/ââfile/ââd/ââ175IonBvB7uRDuZUCybJ50njnTMh5NV5n/ââview?usp=drivesdk). This is true of Giving Multiplier as well. (b) It is not the case that all bonus funds would otherwise go to help animals. We fundraise for our bonus fund from the same donor pool as our regular donors, encouraging them later to âpay forwardâ the match they received by supporting the bonus fund and encouraging others to donate. For this reason, much of the money in the fund would not have otherwise gone to animals or effective charities. In our case, our bonus fund was seeded by a friendâs birthday fundraiser, where most of the money was donated by their extended family who are not animal people or EAs.
I disagree with your other critiques, but donât see a productive outcome or use of time in digging into it here, so I just wanted to correct those 2 factual misapprehensions.
The bonus WILL in part go their favorite charity, as you can see when you step through the donation process ⊠This is true of Giving Multiplier as well.
I agree that the site gives the impression that part of the bonus goes to the favorite charity, but that isnât usefully true. I explain this in detail in my GivingMultiplier post, and summarize it as âA simpler way to describe this is that it matches whatever portion you choose to give to the effective charity at 50%, and doesnât match your donation to the other charity at allâ. [EDIT: the FarmKind function is a bit more complex here, sometimes above 50% and sometimes below, but the matched portion to the non-effective charity remains 0%] To take the screenshot case, I think it would be much clearer to describe it to donors as the donor putting $150, of which $90 goes to the favorite charity and $60 to the effective charity, and then FarmKind contributes $30 to the effective charity.
It is not the case that all bonus funds would otherwise go to help animals. We fundraise for our bonus fund from the same donor pool as our regular donors âŠ
First, the post weâre discussing this on is a counterexample. FarmKind is fundraising from EAs, and writes âIf youâre reading this post, our platform isnât aimed at you. ⊠you may be interested in giving to them via our bonus fundâ. That is, FarmKind does not want EAs (or other people who already plan to give to help animals effectively) to give through the matching platform, but does want them to give to the bonus pool.
Second, I was trying to make a more limited claim, about what happens to the money thatâs already been put in the bonus pool. I think we can agree that every dollar donated to the bonus pool is one that will be paid out to effective animal charities regardless of how other donors behave?
On your first point, your way of describing things may or may not be clearer, but itâs not accurate. See my response to Ben Milwood about how the money flows. You may see the two scenarios as being the same in effect, but in that case our comms are equally accurate in describing the effect and more accurate in describing the money flows. Weâve chosen what we believe to be the most clear, intuitive and compelling way to explain things.
On the first part of your second point, yesâsome bonus funding money would have otherwise been given to help animals (like anyone convinced by this post), while other bonus funding money (and so far the majority) wouldnât have. So it is not the case that all bonus funds would otherwise go to help animals, which your original critique suggested was the case. Thatâs what I wanted to correct the claim.
Regarding your more limited claim, I donât agree that âevery dollar donated to the bonus pool is one that will be paid out to effective animal charities regardless of how other donors behaveâ because dollars in the fund very literally get paid out to favorite charities that neednât be super-effective or support animals.
Plus, when thinking about the counterfactual impact of the bonus system, I think whatâs relevant is what would have happened to those dollars if the fund didnât existânot just what would have happened to them once already in the bonus fund. As explained, many donations to the bonus fund would not have been donated at all were it not for the fund or would not have gone to effective animal charities. And were it not for regulator donors generating demand for bonus funding, we could not fundraise for the bonus fund. The two groups of donors incentivise one another to donate and lead to more total donations to effective farmed animal charities than if the system did not exist. We explain this in our comms. I believe that how our system works is in keeping with the spirit of even the most naive interpretation, in that, whether youâre a regular or bonus donor, your participation in the system leads to more money being donated than would have occurred otherwise.
Itâs fair enough that you would have chosen to communicate things differently in our position. Thank you for giving the system some thought and voicing your perspective on how you would choose to communicate things! Itâs helpful for us to consider such perspectives as we continuously improve our platform.
