I wouldn’t necessarily think investing in the marketing of EA orgs is a no-brainer. The comparative advantage of EA orgs is that they are effective, but overall they don’t fare very well when it comes to emotional appeal. Investing more explicitly in emotionally appealing marketing could help them somewhat, but the biggest and more well funded traditional charities already optimize to a large extent in appealing to people, so I think it would be very hard for EA non-profits to compete in that front. Therefore, even with this kind of marketing, I doubt it would be able to make these orgs get significantly more funding from non-EAs.
What I think could be the main advantage of EA non-profits spending money on emotionally appealing marketing is that it could help people who are already interested in effectiveness to get more motivated for the cause. This includes both non-EAs who are interested in EA ideas, but it could also include people who are members of the movement, because this emotional connection could have a boosting effect on their motivation that volunteers of traditional charities usually already have. In turn, if what we are proposing in the post is successful, it could be the case that this gain in motivation by EAs and EA-aligned people would lead them be more eager to learn more about EA, donate more, and maybe even change their career plans to work on EA cause areas.
First of all, I want to make clear that entering the broader market of charities can simply mean a different website design—I don’t know how this should play out, and I believe that we need to be very careful to spend budgets, but I do think that there could be a way for organizations to be both appealing for EA’s and non EA’s without investing too much on marketing. It doesn’t necessarily mean competing with big, well-funded charities that spend enormous amounts of money on marketing, it could simply mean learning what they do well and implementing small changes to at least be easier for me and you to convince our friends to donate to effective charities.
Furthermore, I want to refer to the second point you’ve raised—I also think that emotional appeal can boost the motivation within EA’s. Things like GDlive give me a boost in motivation, not because the numbers are not sufficient to make a strong case but simply because there are some EA’s, like me, that are more feeling-oriented than other EA’s and I personally want them on board as well.
In turn, if what we are proposing in the post is successful, it could be the case that this gain in motivation by EAs and EA-aligned people would lead them be more eager to learn more about EA, donate more, and maybe even change their career plans to work on EA cause areas.
I think that alone can be a good enough reason to make an effort to seem more emotionally appealing.
I wouldn’t necessarily think investing in the marketing of EA orgs is a no-brainer. The comparative advantage of EA orgs is that they are effective, but overall they don’t fare very well when it comes to emotional appeal. Investing more explicitly in emotionally appealing marketing could help them somewhat, but the biggest and more well funded traditional charities already optimize to a large extent in appealing to people, so I think it would be very hard for EA non-profits to compete in that front. Therefore, even with this kind of marketing, I doubt it would be able to make these orgs get significantly more funding from non-EAs.
What I think could be the main advantage of EA non-profits spending money on emotionally appealing marketing is that it could help people who are already interested in effectiveness to get more motivated for the cause. This includes both non-EAs who are interested in EA ideas, but it could also include people who are members of the movement, because this emotional connection could have a boosting effect on their motivation that volunteers of traditional charities usually already have. In turn, if what we are proposing in the post is successful, it could be the case that this gain in motivation by EAs and EA-aligned people would lead them be more eager to learn more about EA, donate more, and maybe even change their career plans to work on EA cause areas.
First of all, I want to make clear that entering the broader market of charities can simply mean a different website design—I don’t know how this should play out, and I believe that we need to be very careful to spend budgets, but I do think that there could be a way for organizations to be both appealing for EA’s and non EA’s without investing too much on marketing. It doesn’t necessarily mean competing with big, well-funded charities that spend enormous amounts of money on marketing, it could simply mean learning what they do well and implementing small changes to at least be easier for me and you to convince our friends to donate to effective charities.
Furthermore, I want to refer to the second point you’ve raised—I also think that emotional appeal can boost the motivation within EA’s. Things like GDlive give me a boost in motivation, not because the numbers are not sufficient to make a strong case but simply because there are some EA’s, like me, that are more feeling-oriented than other EA’s and I personally want them on board as well.
I think that alone can be a good enough reason to make an effort to seem more emotionally appealing.
Agreed! I think our views on the issue are quite similar then :)
Although I’m all for variance in opinions within the community, in the case of outreach and marketing I’m kind of happy that we do (: