In past years, I believed that donating to many causes was suboptimal, and was happy to just send money to Givewell’s Top Charities fund. But I’ve diversified my donations this year, partly due to 2., 3. and 4. Some other considerations:
7. From the charity’s perspective, a diversified donor base might provide more year-over-year stability. A charity should be happier to have 100 donors paying $1k a year than 1 donor paying $100k, in terms of how beholden it is to its donors.
8. Relatedly, a small charity might have a easier time fundraising if they can use a broad donor base as evidence to larger funders about the impact of their work.
9. Wisdom of the crowds/why capitalism is so good: there’s a lot of knowledge held in individual donors’ heads about which charities are doing the best work; diversifying allows for more granular feedback/bits of information flow in the overall charitable system.
In past years, I believed that donating to many causes was suboptimal, and was happy to just send money to Givewell’s Top Charities fund. But I’ve diversified my donations this year, partly due to 2., 3. and 4. Some other considerations:
7. From the charity’s perspective, a diversified donor base might provide more year-over-year stability. A charity should be happier to have 100 donors paying $1k a year than 1 donor paying $100k, in terms of how beholden it is to its donors.
8. Relatedly, a small charity might have a easier time fundraising if they can use a broad donor base as evidence to larger funders about the impact of their work.
9. Wisdom of the crowds/why capitalism is so good: there’s a lot of knowledge held in individual donors’ heads about which charities are doing the best work; diversifying allows for more granular feedback/bits of information flow in the overall charitable system.