I’m not sure. The claim that cold outreach signals a lack of respect for boundaries is unnecessary moralising that I don’t put stock in. If your point is simply that it doesn’t work, people can find that out for themselves; I don’t think the externalities are so negative that donors need you to act as their mouthpiece on this. You’ve apologised for sounding patronising towards fundraisers; I’d be more concerned about coming across as patronising to donors, who themselves are not a homogeneous group. Some will be more receptive to thoughtful, targeted outreach than others, especially if the underlying project or work is persuasive.
I’m also uneasy with the alternative being proposed, of becoming ‘legibly excellent’ to the small set of advisers a donor already trusts. That may be good advice for organisations already close to those networks. But as a community norm—one frequently criticised as elitist—I read it as ‘don’t approach new donors directly; instead, prove yourselves to the existing gatekeepers and hope we choose to let you through.’
This post criticises people for opportunistically inserting their own projects into conversations about Anthropic wealth—while repeatedly emphasising the author’s own proximity to these donors, highlighting his own fund, and ending by recommending his own advisory. Ironically, I’m left wondering whether part of the concern about cold outreach is that, when it does work, it allows organisations to bypass the existing intermediaries. Middlemen tend not to be enthusiastic about that.
I thought the section on scaling was useful, though.
Hey Siobhan—thanks for this. These are definitely concerns I take seriously. You are right that my approach doesn’t solve the ‘access’ problem for lots of fundraisers, by implicitly gatekeeping access—that is a real issue, just not one I was trying to address here. I also recognise that “intermediary says using intermediaries is best strategy” is at best convenient.
However, I think you understate some of the things that undermine your position. Things like:
You said donors are receptive to “thoughtful, targeted” outreach. This is a very generous description of cold emailing, or indeed any sort of unsolicited pitching anyone you have never met or talked to.
I think you understate the wider harms of this sort of approach.
I do take these concerns seriously and I am glad you raised them, but I don’t agree with your conclusions. This type of outreach very likely won’t work and is therefore net negative, in my view.
Hi Jack, thanks for sharing your experience. Mine is that I’ve had success from reaching out to donors cold before. No donor is going to say, ‘I love cold outreach, please inundate my inbox’; they may nevertheless respond to an attempt if it’s done well. The comment you linked to suggests ways to improve outreach; it doesn’t seem to dismiss cold outreach wholesale.
Whether or not that’s a generous description is semantics; you’re writing off cold outreach as a category. Thoughtful, targeted outreach falls within that category. Or have I misunderstood—would you be okay with cold outreach provided that it’s done in the way I describe?
I appreciate your recognition that this post’s concern for the wider harms is somewhat cheapened by the self-promotion. And I see no problem with this kind of self-congratulatory rhetoric from a marketing perspective. I’d just hate for someone representing impactful work to read this post and think, ‘I’d better not shoot my shot.’ That would be a shame.
Thank you for writing this comment. It made me realize that a main reason I feel uncomfortable talking about effective giving with the wealthiest people I know is that I implicitly worry they might decide to buy a mansion or a yacht, instead of saving thousands of children from death or poverty, depending on how exactly I phrase things. This is not particularly respectful towards them[1] and I’m going to think differently about this going forward, and try to respect their judgment and their character more, and have a lower bar for talking to them about effective giving.
But I want to push back as strongly as I can on this:
I’m left wondering whether part of the concern about cold outreach is that, when it does work, it allows organisations to bypass the existing intermediaries. Middlemen tend not to be enthusiastic about that.
I think it’s valuable to flag potential conflicts of interest that might bias someone, and to flag self-promotion, but we should have a very high bar for imputing selfish intent.
Besides being against forum norms, I think these speculations about motives empirically have had significant negative consequences (three examples here), make cooperation harder, and discourage people from doing anything that can be perceived as self-serving (which includes many of the most impactful things someone can work on).
It might be a stretched example, but e.g. you mention in another comment that you had success doing cold outreach. I think it would be much more productive to discuss what makes cold outreach net-positive vs net-negative, and discuss your experience, compared to whether you’re defending cold outreach out of personal interest.[2]
Jack is plausibly knowledgable in this area and interacts with relevant donors, so it seems highly unlikely that “do not cold pitch because donors don’t like it” is bad advice—regardless of what you think other motives might be.
