It’s worth reassuring people that even if the full goal isn’t met it isn’t a disaster—there isn’t a funding gap for keeping GWWC itself going, which could presumably be done quite cheaply.
I agree that it’s important to understand that not reaching the goal doesn’t mean collapse. I do think opportunity cost on growth opportunities could be quite high, though—it’s not clear that there will be any marginal opportunities for movement growth this effective in a few years’ time (my thinking on this is here on general timing of giving and here on how to think about the value of marginal movement growth).
… it was bound to happen at some point at which GWWC asked for more money to fund more paid employees, rather than keeping going until GWWC got as much money as the people who’ve signed it’s pledge are giving.
Interestingly it sounds like you’re thinking of GWWC expanding in terms of the slice of pledged donations it’s consuming. It could be nice to work out the numbers on this, but using remembered figures I think it’s approximately constant (i.e. GWWC operations are expanding proportionally with members), and order of 10% of current donation flows / <1% of (flow of increase of pledges).
Thanks for the response. You’re right, the relevant question isn’t keeping GWWC going but is if there are promising new growth opportunities that the extra funding will pay for, which you say there are this year. There’s also some neatness to GWWC being able to support/grow its staff with 10% of the total yearly donations of the people who pledge 10% via it. I haven’t thought whether that’s the appropriate model, but it provides a way to pace growth rather than keeping going until you’ve matched their total donations.
I agree that it’s important to understand that not reaching the goal doesn’t mean collapse. I do think opportunity cost on growth opportunities could be quite high, though—it’s not clear that there will be any marginal opportunities for movement growth this effective in a few years’ time (my thinking on this is here on general timing of giving and here on how to think about the value of marginal movement growth).
Interestingly it sounds like you’re thinking of GWWC expanding in terms of the slice of pledged donations it’s consuming. It could be nice to work out the numbers on this, but using remembered figures I think it’s approximately constant (i.e. GWWC operations are expanding proportionally with members), and order of 10% of current donation flows / <1% of (flow of increase of pledges).
Thanks for the response. You’re right, the relevant question isn’t keeping GWWC going but is if there are promising new growth opportunities that the extra funding will pay for, which you say there are this year. There’s also some neatness to GWWC being able to support/grow its staff with 10% of the total yearly donations of the people who pledge 10% via it. I haven’t thought whether that’s the appropriate model, but it provides a way to pace growth rather than keeping going until you’ve matched their total donations.