I think this is a very good idea. Unfortunately, I don’t really know any of you, and I don’t think it’s worth the time to thoroughly research your reputations and characters, so I’m not going to contribute.
However, I would be interested in a registered charitable organization whose sole purpose is to run a donation lottery annually. In fact, I would donate to the operations of such a charity if the necessary safeguards and/or reputation were in place. Seems like an easy “bolt-on” project for GiveWell, no?
If anyone else would like to see a permanent donor lottery from GiveWell, let me know how much you’re willing to contribute to start it (via private message if you prefer). I’ll total the amounts in a few weeks and present to GiveWell. Maybe it will pique their interest.
Thanks Mac, I agree that’s the general direction this should go given success with this initial trial (and the lessons from actually doing it), and hope there is a good option for you in future (the current lottery is closed for the last few days pre-draw). That organization may or may not be GiveWell, although they are certainly aware of it.
6 of the 18 participants are GiveWell employees (including Open Philanthropy Project staff), one is a former GiveWell employee, and one is an advisor to the Open Philanthropy Project (as are Paul Christiano and myself).
We also (with the consent of the participants) rescaled the win probabilities and payout recommendation to guarantee a winner (who can then make a second bet to get from $45,600 to $100,000), so as to ensure we can learn from that process too before trying a bigger institutional version. See Paul’s recent follow-up post.
So I’m hopeful something along the lines you suggest can be managed in future (although this round is closed now).
This seems like a reasonable concern, and longer term building good institutions for donor lotteries seems valuable.
However, I suspect there may be more overheads (and possible legal complications) associated with trying to run it as part of an existing charity. In the immediate, I wonder if there are enough people who you do trust who might give character references which would work for this? (You implied trust in GiveWell, and I believe Paul and Carl are fairly well known to several GiveWell staff; on the other hand you might think that the institutional reputation of GiveWell is more valuable than the individual reputations of people who work there, and so be more inclined to trust a project it backs not because you know more about it, but because it has more at stake.)
However, I suspect there may be more overheads (and possible legal complications) associated with trying to run it as part of an existing charity
Given the current level of interest, the informal, small, and disconnected donor lotteries may be more efficient for the reasons you mentioned. My hunch is that donor lotteries could quickly grow to a non-trivial size, at which point I believe the economies of scale achieved by an institution would dominate.
you might think that the institutional reputation of GiveWell is more valuable than the individual reputations of people who work there
I think this is a very good idea. Unfortunately, I don’t really know any of you, and I don’t think it’s worth the time to thoroughly research your reputations and characters, so I’m not going to contribute.
However, I would be interested in a registered charitable organization whose sole purpose is to run a donation lottery annually. In fact, I would donate to the operations of such a charity if the necessary safeguards and/or reputation were in place. Seems like an easy “bolt-on” project for GiveWell, no?
If anyone else would like to see a permanent donor lottery from GiveWell, let me know how much you’re willing to contribute to start it (via private message if you prefer). I’ll total the amounts in a few weeks and present to GiveWell. Maybe it will pique their interest.
Thanks Mac, I agree that’s the general direction this should go given success with this initial trial (and the lessons from actually doing it), and hope there is a good option for you in future (the current lottery is closed for the last few days pre-draw). That organization may or may not be GiveWell, although they are certainly aware of it.
6 of the 18 participants are GiveWell employees (including Open Philanthropy Project staff), one is a former GiveWell employee, and one is an advisor to the Open Philanthropy Project (as are Paul Christiano and myself).
Holden Karnofsky wrote favorably about it in the GiveWell blog post on staff members’ personal donations, along with Tim, Ajeya, and Helen (the latter 3 participated).
We also (with the consent of the participants) rescaled the win probabilities and payout recommendation to guarantee a winner (who can then make a second bet to get from $45,600 to $100,000), so as to ensure we can learn from that process too before trying a bigger institutional version. See Paul’s recent follow-up post.
So I’m hopeful something along the lines you suggest can be managed in future (although this round is closed now).
This seems like a reasonable concern, and longer term building good institutions for donor lotteries seems valuable.
However, I suspect there may be more overheads (and possible legal complications) associated with trying to run it as part of an existing charity. In the immediate, I wonder if there are enough people who you do trust who might give character references which would work for this? (You implied trust in GiveWell, and I believe Paul and Carl are fairly well known to several GiveWell staff; on the other hand you might think that the institutional reputation of GiveWell is more valuable than the individual reputations of people who work there, and so be more inclined to trust a project it backs not because you know more about it, but because it has more at stake.)
Given the current level of interest, the informal, small, and disconnected donor lotteries may be more efficient for the reasons you mentioned. My hunch is that donor lotteries could quickly grow to a non-trivial size, at which point I believe the economies of scale achieved by an institution would dominate.
Yes.