“The idea that 99.99% of the exposure of Giving What We Can would have disappeared if they couldn’t focus on Toby’s generosity could only result from very unclear thinking.”
Yes, but this is what you said: “Although Toby’s story is only about 2-10x more widely known compared to if he gave 1% and still founded GWWC.”
You may think GWWC would have similar numbers of members today because of how it grows person-to-person, but his story would be much less known because there would basically be no story to report on. Someone gives 1% of charity and encourages others to do the same? It’s not newsworthy. As it was, it got to the most read stories on BBC News and other similar outlets and literally millions (maybe tens of millions) of people heard about him.
Furthermore, I think that media exposure was necessary to turn Giving What We Can from just a group of friends in Oxford into the going concern it is today. That story isn’t as valuable today, but it was the main asset we had in the early days.
Haha Rob it’s Christmas, can’t we stop fighting? Because I’m right, and you should convert to my point of view. :|
But seriously, you’re saying that if Toby had given 1% instead of 50%, then rather than 10 million people knowing his story, rather than 10 million people knowing about him, only 10-100 people would? That simply not reasonable. Without press, even if each of the handful of academics who signed up for GWWC had mentioned it in their opening lectures that semester, you would already have a thousand people who had heard the story.
Haha, let’s split the difference. Maybe 100,000 people would have heard of Toby, so 1-2 orders of magnitude? I think that’s enough for me to make my point that it could be better overall, even if each person takes the example less seriously. :P
“The idea that 99.99% of the exposure of Giving What We Can would have disappeared if they couldn’t focus on Toby’s generosity could only result from very unclear thinking.”
Yes, but this is what you said: “Although Toby’s story is only about 2-10x more widely known compared to if he gave 1% and still founded GWWC.”
You may think GWWC would have similar numbers of members today because of how it grows person-to-person, but his story would be much less known because there would basically be no story to report on. Someone gives 1% of charity and encourages others to do the same? It’s not newsworthy. As it was, it got to the most read stories on BBC News and other similar outlets and literally millions (maybe tens of millions) of people heard about him.
Furthermore, I think that media exposure was necessary to turn Giving What We Can from just a group of friends in Oxford into the going concern it is today. That story isn’t as valuable today, but it was the main asset we had in the early days.
Haha Rob it’s Christmas, can’t we stop fighting? Because I’m right, and you should convert to my point of view. :|
But seriously, you’re saying that if Toby had given 1% instead of 50%, then rather than 10 million people knowing his story, rather than 10 million people knowing about him, only 10-100 people would? That simply not reasonable. Without press, even if each of the handful of academics who signed up for GWWC had mentioned it in their opening lectures that semester, you would already have a thousand people who had heard the story.
Haha, let’s split the difference. Maybe 100,000 people would have heard of Toby, so 1-2 orders of magnitude? I think that’s enough for me to make my point that it could be better overall, even if each person takes the example less seriously. :P