Yeah, we’re actually very excited about this possibility! I had to resist adding another 2 pages on this as a separate route towards impact because the post was already too long, although I gestured at it briefly when I mention a possible “on-ramp towards deeper involvement in EA.”
As you suggest, if funding continues to grow at its current pace (and the other concerns we discuss about relying on a few funders prove incorrect), then growing the community may become a higher priority than merely increasing donation volume. While many donors won’t be interested in deeper involvement with EA, if we actually scale to have 10M donors on the platform, introducing a small portion of these donors to the EA community would be extremely valuable.
We intend to provide escalating layers of information that are available if a user expresses interest. In the mobile app we had default portfolios, but we also provided charity profiles with additional descriptions, impact estimates, and links out to the charity evaluator that recommended the organization. We hope to eventually go one step further, and offer other routes to engage with the community, such as career coaching, mentors, EA fellowships, and more. This would allow you to easily make a donation without needing to process too much information, but if you are interested in engaging more deeply after, that should also be encouraged.
Other FinTech platforms take similar approaches to financial education, first starting with automation/robo-advisors, then escalating to tips and suggestions once you’ve demonstrated engagement, and sometimes escalating to interacting with a financial advisor (in this case, perhaps a career advisor or an EA fellowship). We think something in this vein is likely a very promising alternative route to impact.
Yeah, we’re actually very excited about this possibility! I had to resist adding another 2 pages on this as a separate route towards impact because the post was already too long, although I gestured at it briefly when I mention a possible “on-ramp towards deeper involvement in EA.”
As you suggest, if funding continues to grow at its current pace (and the other concerns we discuss about relying on a few funders prove incorrect), then growing the community may become a higher priority than merely increasing donation volume. While many donors won’t be interested in deeper involvement with EA, if we actually scale to have 10M donors on the platform, introducing a small portion of these donors to the EA community would be extremely valuable.
We intend to provide escalating layers of information that are available if a user expresses interest. In the mobile app we had default portfolios, but we also provided charity profiles with additional descriptions, impact estimates, and links out to the charity evaluator that recommended the organization. We hope to eventually go one step further, and offer other routes to engage with the community, such as career coaching, mentors, EA fellowships, and more. This would allow you to easily make a donation without needing to process too much information, but if you are interested in engaging more deeply after, that should also be encouraged.
Other FinTech platforms take similar approaches to financial education, first starting with automation/robo-advisors, then escalating to tips and suggestions once you’ve demonstrated engagement, and sometimes escalating to interacting with a financial advisor (in this case, perhaps a career advisor or an EA fellowship). We think something in this vein is likely a very promising alternative route to impact.