Maybe it would be most productive to focus on this limited point:
I donât agree that âevery dollar donated to the bonus pool is one that will be paid out to effective animal charities regardless of how other donors behaveâ because dollars in the fund very literally get paid out to favorite charities that neednât be super-effective or support animals.
Lets say I came to you with an offer. I have a pot of money with $100 in it. If you do nothing Iâm going to donate it to ACE at the end of the day. If youâre willing to donate $50 to ACE, however, then Iâm willing to give you $25 from the pot and only the remaining $75 from the pot will go to ACE.
(This offer is not intended to be fully analogous to the FarmKind situation, but to be a simplified version where your âvery literally get paid outâ defense still applies.)
The net flow of money if you donât take the offer is: $100 leaves the pot, ACE gets $100. The net flow if you do take the offer is: $100 leaves the pot, $25 leaves your bank account, ACE gets $125.
Do you think that in the simplified case itâs fair for me to say that I donât agree that âevery dollar in the pot will be paid out to ACE regardless of how you behaveâ because $25 from the pot will very literally be transferred to your bank account?
Similarly, it seems to me that the most straightforward way to describe the flows of money if you take the offer is âThe pot will transfer $100 to ACE regardless, and you will additionally transfer $25â. My original presentation of the offer, with the idea that some money goes from the pot to your bank account, is adding additional complexity that only serves to make the situation more confusing and potentially convince people to take the offer because they havenât fully thought the situation through.
I agree with your interpretation of this case (except for what the most straightforward way to describe it is), but you seem to be missing the broader point about the interplay between supply and demand for matching funding which means that both groups play a causal role in increasing donations to the favorite and super-effective charities alike. I understand you think the way weâve communicated this is misleading, not in the spirit of EA or otherwise wrong. This is a valuable perspective, for which I thank you, but we respectfully disagree.
I hope what we do now agree on is that, regarding your comment âthe site gives the impression that part of the bonus goes to the favorite charity, but that isnât usefully trueâ, it IS true that part of the bonus goes to the favorite charity.
Thatâs all the time I have to spend on this topic. I hope to have clarified some of the facts about how the platform works.
Iâm taking your response to be saying that âpart of the pot goes to your bank accountâ is a fair way to characterize my example offer, but if Iâve misinterpreted your response let me know?
No I donât think âpart of the pot goes to your accountâ is a fair way to characterize your offer. I think you may have edited your comment as I was responding to it.
Itâs clear we agree on what would have otherwise happened to the money already in the bonus fund at the time of a regular donation. I donât think we need a hypothetical example to dig into that any further. Itâs also clear what we disagree on (please see other comments so I donât have to state it again). I donât aim to change your mind on those points, and so Iâll leave things there :)
Hmm, then Iâm still confused about why you think this is a fair way to characterize what FarmKind is doing, but not what my offer does. Iâm trying to break it down by looking at a simplified case, which is why I think the hypothetical helps?
(While I did edit my comment, it was to add the final paragraph, starting with Similarly.... Iâm pretty sure the Do you think that in the simplified case it's fair for me to say... was in there from the beginning.)
(FWIW, it looks like FarmKind doesnât do the exact same matching as GivingMultiplier, and the relationship between bonus size and allocation percentage isnât linear, but it is still always true that the bonus is less than the amount allocated to the effective charity, which is the condition that matters for your argument.)
Good point, thanks for flagging! Hereâs what the function looks like to me (sheet):
Note that the X-axis is in terms of the fraction of the donorâs contribution actually going to the effective charity, and not in terms of the percentages displayed in the tool. For example, when you set the tool to â10%â and put in $1000 it tells you $105 will go to the effective charity and $945 will go to the regular charity. That means $55 of the donorâs initial $1000 is going to the effective charity, for a rate of 5.5%, and that is the value I use on the x-axis.
