Another point I’d like to add is that some may come away thinking “I had a pretty cool and unusual idea for using my donations that probably won’t get funded otherwise, but now I will give to the donor lottery instead.” I would prefer that this person didn’t participate in the lottery, and instead evaluate and support the novel opportunity they came up with. I think individual donors exploring such opportunities on their own is an important source of experimentation and viewpoint diversity in the EA community, and it seems better for them to continue doing so instead of supporting the lottery. (The same point also applies to donations to EA Funds. Thanks to Oliver Habryka for first bringing this point to my attention.)
All things considered, I think it’s good to make a strong case for the donor lottery, as I think it’s really one of the best ways to give, and that seems under-appreciated, but I hope donors will be aware of the above point.
some may come away thinking “I had a pretty cool and unusual idea for using my donations that probably won’t get funded otherwise, but now I will give to the donor lottery instead.” I would prefer that this person didn’t participate in the lottery, and instead evaluate and support the novel opportunity they came up with. I think individual donors exploring such opportunities on their own is an important source of experimentation and viewpoint diversity in the EA community and it seems better for them to continue doing so instead of supporting the lottery.
Thanks! Given this acknowledgement, it’s not clear where and to what extent we disagree. I assume that you think this description applies to a smaller number of donors than I do. Perhaps you have in mind a higher bar for the donor having a ‘cool and unusual idea for donations that probably won’t get funded otherwise’ than I would, whereas I think that could be that many/most small donors (who are considering donating to specific charities) would do better to try to explore and evaluate these opportunities themselves (which I suspect leads to lots of individuals evaluating lots of different opportunities, rather than a smaller number of random individuals investigating). I’ll respond to the specific points in the threads replying to my original comment.
In any case, this makes me think that it might be valuable for more time to be spent working out and spelling out in what specific conditions donors would be well advised to give to the lottery and how donors can try to discern whether they would be best advised to donate to the lottery (and possibly donate a larger sum later), donate based on their specific evaluations now, just defer to other grant-makers now, or even defer to later donors/later versions of themselves (without donating to the current year lottery) by saving their money to donate later.
Although I’m glad that your comment now prominently displays one reason why it might be better for people to not donate to the lottery, I think the original post gives the very strong impression that most donors should be donating via the lottery without discussion of these complexities. Since a lot of EAs seem very deferential, I worry that there’s a large risk that a lot of donors will just defer to this recommendation without much consideration of whether there are reasons not to. (Historically there seem to have been a few cases where EAs have deferred en mass to apparent clear signals (e.g. regarding earning to give, not earning to give, ops work, EA direct work) and then there’s had to be a reversal when it’s pointed out that there are lots of nuances or exceptions that, for whatever reason, people didn’t infer the first time around).
Perhaps you have in mind a higher bar for the donor having a ‘cool and unusual idea for donations that probably won’t get funded otherwise’ than I would, whereas I think that could be that many/most small donors (who are considering donating to specific charities) would do better to try to explore and evaluate these opportunities themselves (which I suspect leads to lots of individuals evaluating lots of different opportunities, rather than a smaller number of random individuals investigating). I’ll respond to the specific points in the threads replying to my original comment.
In my experience the great majority of small donors (including me) generally give to fairly well-established charities. I wouldn’t describe this as a “cool and unusual idea for donations”.
I’m a little confused as to what your paradigmatic case of a small donor looks like, such that many/most of them fall under Jonas’s description.
I don’t say that many/most small donors have a “cool and unusual idea for donations that probably won’t get funded otherwise.” I say that Jonas may have a higher bar for this than I do, and this may partly explain where we disagree. I also said that I think that it could be the case that “many/most small donors (who are considering donating to specific charities) would do better to try to explore and evaluate these opportunities themselves.” But that’s only partly due to me (possibly) thinking that more small donors have cool and unusual ideas than Jonas does. It’s doubtless also due to more substantive differences. For example, I also think that it may be more beneficial for many donors who are considering donating to specific charities to try to think about how to make those donations themselves, because it provides important sources of experimentation/information/donor-practice for the donor and the community, even if those donations don’t meet whatever the bar is for “cool and unusual.”
