… I was also thinking about this in the sense of “from the individual EA donor’s point of view, is the match really counterfactual/marginal if it’s capped? If it’s all going to end up captured by other EA charities then individually it may not be counterfactual, but collectively among EAs it still is..
At this point the remaining matching funds are being used up very slowly—slowly enough that it is very conceivable they will not all be used up by the end of the match (Nov 30th). So it seems it really is counterfactual.
But of course you make a good point that if the counterfactual is that the money is likely to go to some EA charity if a marginal individual doesn’t donate, then this does diminish the value of participation from a marginal individual’s perspective. But insofar as individual EAs see big differences in the value of directing the money to different EA nonprofits (e.g. charities working in different cause areas), then the fact of other EAs participation may not make participation that much less appealing.
I also worry that if our EA efforts fade, some other non-EA group will discover this and pick up the slack.
Worth your/our making another ‘update’ post on this as a CtA?
Could also be noted: If you don’t have much money to donate now, you can still
Get $25 free for signing up with a link like yours (and another $25 to the ‘linker’).
Donate $10 to each of a handful of charities and ‘aggregators’ of these (like Founders Pledge and GiveWell) and get the $10 match, $5 for adding bank details, plus a $10 addition from copying the social media link, and a few more bucks from ‘liking’ donations.
So, e.g., “you can get $215 in donations for just $50!)” … might be a good pitch for the less cash-liquid in our midst.
I thought about making another ‘update’ post, but it’s not clear to me that it’s good to try that hard to promote this one way people can increase the effectiveness of how some money is spent. Afterall, $85k (the amount of matching funds left currently) is a very small amount relative to the amount of money that people spend on charitable endeavors in general (and also relative to the amount of money in EA). Arguably EAs’ limited attention would be better spent working towards more ambitious goals (such as trying to ifluence how many millions or billions of dollars are spent).
The reason why I don’t think this logic applies to sharing about this match in the first place is because I think this match was valuable from a community engagement perspective. I think many EAs enjoyed participating in it and there’s value in that in terms of making them feel more engaged with EA and the EA community in general, which I expect will make them more effective over the course of their lives on average.
That said, while two posts promoting the same opportunity in the same channel seems like too much when the opportunity is as “small” as this match, I may post a brief “here’s how it went” post at the end of the match since that’s a different kind of post and I think people may be interested.
Just some quick counterpoints to consider, in weighing whether to post ‘update: funds still available’:
the match amount might be increased again
something like this may occur again in future, and it may be good to be aware of it
I’m curious how close to ‘fully taking advantage of this’ we can come
85k seems fairly substantial in comparison with some ‘money/action’ things that get attention on EA Forum (epistemic status: not so sure about this)
you could probably combine this with the “here’s how it went” post … without much loss, and also get more feedback on questions surrounding ‘why is it that EAs were able to get so much of these funds’
… I was also thinking about this in the sense of “from the individual EA donor’s point of view, is the match really counterfactual/marginal if it’s capped? If it’s all going to end up captured by other EA charities then individually it may not be counterfactual, but collectively among EAs it still is..
At this point the remaining matching funds are being used up very slowly—slowly enough that it is very conceivable they will not all be used up by the end of the match (Nov 30th). So it seems it really is counterfactual.
But of course you make a good point that if the counterfactual is that the money is likely to go to some EA charity if a marginal individual doesn’t donate, then this does diminish the value of participation from a marginal individual’s perspective. But insofar as individual EAs see big differences in the value of directing the money to different EA nonprofits (e.g. charities working in different cause areas), then the fact of other EAs participation may not make participation that much less appealing.
I also worry that if our EA efforts fade, some other non-EA group will discover this and pick up the slack.
Worth your/our making another ‘update’ post on this as a CtA?
Could also be noted: If you don’t have much money to donate now, you can still
Get $25 free for signing up with a link like yours (and another $25 to the ‘linker’).
Donate $10 to each of a handful of charities and ‘aggregators’ of these (like Founders Pledge and GiveWell) and get the $10 match, $5 for adding bank details, plus a $10 addition from copying the social media link, and a few more bucks from ‘liking’ donations.
So, e.g., “you can get $215 in donations for just $50!)” … might be a good pitch for the less cash-liquid in our midst.
25 + 25 + 5*(10 + 10 + 10 + 3)
I thought about making another ‘update’ post, but it’s not clear to me that it’s good to try that hard to promote this one way people can increase the effectiveness of how some money is spent. Afterall, $85k (the amount of matching funds left currently) is a very small amount relative to the amount of money that people spend on charitable endeavors in general (and also relative to the amount of money in EA). Arguably EAs’ limited attention would be better spent working towards more ambitious goals (such as trying to ifluence how many millions or billions of dollars are spent).
The reason why I don’t think this logic applies to sharing about this match in the first place is because I think this match was valuable from a community engagement perspective. I think many EAs enjoyed participating in it and there’s value in that in terms of making them feel more engaged with EA and the EA community in general, which I expect will make them more effective over the course of their lives on average.
That said, while two posts promoting the same opportunity in the same channel seems like too much when the opportunity is as “small” as this match, I may post a brief “here’s how it went” post at the end of the match since that’s a different kind of post and I think people may be interested.
Just some quick counterpoints to consider, in weighing whether to post ‘update: funds still available’:
the match amount might be increased again
something like this may occur again in future, and it may be good to be aware of it
I’m curious how close to ‘fully taking advantage of this’ we can come
85k seems fairly substantial in comparison with some ‘money/action’ things that get attention on EA Forum (epistemic status: not so sure about this)
you could probably combine this with the “here’s how it went” post … without much loss, and also get more feedback on questions surrounding ‘why is it that EAs were able to get so much of these funds’