This donor is a major general animal welfare donor, and had the ~$600k they gave to the Recommended Charity Fund not occurred, they likely would have given it to other non-EAA animal charities, or they may have just left the money in their foundation for future donations.
While they do support some of our Top Charities and Standout Charities, we do not think it likely that the counterfactual ~$600k would have been donated to any of those Recommended Charities. Also, the ~$600k is in addition to their normal donations to our Recommended Charities.
they likely would have given it to other non-EAA animal charities
Thanks! It sounds like how counterfactual to consider this match is depends a lot on how much better you think ACE’s Recommended Charities are than the sorts of charities this funder tends to support. Which I’m guessing isn’t public information?
just left the money in their foundation for future donations
This is also important for assessing counterfactual impact, and is probably not something the funder knows either. If it would go to an ACE Recommended Charity in 2018 instead of 2017 that’s pretty different than if it (a) wouldn’t get donated for a long time or (b) would go to a much less valuable charity (see previous paragraph).
Overall, I think when an EA organization describes a match they offer as counterfactually valid they should link to details describing how they’re reasoning that. For example “funder wouldn’t otherwise donate to any ACE recommended charity this year”, “funder would otherwise donate to GiveWell’s recommendations”, or “funder would otherwise spend the money on a yacht”.
This donor is a major general animal welfare donor, and had the ~$600k they gave to the Recommended Charity Fund not occurred, they likely would have given it to other non-EAA animal charities, or they may have just left the money in their foundation for future donations.
While they do support some of our Top Charities and Standout Charities, we do not think it likely that the counterfactual ~$600k would have been donated to any of those Recommended Charities. Also, the ~$600k is in addition to their normal donations to our Recommended Charities.
Thanks! It sounds like how counterfactual to consider this match is depends a lot on how much better you think ACE’s Recommended Charities are than the sorts of charities this funder tends to support. Which I’m guessing isn’t public information?
This is also important for assessing counterfactual impact, and is probably not something the funder knows either. If it would go to an ACE Recommended Charity in 2018 instead of 2017 that’s pretty different than if it (a) wouldn’t get donated for a long time or (b) would go to a much less valuable charity (see previous paragraph).
Overall, I think when an EA organization describes a match they offer as counterfactually valid they should link to details describing how they’re reasoning that. For example “funder wouldn’t otherwise donate to any ACE recommended charity this year”, “funder would otherwise donate to GiveWell’s recommendations”, or “funder would otherwise spend the money on a yacht”.