I’m not sure. The claim that cold outreach signals a lack of respect for boundaries is unnecessary moralising that I don’t put stock in. If your point is simply that it doesn’t work, people can find that out for themselves; I don’t think the externalities are so negative that donors need you to act as their mouthpiece on this. You’ve apologised for sounding patronising towards fundraisers; I’d be more concerned about coming across as patronising to donors, who themselves are not a homogeneous group. Some will be more receptive to thoughtful, targeted outreach than others, especially if the underlying project or work is persuasive.
I’m also uneasy with the alternative being proposed, of becoming ‘legibly excellent’ to the small set of advisers a donor already trusts. That may be good advice for organisations already close to those networks. But as a community norm—one frequently criticised as elitist—I read it as ‘don’t approach new donors directly; instead, prove yourselves to the existing gatekeepers and hope we choose to let you through.’
This post criticises people for opportunistically inserting their own projects into conversations about Anthropic wealth—while repeatedly emphasising the author’s own proximity to these donors, highlighting his own fund, and ending by recommending his own advisory. Ironically, I’m left wondering whether part of the concern about cold outreach is that, when it does work, it allows organisations to bypass the existing intermediaries. Middlemen tend not to be enthusiastic about that.
I thought the section on scaling was useful, though.
Hey Siobhan—thanks for this. These are definitely concerns I take seriously. You are right that my approach doesn’t solve the ‘access’ problem for lots of fundraisers, by implicitly gatekeeping access—that is a real issue, just not one I was trying to address here. I also recognise that “intermediary says using intermediaries is best strategy” is at best convenient.
However, I think you understate some of the things that undermine your position. Things like:
Donors are annoyed by this. You can see a public expression of this here (https://fundinganthropalypse.com/p/how-not-to-fundraise-from-anthropic/comment/296180159?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=4b7xoz), but also talk to anyone who interacts with these donors regularly and you will hear the same. It’s also intuitive that this sort of outreach would be annoying.
You said donors are receptive to “thoughtful, targeted” outreach. This is a very generous description of cold emailing, or indeed any sort of unsolicited pitching anyone you have never met or talked to.
I think you understate the wider harms of this sort of approach.
I do take these concerns seriously and I am glad you raised them, but I don’t agree with your conclusions. This type of outreach very likely won’t work and is therefore net negative, in my view.
Hi Jack, thanks for sharing your experience. Mine is that I’ve had success from reaching out to donors cold before. No donor is going to say, ‘I love cold outreach, please inundate my inbox’; they may nevertheless respond to an attempt if it’s done well. The comment you linked to suggests ways to improve outreach; it doesn’t seem to dismiss cold outreach wholesale.
Whether or not that’s a generous description is semantics; you’re writing off cold outreach as a category. Thoughtful, targeted outreach falls within that category. Or have I misunderstood—would you be okay with cold outreach provided that it’s done in the way I describe?
I appreciate your recognition that this post’s concern for the wider harms is somewhat cheapened by the self-promotion. And I see no problem with this kind of self-congratulatory rhetoric from a marketing perspective. I’d just hate for someone representing impactful work to read this post and think, ‘I’d better not shoot my shot.’ That would be a shame.
Thank you for writing this comment. It made me realize that a main reason I feel uncomfortable talking about effective giving with the wealthiest people I know is that I implicitly worry they might decide to buy a mansion or a yacht, instead of saving thousands of children from death or poverty, depending on how exactly I phrase things. This is not particularly respectful towards them[1] and I’m going to think differently about this going forward, and try to respect their judgment and their character more, and have a lower bar for talking to them about effective giving.
But I want to push back as strongly as I can on this:
I think it’s valuable to flag potential conflicts of interest that might bias someone, and to flag self-promotion, but we should have a very high bar for imputing selfish intent.
Besides being against forum norms, I think these speculations about motives empirically have had significant negative consequences (three examples here), make cooperation harder, and discourage people from doing anything that can be perceived as self-serving (which includes many of the most impactful things someone can work on).
It might be a stretched example, but e.g. you mention in another comment that you had success doing cold outreach. I think it would be much more productive to discuss what makes cold outreach net-positive vs net-negative, and discuss your experience, compared to whether you’re defending cold outreach out of personal interest.[2]
Although it might be correct, we’re all human
Which to be clear I obviously don’t think you are
Jack is plausibly knowledgable in this area and interacts with relevant donors, so it seems highly unlikely that “do not cold pitch because donors don’t like it” is bad advice—regardless of what you think other motives might be.