GWWC seems to be the only EA fundraising organization I know of which calculates its potential impact for 40 years into the future.
Even if you only focus on donations that have already been made, and ignore pledges, GWWC has a high positive multiplier. Moreover, completely ignoring the future value of pledges would be really pessimistic.
I think REG should try to value future pledged donations.
With CS you should value the future value of legacy commitments, even though they will take 20-60 years (though you’d need to apply discounting). (Presumably you do give them positive value even though they’re a long way in the future? :)) The case for valuing future birthday fundraisers is less strong because there’s no analogous long-term commitment.
Moreover, in all cases, we shouldn’t get too hung up on historical impact. Most of our impact lies in the future, so what really matters is the potential upside and probability of that upside. Historical money moved is only a weak indication of that.
Even if you only focus on donations that have already been made, and ignore pledges, GWWC has a high positive multiplier. Moreover, completely ignoring the future value of pledges would be really pessimistic.
I totally agree and think that a really interesting question is what the future value of pledges should be. I think may also be worth mentioning that if we focus on donations that have already been made, my understanding is GWWC’s impact is an order of magnitude less than their current realistic impact estimate. I am not sure how exactly we should weigh that information.
With CS you should value the future value of legacy commitments, even though they will take 20-60 years (though you’d need to apply discounting). (Presumably you do give them positive value even though they’re a long way in the future? :))
At CS we sure do value the future value of legacy commitments :). We haven’t yet determined exactly how we will calculate their expected value.
Zooming out for a bit, if you’re trying to evaluate GWWC’s historical impact, there’s five categories of impact:
Money pledgers have already donated
Money pledgers will donate in the future
People who will take the pledge in the future due to past investments (e.g. GWWC’s website will keep creating pledgers even if they closed tomorrow).
Money influenced by people who didn’t take the pledge
Impact that isn’t in the form of donations to top charities (creating the EA movement, founding CEA, their research contributions, spinning off 80k, substantial policy influence)
GWWC are very modest and only focus on (1) and (2) :)
To evaluate the total impact, you need to calculate the expected value for each component. You should make your own estimates given the best information you have.
Only counting (1) would be a very poor estimate. (2) to (5) are very unlikely to be zero. My personal guess is that:
(2) is about 10x (1) [because I think GWWC’s internal estimates are reasonable]
(3) and (4) are similar to (1)
(5) is much larger than (2)
However, even if you only cared about (1), GWWC’s multiplier would still be about 10x, which would make them more cost-effective than GiveWell recommended charities, and equal to or more cost-effective than the other EA fundraising orgs (in the past). So I’m not sure it’s even that decision relevant.
Even if you only focus on donations that have already been made, and ignore pledges, GWWC has a high positive multiplier. Moreover, completely ignoring the future value of pledges would be really pessimistic.
I think REG should try to value future pledged donations.
With CS you should value the future value of legacy commitments, even though they will take 20-60 years (though you’d need to apply discounting). (Presumably you do give them positive value even though they’re a long way in the future? :)) The case for valuing future birthday fundraisers is less strong because there’s no analogous long-term commitment.
Moreover, in all cases, we shouldn’t get too hung up on historical impact. Most of our impact lies in the future, so what really matters is the potential upside and probability of that upside. Historical money moved is only a weak indication of that.
https://80000hours.org/2015/11/take-the-growth-approach-to-evaluating-startup-non-profits-not-the-marginal-approach/
Hi Ben,
Thanks for responding :)
I totally agree and think that a really interesting question is what the future value of pledges should be. I think may also be worth mentioning that if we focus on donations that have already been made, my understanding is GWWC’s impact is an order of magnitude less than their current realistic impact estimate. I am not sure how exactly we should weigh that information.
At CS we sure do value the future value of legacy commitments :). We haven’t yet determined exactly how we will calculate their expected value.
How do should you weigh the information?
Zooming out for a bit, if you’re trying to evaluate GWWC’s historical impact, there’s five categories of impact:
Money pledgers have already donated
Money pledgers will donate in the future
People who will take the pledge in the future due to past investments (e.g. GWWC’s website will keep creating pledgers even if they closed tomorrow).
Money influenced by people who didn’t take the pledge
Impact that isn’t in the form of donations to top charities (creating the EA movement, founding CEA, their research contributions, spinning off 80k, substantial policy influence)
GWWC are very modest and only focus on (1) and (2) :)
To evaluate the total impact, you need to calculate the expected value for each component. You should make your own estimates given the best information you have.
Only counting (1) would be a very poor estimate. (2) to (5) are very unlikely to be zero. My personal guess is that:
(2) is about 10x (1) [because I think GWWC’s internal estimates are reasonable] (3) and (4) are similar to (1) (5) is much larger than (2)
However, even if you only cared about (1), GWWC’s multiplier would still be about 10x, which would make them more cost-effective than GiveWell recommended charities, and equal to or more cost-effective than the other EA fundraising orgs (in the past). So I’m not sure it’s even that decision relevant.