(Part of why I missed this is that the screenshot Aidan provided happens to show the only case where FarmKind and GivingMultiplier function identically)
In your screenshot, you have $150 coming from your donation, and $30 coming from the bonus fund. Your favourite charity gets $90 and the effective charity gets $90. You could frame this as âyou are donating $75 to each and the bonus fund is donating $15 to eachâ, or you could frame it as âyou are donating $90 to your favourite charity and $60 to the effective charity, and the bonus fund is donating $30 to the effective charityâ. Thereâs no concrete difference between these in terms of who gets how much money, itâs pretty much a matter of interpretation.
I think the thing that leads Jeff (and me) to prefer the latter interpretation is that the bonus is adjusted based on the favourite /â effective split so that the amount of money that goes to the favourite charity never exceeds the amount of money coming from the donorâthat is, it is always at least possible to interpret the cashflows in a way that means the bonus fund gave nothing to the favourite charity.
Whatâs actually happening in the back end is what is laid out in the screenshot: The donorâs donation is split according to their chosen percentage, and then the bonus fund (which is an independent pool of money held by every.org) is disbursed to the favorite charity and the super-effective one.
Itâs interesting that you implement it that way, but I think the important thing is still the overall net cashflow, regardless of what actual transfers make it happen. The fact that you canât donate $X and get more than $X going to your favourite charity means I donât really feel like my donation is being meaningfully matched.
Itâs sort of analogous to if a shop says âif you buy this device, you get this peripheral with it for freeâ, but actually they have just set the price of the device to include the price of the peripheral. Itâs sort of difficult to say that their claim is actually wrong, but it doesnât feel like the most honest explanation of whatâs going on.
If thatâs what it takes for you to feel your donation is being meaningfully matched then itâs another reason this platform isnât the right choice for you. But thatâs a very specific requirement that our platform never claims to meet, and that plenty of folks donât share with you, as evidenced by existing donations through our platform. Many other donors are excited by the prospect of having both their donation to the favorite and super-effective charity receive a bonus. This is what happens on our platform, and is whatâs laid out as they step through the process. No one is donating under any misapprehension that after splitting their donation and receiving a bonus they get more than the total amount they donated given to their favorite charity.
We are not âbaitingâ people in with the promise to cause more dollars than they donate to go to their favorite charity and then âswitchingâ to a split and boost mechanism. Rather, the platform (as we lay out on our landing page, and repeat throughout) promises to allow you to help fix factory farming while supporting your favorite charity too, and to get your donations to both charities boosted. The platform isnât about getting more than the total amount you donated to go to your favorite charity (itâs about splitting and boosting your donation) so the fact that it doesnât do that is a feature and not a bug
Aidan, Ben (I assume) and I arenât commenting because we feel like weâre personally harmed by FarmKind. Instead, itâs that a core part of the EA movement is bringing clarity and transparency to charity, helping donors understand what the real impact of their donations is, and weâre concerned about an effort that seems to be going the other way.
That people are willing to donate through a platform isnât much evidence either way on whether itâs misleading: many donation appeals are seriously misleading while bringing in large amounts of money.
That people are willing to donate through a platform that clearly sign-posts that you donât get >$X donated to your favorite charity if you donate $X split between two charities IS evidence that many donors donât share Benâs expectation about how our bonus system should or does work. Thatâs all I suggested it was evidence for. Iâve only weighed in here to correct false or misleading claims made about how the platform works.
As for whether how the platform works is aligned with EA or not, or misleading or not, I havenât weighed in because Iâm sure itâs clear from our choice to launch this platform that we think this is a good thing to be doing, and that itâs our attempt at doing altruism effectively. Itâs reasonable to disagree and I understand and respect your disagreement. I have similar disagreements with many EAsâ approaches, decisions, cause area prioritisation, communications styles and so on. Once there arenât any remaining misunderstandings about how our platform works, all thatâs left is one of those kinds of disagreements. I donât have much to say about your position except that I respect it, I disagree and I thank you for sharing it. I considered your critique of Giving Multiplier prior to deciding to launch our platform and was grateful to come across this perspective before rather than after making the decision. So thank you again!
