Pledging may have some combination the effect of (a) actually increasing people’s lifetime donations to effective charities and (b) causing people to advertise giving they already were going to do. To the extent that a pledge is b rather than a, getting someone to pledge the same amount as you is not double your impact.
Many of the people who you cause to become pledgers might have become pledgers later, thus you probably just accelerated their pledge, greatly decreasing your actual impact vs if you cause someone to pledge (and this pledge causes them to donate more rather than encompasses donation that would otherwise happen).
There’s a possibility that you could anchor someone to donate less. Potentially someone could see your celebrated 10% pledge and view that as adequate, lowering their donations. Here, there is a risk of harm from the pledge.
All that said, I still think the pledge is an awesome way to promote and normalize effective giving.
Thanks Brad—I think all of those are reasonable considerations! As mentioned in my response to Owen—we’ll review this messaging based on this feedback! Thanks for sharing your reasoning!
I could imagine a few things:
Pledging may have some combination the effect of (a) actually increasing people’s lifetime donations to effective charities and (b) causing people to advertise giving they already were going to do. To the extent that a pledge is b rather than a, getting someone to pledge the same amount as you is not double your impact.
Many of the people who you cause to become pledgers might have become pledgers later, thus you probably just accelerated their pledge, greatly decreasing your actual impact vs if you cause someone to pledge (and this pledge causes them to donate more rather than encompasses donation that would otherwise happen).
There’s a possibility that you could anchor someone to donate less. Potentially someone could see your celebrated 10% pledge and view that as adequate, lowering their donations. Here, there is a risk of harm from the pledge.
All that said, I still think the pledge is an awesome way to promote and normalize effective giving.
Thanks Brad—I think all of those are reasonable considerations! As mentioned in my response to Owen—we’ll review this messaging based on this feedback! Thanks for sharing your reasoning!