One question that was raised is whether there is a trade-off between Impact Investing and donations. I am not sure whether one of the biggest reasons for the existence of such a trade-off has been mentioned so far: People who invest socially responsibly feel more comfortable about owning that money and may therefore be less prone to donations. Conversely, people who feel that they are earning their money in illegitimate ways may feel under more pressure to give it away.
I don’t have any data to support this claim. It’s merely my personal impression that *a lot* of my non-EA friends who care about poverty, animals, etc. are much drawn to the idea that what they should *really* be doing is aiming at clean hands by investing & consuming ethically. They feel that if they earned & spend their money in a clean way, any donations are then superogatory.
Because of this sense, I often strategically try to undermine people’s belief in impact investing—in order to convince them that it’s (at the very least) not a comprehensive solution and that donations are crucial as well. Neither Gabe nor Max claimed that it’s a comprehensive solution but I believe that people perceive it as such. And this perception implies that there are significant trade-off in promoting impact investments rather than donations.
P.S.: One solution to that would of course be to promote impact investing but *frame* it such that people don’t feel like they can refrain from donations simply because the money was earned in a “clean” way.
Thanks for the *great* discussion.
One question that was raised is whether there is a trade-off between Impact Investing and donations. I am not sure whether one of the biggest reasons for the existence of such a trade-off has been mentioned so far: People who invest socially responsibly feel more comfortable about owning that money and may therefore be less prone to donations. Conversely, people who feel that they are earning their money in illegitimate ways may feel under more pressure to give it away.
I don’t have any data to support this claim. It’s merely my personal impression that *a lot* of my non-EA friends who care about poverty, animals, etc. are much drawn to the idea that what they should *really* be doing is aiming at clean hands by investing & consuming ethically. They feel that if they earned & spend their money in a clean way, any donations are then superogatory.
Because of this sense, I often strategically try to undermine people’s belief in impact investing—in order to convince them that it’s (at the very least) not a comprehensive solution and that donations are crucial as well. Neither Gabe nor Max claimed that it’s a comprehensive solution but I believe that people perceive it as such. And this perception implies that there are significant trade-off in promoting impact investments rather than donations.
P.S.: One solution to that would of course be to promote impact investing but *frame* it such that people don’t feel like they can refrain from donations simply because the money was earned in a “clean” way.