Do you think this is an insurmountable problem with the model, or just one that is practically difficult to overcome? I can think of two possible ways to fix it:
In theory, committed donorsâ willing to donate should depend on the cost-effectiveness of their donation. As chicken-welfare years (CWY) can be purchased more cheaply, the portion of their income that donors are willing to spend on CWY should increase. Thus, its plausible that for donors already in this space, the ability to counterfactually âbuyâ CWY at a ~2:1 discount would increase their donation amount. If they donated the amount of this increase to FarmKind, I think the donation would count as truly counterfactual.
You could also have a large donor (e.g., Open Phil) who is pre-committed to using the money for effective charities, but is open as between several different cause areas. Suppose they set aside $10MM in their budget for matching to approved effective charities, not charged to any existing cause area. From the donor perspective, this may be nearly full counterfactual matching. But for the matched donorâs choice, the bulk of the funds would have likely flowed to causes the non-EA donor probably cares little about. (I donât get the sense that most non-EA people open to farmed animal welfare donations would ascribe much if any value to an AI safety donation, so it wouldnât be that different in their eyes to burning the money.)
I agree that this is misleading. If you are telling these new donors that this is a counterfactual match, that is another way of saying that if these new donors do not put up money than the funds in the the matching pool will not go to this good cause. Which is not the case: if there was a real danger that these matching funds would go unallocated then the announcement wouldnât be asking us not to donate!
Hi Jeffâthanks very much for taking the time to comment. In the case of FarmKind, however, I think this specific critique is a little wide of the mark. We address this specific concern on our page about the matching fund (just click âMore detail on how it worksâ for a drop down with a detailed review). Link here.
In short, donating with us determines where the money in the bonus fund goes, including which favourite charity they choose, which super-effective charity they choose, and how much to allocate to each.
More broadly, weâve tried to be as transparent as possible about how things work with our entire system. In an ideal world, weâd have loads of information right up front with plenty of footnotes, but we have to recognise that this is going to put off the majority of donors. So, weâve had to strike a balance: all the info is there if for those who want to look for it.
But, weâre always listening and happy to take on board critiques :)
After reading through FarmKindâs materials, I do think my criticism is accurate. FarmKind has the same issues I previously documented with GivingMultiplier. The âbonusâ is presented to users as if it (a) will go in part to their favorite charity and (b) is money that would not otherwise be going to help animals, but neither of these are true. The system is fully explained on other pages, as you say, but the typical person going through the site is donating under a false impression of their effect.
I donât think the problem is that itâs difficult to explain things transparently without putting people off with verbosity, but instead that the core thing that makes the site work (convincing people to give more by giving the impression of greater counterfactual impact) is misleading.
I appreciate that youâre trying to help people give more effectively and improve conditions for animals, but this kind of fundraising is corrosive and does not belong in the EA movement.
Hey Jeff, I just want to correct a couple of false claims: (a) The bonus WILL in part go their favorite charity, as you can see when you step through the donation process (see this screenshot: https://ââdrive.google.com/ââfile/ââd/ââ175IonBvB7uRDuZUCybJ50njnTMh5NV5n/ââview?usp=drivesdk). This is true of Giving Multiplier as well. (b) It is not the case that all bonus funds would otherwise go to help animals. We fundraise for our bonus fund from the same donor pool as our regular donors, encouraging them later to âpay forwardâ the match they received by supporting the bonus fund and encouraging others to donate. For this reason, much of the money in the fund would not have otherwise gone to animals or effective charities. In our case, our bonus fund was seeded by a friendâs birthday fundraiser, where most of the money was donated by their extended family who are not animal people or EAs.
I disagree with your other critiques, but donât see a productive outcome or use of time in digging into it here, so I just wanted to correct those 2 factual misapprehensions.
Thanks for the response!
