Do you think EA communities underinvest in developing donors outside high-income countries?
My instinct is yes, based from what I observe in my sector (arts).
People like Aubrey Bergauer (an arts business guru specialising in creating sustainable revenue streams for arts organisation) keep saying that organisations routinely miss out on steady revenue stream right under their noses by focussing too much on High Net Worth individuals or institutional funding opportunities and completely forgetting about the people who use their services / can see the impact it makes in their community as potential donors.
Yes, those people have much smaller donation capabilities on an individual level, but compounded together they represent a non-trivial source of income. They are also beneficial in other ways in the sense that, with the right care, they are highly involved and might turn into a free source of advertising / advocating for your cause. However...
If you are in an LMIC and have considered donating effectively: what made it easier or harder?
I’m from Morocco and even though charity as a concept is widely practised (mostly because of religious reasons / culture), the notion of donation effectiveness is almost never a consideration within the general public (even less so than in developed countries). Or RATHER, effectiveness is assessed on a very very personal level (i.e. I personally know the family I am giving to, and know that my donation will be put to good use), but not through a dispassionate, EA-like approach that looks at total effectiveness potential of a donation in the abstract, detached of any personal connection to the people / animals you could be helping.
(There is also much of the kind of ‘patronage’ donation style that @NickLaing is mentioning when talking about the Nigerian context)
So in summary, although there might be something to gain by mobilising a local population that is both used to charitable giving and is closer to the impact of your work, you might find that because the notions of effective giving and rigorous consideration of impact are not nearly as implanted as in developed countries, you might have less success in achieving donations from local populations, especially as an animal advocacy group, which, unless you view it through the lens of non-species specific quantified impact (a lens that is often missing in the general population of many LMIC countries), might unfavourably compare to human-centric causes.
See my reply to Nick on the effectiveness side of things. I think that is indeed a big challenge.
Your response focuses primarily on “mass appeal” of this idea. You also mention HNWIs. But I think there may be a “middle group”: What do you think about targeting higher-earning segments of the population, but not at HNWI level? Like the software developer in Accra or lawyer in Nairobi?
In a Moroccan context, I think it’s definitely a worthwhile experiment to try to harness the donation potential of the software developer or lawyer and get them to direct some of their donations to high-impact charities, but one for which there’s not much precedent.
One thing I forgot to mention which might fit your middle group is corporate giving: big companies/banks or local franchises of international groups (e.g. McDonald’s) have charity partnerships. This is quite common.
My instinct is yes, based from what I observe in my sector (arts).
People like Aubrey Bergauer (an arts business guru specialising in creating sustainable revenue streams for arts organisation) keep saying that organisations routinely miss out on steady revenue stream right under their noses by focussing too much on High Net Worth individuals or institutional funding opportunities and completely forgetting about the people who use their services / can see the impact it makes in their community as potential donors.
Yes, those people have much smaller donation capabilities on an individual level, but compounded together they represent a non-trivial source of income. They are also beneficial in other ways in the sense that, with the right care, they are highly involved and might turn into a free source of advertising / advocating for your cause. However...
I’m from Morocco and even though charity as a concept is widely practised (mostly because of religious reasons / culture), the notion of donation effectiveness is almost never a consideration within the general public (even less so than in developed countries). Or RATHER, effectiveness is assessed on a very very personal level (i.e. I personally know the family I am giving to, and know that my donation will be put to good use), but not through a dispassionate, EA-like approach that looks at total effectiveness potential of a donation in the abstract, detached of any personal connection to the people / animals you could be helping.
(There is also much of the kind of ‘patronage’ donation style that @NickLaing is mentioning when talking about the Nigerian context)
So in summary, although there might be something to gain by mobilising a local population that is both used to charitable giving and is closer to the impact of your work, you might find that because the notions of effective giving and rigorous consideration of impact are not nearly as implanted as in developed countries, you might have less success in achieving donations from local populations, especially as an animal advocacy group, which, unless you view it through the lens of non-species specific quantified impact (a lens that is often missing in the general population of many LMIC countries), might unfavourably compare to human-centric causes.
Thanks for your perspective, Aïda!
See my reply to Nick on the effectiveness side of things. I think that is indeed a big challenge.
Your response focuses primarily on “mass appeal” of this idea. You also mention HNWIs. But I think there may be a “middle group”: What do you think about targeting higher-earning segments of the population, but not at HNWI level? Like the software developer in Accra or lawyer in Nairobi?
In a Moroccan context, I think it’s definitely a worthwhile experiment to try to harness the donation potential of the software developer or lawyer and get them to direct some of their donations to high-impact charities, but one for which there’s not much precedent.
One thing I forgot to mention which might fit your middle group is corporate giving: big companies/banks or local franchises of international groups (e.g. McDonald’s) have charity partnerships. This is quite common.
Thanks!