Point 3 above also suggests that the number of people interested in the match is clearly limited.
If it’s this, and not lack of awareness, it’s bizarre. Millions of Americans donate small-ish amounts to eligible charities each year. They could increase the amounts the charities receive, or reduce their out-of-pocket donations ‘for free’.
If Amazon.com was having a ‘spend $100 on each store, get $100 more for free’, this would be used up in a sneeze. Can it be that people really only care about the amount they sacrifice and not the amount the charities get?
Alternative hypothesis HA1: Most relevant people are not aware of this match
HA2: People don’t trust it, it seems ‘too good to be true’
HA3: People think “it’s not really getting free money/free charity, because if I don’t take advantage, an equally good charity/donor will do
Of these, only HA1 seems plausible to me.
In fact, even within EA the number of people interested is limited. This Forum post has not dropped off the front page of the EA Forum as of November 8th and yet the number of new EAs participating in the match has continually decreased each day since November 2nd and is now quite low.
How is this possible? Isn’t it an easy gain for GWWC and other pledgers? Do we all have such high value of time that the small effort involved here doesn’t merit the $400-$4000 (oom) gain from giving to an overlapping set of charities we care about?
Increased awareness would certainly lead to increased participation I think, but I think your HA3 is true for most people (especially non-EAs). So many charities have used donation “matches” in their fundraising campaigns that most people might not even realize how this one is different or the significance of that difference if they were to take a quick look at some short marketing copy from Every.org about it, and so I wouldn’t expect them to be so interested in it like EAs often are.
On that note my uncertain guess is that some significant fraction of the interest in the Facebook match comes from nonprofits promoting the match to their supporters. Given Facebook’s limits of $20k/donor being much higher than Every.org’s limit here ($100 per donor per nonprofit), nonprofits may be much more motivated to bother marketing the Facebook opportunity to their supporters than the Every.org match.
If it’s this, and not lack of awareness, it’s bizarre. Millions of Americans donate small-ish amounts to eligible charities each year. They could increase the amounts the charities receive, or reduce their out-of-pocket donations ‘for free’.
If Amazon.com was having a ‘spend $100 on each store, get $100 more for free’, this would be used up in a sneeze. Can it be that people really only care about the amount they sacrifice and not the amount the charities get?
Alternative hypothesis HA1: Most relevant people are not aware of this match HA2: People don’t trust it, it seems ‘too good to be true’ HA3: People think “it’s not really getting free money/free charity, because if I don’t take advantage, an equally good charity/donor will do
Of these, only HA1 seems plausible to me.
How is this possible? Isn’t it an easy gain for GWWC and other pledgers? Do we all have such high value of time that the small effort involved here doesn’t merit the $400-$4000 (oom) gain from giving to an overlapping set of charities we care about?
Increased awareness would certainly lead to increased participation I think, but I think your HA3 is true for most people (especially non-EAs). So many charities have used donation “matches” in their fundraising campaigns that most people might not even realize how this one is different or the significance of that difference if they were to take a quick look at some short marketing copy from Every.org about it, and so I wouldn’t expect them to be so interested in it like EAs often are.
On that note my uncertain guess is that some significant fraction of the interest in the Facebook match comes from nonprofits promoting the match to their supporters. Given Facebook’s limits of $20k/donor being much higher than Every.org’s limit here ($100 per donor per nonprofit), nonprofits may be much more motivated to bother marketing the Facebook opportunity to their supporters than the Every.org match.