I’m worried that this impairs our ability to credibly signal that we are not a scam. Originally we could say that we didn’t want any money ourselves—we were just asking for donations to third parties. Then we started asking for money directly, but the main focus was still on recommending donations to third parties. But now the main advice is to give us money, which we will then spend wisely (trust us!). It seems that outsiders could (justifiably) find this much less persuasive.
I agree that people new to EA could find EA Funds much less persuasive than the previous donation recommendations we used. I expect that we’ll find out whether or not this is true as we work on expanding EA Funds outside of EA. If non-EAs don’t want to use EA Funds, then we’ll probably want to lead with other examples of how people select effective donation options.
I’m worried that this impairs our ability to credibly signal that we are not a scam. Originally we could say that we didn’t want any money ourselves—we were just asking for donations to third parties. Then we started asking for money directly, but the main focus was still on recommending donations to third parties. But now the main advice is to give us money, which we will then spend wisely (trust us!). It seems that outsiders could (justifiably) find this much less persuasive.
I agree that people new to EA could find EA Funds much less persuasive than the previous donation recommendations we used. I expect that we’ll find out whether or not this is true as we work on expanding EA Funds outside of EA. If non-EAs don’t want to use EA Funds, then we’ll probably want to lead with other examples of how people select effective donation options.