I agree that the site gives the impression that part of the bonus goes to the favorite charity, but that isnât usefully true. I explain this in detail in my GivingMultiplier post, and summarize it as âA simpler way to describe this is that it matches whatever portion you choose to give to the effective charity at 50%, and doesnât match your donation to the other charity at allâ. [EDIT: the FarmKind function is a bit more complex here, sometimes above 50% and sometimes below, but the matched portion to the non-effective charity remains 0%] To take the screenshot case, I think it would be much clearer to describe it to donors as the donor putting $150, of which $90 goes to the favorite charity and $60 to the effective charity, and then FarmKind contributes $30 to the effective charity.
First, the post weâre discussing this on is a counterexample. FarmKind is fundraising from EAs, and writes âIf youâre reading this post, our platform isnât aimed at you. ⊠you may be interested in giving to them via our bonus fundâ. That is, FarmKind does not want EAs (or other people who already plan to give to help animals effectively) to give through the matching platform, but does want them to give to the bonus pool.
Second, I was trying to make a more limited claim, about what happens to the money thatâs already been put in the bonus pool. I think we can agree that every dollar donated to the bonus pool is one that will be paid out to effective animal charities regardless of how other donors behave?
On your first point, your way of describing things may or may not be clearer, but itâs not accurate. See my response to Ben Milwood about how the money flows. You may see the two scenarios as being the same in effect, but in that case our comms are equally accurate in describing the effect and more accurate in describing the money flows. Weâve chosen what we believe to be the most clear, intuitive and compelling way to explain things.
On the first part of your second point, yesâsome bonus funding money would have otherwise been given to help animals (like anyone convinced by this post), while other bonus funding money (and so far the majority) wouldnât have. So it is not the case that all bonus funds would otherwise go to help animals, which your original critique suggested was the case. Thatâs what I wanted to correct the claim.
Regarding your more limited claim, I donât agree that âevery dollar donated to the bonus pool is one that will be paid out to effective animal charities regardless of how other donors behaveâ because dollars in the fund very literally get paid out to favorite charities that neednât be super-effective or support animals.
Plus, when thinking about the counterfactual impact of the bonus system, I think whatâs relevant is what would have happened to those dollars if the fund didnât existânot just what would have happened to them once already in the bonus fund. As explained, many donations to the bonus fund would not have been donated at all were it not for the fund or would not have gone to effective animal charities. And were it not for regulator donors generating demand for bonus funding, we could not fundraise for the bonus fund. The two groups of donors incentivise one another to donate and lead to more total donations to effective farmed animal charities than if the system did not exist. We explain this in our comms. I believe that how our system works is in keeping with the spirit of even the most naive interpretation, in that, whether youâre a regular or bonus donor, your participation in the system leads to more money being donated than would have occurred otherwise.
Itâs fair enough that you would have chosen to communicate things differently in our position. Thank you for giving the system some thought and voicing your perspective on how you would choose to communicate things! Itâs helpful for us to consider such perspectives as we continuously improve our platform.
Maybe it would be most productive to focus on this limited point:
Lets say I came to you with an offer. I have a pot of money with $100 in it. If you do nothing Iâm going to donate it to ACE at the end of the day. If youâre willing to donate $50 to ACE, however, then Iâm willing to give you $25 from the pot and only the remaining $75 from the pot will go to ACE.
(This offer is not intended to be fully analogous to the FarmKind situation, but to be a simplified version where your âvery literally get paid outâ defense still applies.)
The net flow of money if you donât take the offer is: $100 leaves the pot, ACE gets $100. The net flow if you do take the offer is: $100 leaves the pot, $25 leaves your bank account, ACE gets $125.
Do you think that in the simplified case itâs fair for me to say that I donât agree that âevery dollar in the pot will be paid out to ACE regardless of how you behaveâ because $25 from the pot will very literally be transferred to your bank account?
