Does anyone have a sense of the volume of EA donations made to funds in a non-tax-advantaged way?
I see GWWC’s recommendation to generally give to funds even if not tax-advantaged, but I wonder if there is a better solution around the problem for everyone other than the government—at least in Global Health & Development. (I don’t know other cause areas well enough to opine.)
AMF is tax-deductible in a lot of places. All GWWC recommended GH&D funds are ultimately powered by GiveWell at their core. Even All Grants is expected to send 75% to one of the four top charities. Given AMF’s status as a GiveWell top charity, it’s safe to say that a lot of money will flow through GiveWell to AMF.
It would seem advantageous to have a simple way in which a donor could tell GiveWell and AMF: “I have $1000 that I would like to give to GiveWell Top Charities Fund (or whatever), but I am hereby giving it directly to AMF for tax reasons rather than only being able to afford $700 to GiveWell. Please compensate.” GiveWell could then treat (say) $850 of those monies as akin to an advance grant payment to AMF, and reduce a future grant by that amount. (Alternatively, if it were seen as important for the money to go only to GiveWell-endorsed efforts, AMF could agree to park $850 of the donation in a safe investment until GiveWell “grants” that money as part of its normal grants process.)
The end result is that AMF is $150 better off than if the donor had given directly to GiveWell, as it received $1000 from the donor instead of $850 from GiveWell. The GiveWell fund is $150 better off too—it lost a $700 contribution from the donor but got “credited” for an $850 grant to AMF, leaving $150 more to distribute to other organizations than in the donor-to-GiveWell scenario.
Whether the operations setup would be worthwhile depends on amount of tax-disadvantaged monies flowing into the GH&D funds.
(I am aware of the donation swap and actually have some active offers to swap at the moment to help out non-US donors. However, the approach above doesn’t require finding compatible counterparties, and allows money flows to ultimately track the fund’s allocation that is what is desired. My example has an even split of the “surplus” between AMF and the fund, but that was for simplicity rather than an expression of my position. Finally, one could use a different charity as the partner, but I think AMF is the most widely-deductible GiveWell Top Charity and so would cover more donors for a fixed amount of work.)
Does anyone have a sense of the volume of EA donations made to funds in a non-tax-advantaged way?
I see GWWC’s recommendation to generally give to funds even if not tax-advantaged, but I wonder if there is a better solution around the problem for everyone other than the government—at least in Global Health & Development. (I don’t know other cause areas well enough to opine.)
AMF is tax-deductible in a lot of places. All GWWC recommended GH&D funds are ultimately powered by GiveWell at their core. Even All Grants is expected to send 75% to one of the four top charities. Given AMF’s status as a GiveWell top charity, it’s safe to say that a lot of money will flow through GiveWell to AMF.
It would seem advantageous to have a simple way in which a donor could tell GiveWell and AMF: “I have $1000 that I would like to give to GiveWell Top Charities Fund (or whatever), but I am hereby giving it directly to AMF for tax reasons rather than only being able to afford $700 to GiveWell. Please compensate.” GiveWell could then treat (say) $850 of those monies as akin to an advance grant payment to AMF, and reduce a future grant by that amount. (Alternatively, if it were seen as important for the money to go only to GiveWell-endorsed efforts, AMF could agree to park $850 of the donation in a safe investment until GiveWell “grants” that money as part of its normal grants process.)
The end result is that AMF is $150 better off than if the donor had given directly to GiveWell, as it received $1000 from the donor instead of $850 from GiveWell. The GiveWell fund is $150 better off too—it lost a $700 contribution from the donor but got “credited” for an $850 grant to AMF, leaving $150 more to distribute to other organizations than in the donor-to-GiveWell scenario.
Whether the operations setup would be worthwhile depends on amount of tax-disadvantaged monies flowing into the GH&D funds.
(I am aware of the donation swap and actually have some active offers to swap at the moment to help out non-US donors. However, the approach above doesn’t require finding compatible counterparties, and allows money flows to ultimately track the fund’s allocation that is what is desired. My example has an even split of the “surplus” between AMF and the fund, but that was for simplicity rather than an expression of my position. Finally, one could use a different charity as the partner, but I think AMF is the most widely-deductible GiveWell Top Charity and so would cover more donors for a fixed amount of work.)