I once had this argument with my friend, who convinced me against this position with the problem of redirecting resources. In theory, some resources are locked into a cause area (e.g. donors are committed to abortion) and some are not (donors are willing to change cause areas). Finding the best giving area within a cause will increase the efficiency of resources that are locked into that cause, but it will also encourage some amount of redirection. IIRC, when GiveDirectly introduced cash transfers for the US, their normal arms actually lost donations despite donations overall being way up during COVID. That’s an example that demonstrates the worry that people will direct their money to less important areas if you give them a winning donation opportunity within that area.
I once had this argument with my friend, who convinced me against this position with the problem of redirecting resources. In theory, some resources are locked into a cause area (e.g. donors are committed to abortion) and some are not (donors are willing to change cause areas). Finding the best giving area within a cause will increase the efficiency of resources that are locked into that cause, but it will also encourage some amount of redirection. IIRC, when GiveDirectly introduced cash transfers for the US, their normal arms actually lost donations despite donations overall being way up during COVID. That’s an example that demonstrates the worry that people will direct their money to less important areas if you give them a winning donation opportunity within that area.
Hmm yes, that’s interesting! I’d be interested to know how much this happens.