Similarly, it seems to me that the most straightforward way to describe the flows of money if you take the offer is âThe pot will transfer $100 to ACE regardless, and you will additionally transfer $25â. My original presentation of the offer, with the idea that some money goes from the pot to your bank account, is adding additional complexity that only serves to make the situation more confusing and potentially convince people to take the offer because they havenât fully thought the situation through.
I agree with your interpretation of this case (except for what the most straightforward way to describe it is), but you seem to be missing the broader point about the interplay between supply and demand for matching funding which means that both groups play a causal role in increasing donations to the favorite and super-effective charities alike. I understand you think the way weâve communicated this is misleading, not in the spirit of EA or otherwise wrong. This is a valuable perspective, for which I thank you, but we respectfully disagree.
I hope what we do now agree on is that, regarding your comment âthe site gives the impression that part of the bonus goes to the favorite charity, but that isnât usefully trueâ, it IS true that part of the bonus goes to the favorite charity.
Thatâs all the time I have to spend on this topic. I hope to have clarified some of the facts about how the platform works.
Thanks for the responses!
Iâm taking your response to be saying that âpart of the pot goes to your bank accountâ is a fair way to characterize my example offer, but if Iâve misinterpreted your response let me know?
No I donât think âpart of the pot goes to your accountâ is a fair way to characterize your offer. I think you may have edited your comment as I was responding to it.
Itâs clear we agree on what would have otherwise happened to the money already in the bonus fund at the time of a regular donation. I donât think we need a hypothetical example to dig into that any further. Itâs also clear what we disagree on (please see other comments so I donât have to state it again). I donât aim to change your mind on those points, and so Iâll leave things there :)
Hmm, then Iâm still confused about why you think this is a fair way to characterize what FarmKind is doing, but not what my offer does. Iâm trying to break it down by looking at a simplified case, which is why I think the hypothetical helps?
(While I did edit my comment, it was to add the final paragraph, starting with
Similarly.... Iâm pretty sure theDo you think that in the simplified case it's fair for me to say...was in there from the beginning.)(FWIW, it looks like FarmKind doesnât do the exact same matching as GivingMultiplier, and the relationship between bonus size and allocation percentage isnât linear, but it is still always true that the bonus is less than the amount allocated to the effective charity, which is the condition that matters for your argument.)
Good point, thanks for flagging! Hereâs what the function looks like to me (sheet):
Note that the X-axis is in terms of the fraction of the donorâs contribution actually going to the effective charity, and not in terms of the percentages displayed in the tool. For example, when you set the tool to â10%â and put in $1000 it tells you $105 will go to the effective charity and $945 will go to the regular charity. That means $55 of the donorâs initial $1000 is going to the effective charity, for a rate of 5.5%, and that is the value I use on the x-axis.
(Part of why I missed this is that the screenshot Aidan provided happens to show the only case where FarmKind and GivingMultiplier function identically)
In your screenshot, you have $150 coming from your donation, and $30 coming from the bonus fund. Your favourite charity gets $90 and the effective charity gets $90. You could frame this as âyou are donating $75 to each and the bonus fund is donating $15 to eachâ, or you could frame it as âyou are donating $90 to your favourite charity and $60 to the effective charity, and the bonus fund is donating $30 to the effective charityâ. Thereâs no concrete difference between these in terms of who gets how much money, itâs pretty much a matter of interpretation.
I think the thing that leads Jeff (and me) to prefer the latter interpretation is that the bonus is adjusted based on the favourite /â effective split so that the amount of money that goes to the favourite charity never exceeds the amount of money coming from the donorâthat is, it is always at least possible to interpret the cashflows in a way that means the bonus fund gave nothing to the favourite charity.
Whatâs actually happening in the back end is what is laid out in the screenshot: The donorâs donation is split according to their chosen percentage, and then the bonus fund (which is an independent pool of money held by every.org) is disbursed to the favorite charity and the super-effective one.
Itâs interesting that you implement it that way, but I think the important thing is still the overall net cashflow, regardless of what actual transfers make it happen. The fact that you canât donate $X and get more than $X going to your favourite charity means I donât really feel like my donation is being meaningfully matched.