I think those benefits probably obtain in a lot of cases even where the donor is considering donating to “fairly well-established charities”, because the donor is still at least thinking about donating to different charities and about donation in general, and the community is getting information about whether the community at large think that this or that fairly well-established charity is more promising, as well as about the extent to which the more well-established charities are better options than less well-established charities.
And as I mention in my comment, there are still other reasons that I think underlie the disagreement (not merely our conceptions of “cool and interesting” donors), which I discuss in the other threads.
Another point I’d like to add is that some may come away thinking “I had a pretty cool and unusual idea for using my donations that probably won’t get funded otherwise, but now I will give to the donor lottery instead.” I would prefer that this person didn’t participate in the lottery, and instead evaluate and support the novel opportunity they came up with. I think individual donors exploring such opportunities on their own is an important source of experimentation and viewpoint diversity in the EA community, and it seems better for them to continue doing so instead of supporting the lottery. (The same point also applies to donations to EA Funds. Thanks to Oliver Habryka for first bringing this point to my attention.)
All things considered, I think it’s good to make a strong case for the donor lottery, as I think it’s really one of the best ways to give, and that seems under-appreciated, but I hope donors will be aware of the above point.
Thanks! Given this acknowledgement, it’s not clear where and to what extent we disagree. I assume that you think this description applies to a smaller number of donors than I do. Perhaps you have in mind a higher bar for the donor having a ‘cool and unusual idea for donations that probably won’t get funded otherwise’ than I would, whereas I think that could be that many/most small donors (who are considering donating to specific charities) would do better to try to explore and evaluate these opportunities themselves (which I suspect leads to lots of individuals evaluating lots of different opportunities, rather than a smaller number of random individuals investigating). I’ll respond to the specific points in the threads replying to my original comment.
In any case, this makes me think that it might be valuable for more time to be spent working out and spelling out in what specific conditions donors would be well advised to give to the lottery and how donors can try to discern whether they would be best advised to donate to the lottery (and possibly donate a larger sum later), donate based on their specific evaluations now, just defer to other grant-makers now, or even defer to later donors/later versions of themselves (without donating to the current year lottery) by saving their money to donate later.
Although I’m glad that your comment now prominently displays one reason why it might be better for people to not donate to the lottery, I think the original post gives the very strong impression that most donors should be donating via the lottery without discussion of these complexities. Since a lot of EAs seem very deferential, I worry that there’s a large risk that a lot of donors will just defer to this recommendation without much consideration of whether there are reasons not to. (Historically there seem to have been a few cases where EAs have deferred en mass to apparent clear signals (e.g. regarding earning to give, not earning to give, ops work, EA direct work) and then there’s had to be a reversal when it’s pointed out that there are lots of nuances or exceptions that, for whatever reason, people didn’t infer the first time around).
In my experience the great majority of small donors (including me) generally give to fairly well-established charities. I wouldn’t describe this as a “cool and unusual idea for donations”.
I’m a little confused as to what your paradigmatic case of a small donor looks like, such that many/most of them fall under Jonas’s description.
I don’t say that many/most small donors have a “cool and unusual idea for donations that probably won’t get funded otherwise.” I say that Jonas may have a higher bar for this than I do, and this may partly explain where we disagree. I also said that I think that it could be the case that “many/most small donors (who are considering donating to specific charities) would do better to try to explore and evaluate these opportunities themselves.” But that’s only partly due to me (possibly) thinking that more small donors have cool and unusual ideas than Jonas does. It’s doubtless also due to more substantive differences. For example, I also think that it may be more beneficial for many donors who are considering donating to specific charities to try to think about how to make those donations themselves, because it provides important sources of experimentation/information/donor-practice for the donor and the community, even if those donations don’t meet whatever the bar is for “cool and unusual.”
I think those benefits probably obtain in a lot of cases even where the donor is considering donating to “fairly well-established charities”, because the donor is still at least thinking about donating to different charities and about donation in general, and the community is getting information about whether the community at large think that this or that fairly well-established charity is more promising, as well as about the extent to which the more well-established charities are better options than less well-established charities.
And as I mention in my comment, there are still other reasons that I think underlie the disagreement (not merely our conceptions of “cool and interesting” donors), which I discuss in the other threads.