Well, donation matching schemes are very well known and accepted in the wider charity world.
I agree with you there is some tension there—but it is a pretty relaxed one, I think people see it more as making a communal shared commitment than as being fake.
With the Bill Gates example I mentioned, they reached their $100,000 donation in 2 days and currently are around $260,000 - obviously $100,00 is a trivial amount of money for Bill Gates, no-one looking at that video can have been like “well if we don’t reach the target maybe Bill Gates is going to not donate money to charity and spend it on hookers and blow”—But they donated, in part i guess because they wanted to be part of their community and to show this was something they were thinking about and in alignment with this issue and donation event.
But yes, the framing and structure - how to make it seem genuine (the ultimate way of course would be a precommitment that any unmatched funds be used for some silly or negative purpose—but that seems even more icky), of how to engage that group event feeling and finally of how to make it a sticky thing beyond a one off event people get involved with and forget about—all would require some careful thought and planning.
Well, donation matching schemes are very well known and accepted in the wider charity world. I agree with you there is some tension there—but it is a pretty relaxed one, I think people see it more as making a communal shared commitment than as being fake.
With the Bill Gates example I mentioned, they reached their $100,000 donation in 2 days and currently are around $260,000 - obviously $100,00 is a trivial amount of money for Bill Gates, no-one looking at that video can have been like “well if we don’t reach the target maybe Bill Gates is going to not donate money to charity and spend it on hookers and blow”—But they donated, in part i guess because they wanted to be part of their community and to show this was something they were thinking about and in alignment with this issue and donation event.
But yes, the framing and structure - how to make it seem genuine (the ultimate way of course would be a precommitment that any unmatched funds be used for some silly or negative purpose—but that seems even more icky), of how to engage that group event feeling and finally of how to make it a sticky thing beyond a one off event people get involved with and forget about—all would require some careful thought and planning.