Itâs sort of analogous to if a shop says âif you buy this device, you get this peripheral with it for freeâ, but actually they have just set the price of the device to include the price of the peripheral. Itâs sort of difficult to say that their claim is actually wrong, but it doesnât feel like the most honest explanation of whatâs going on.
If thatâs what it takes for you to feel your donation is being meaningfully matched then itâs another reason this platform isnât the right choice for you. But thatâs a very specific requirement that our platform never claims to meet, and that plenty of folks donât share with you, as evidenced by existing donations through our platform. Many other donors are excited by the prospect of having both their donation to the favorite and super-effective charity receive a bonus. This is what happens on our platform, and is whatâs laid out as they step through the process. No one is donating under any misapprehension that after splitting their donation and receiving a bonus they get more than the total amount they donated given to their favorite charity.
We are not âbaitingâ people in with the promise to cause more dollars than they donate to go to their favorite charity and then âswitchingâ to a split and boost mechanism. Rather, the platform (as we lay out on our landing page, and repeat throughout) promises to allow you to help fix factory farming while supporting your favorite charity too, and to get your donations to both charities boosted. The platform isnât about getting more than the total amount you donated to go to your favorite charity (itâs about splitting and boosting your donation) so the fact that it doesnât do that is a feature and not a bug
Aidan, Ben (I assume) and I arenât commenting because we feel like weâre personally harmed by FarmKind. Instead, itâs that a core part of the EA movement is bringing clarity and transparency to charity, helping donors understand what the real impact of their donations is, and weâre concerned about an effort that seems to be going the other way.
That people are willing to donate through a platform isnât much evidence either way on whether itâs misleading: many donation appeals are seriously misleading while bringing in large amounts of money.
That people are willing to donate through a platform that clearly sign-posts that you donât get >$X donated to your favorite charity if you donate $X split between two charities IS evidence that many donors donât share Benâs expectation about how our bonus system should or does work. Thatâs all I suggested it was evidence for. Iâve only weighed in here to correct false or misleading claims made about how the platform works.
As for whether how the platform works is aligned with EA or not, or misleading or not, I havenât weighed in because Iâm sure itâs clear from our choice to launch this platform that we think this is a good thing to be doing, and that itâs our attempt at doing altruism effectively. Itâs reasonable to disagree and I understand and respect your disagreement. I have similar disagreements with many EAsâ approaches, decisions, cause area prioritisation, communications styles and so on. Once there arenât any remaining misunderstandings about how our platform works, all thatâs left is one of those kinds of disagreements. I donât have much to say about your position except that I respect it, I disagree and I thank you for sharing it. I considered your critique of Giving Multiplier prior to deciding to launch our platform and was grateful to come across this perspective before rather than after making the decision. So thank you again!
[fixed]
Thanksâshould be fixed now
Do you think this is an insurmountable problem with the model, or just one that is practically difficult to overcome? I can think of two possible ways to fix it:
In theory, committed donorsâ willing to donate should depend on the cost-effectiveness of their donation. As chicken-welfare years (CWY) can be purchased more cheaply, the portion of their income that donors are willing to spend on CWY should increase. Thus, its plausible that for donors already in this space, the ability to counterfactually âbuyâ CWY at a ~2:1 discount would increase their donation amount. If they donated the amount of this increase to FarmKind, I think the donation would count as truly counterfactual.
You could also have a large donor (e.g., Open Phil) who is pre-committed to using the money for effective charities, but is open as between several different cause areas. Suppose they set aside $10MM in their budget for matching to approved effective charities, not charged to any existing cause area. From the donor perspective, this may be nearly full counterfactual matching. But for the matched donorâs choice, the bulk of the funds would have likely flowed to causes the non-EA donor probably cares little about. (I donât get the sense that most non-EA people open to farmed animal welfare donations would ascribe much if any value to an AI safety donation, so it wouldnât be that different in their eyes to burning the money.)