I’d especially encourage ‘medium’ donors (e.g. people who might donate $200k - $2m per year) to think seriously about making ‘angel’ donating a significant focus e.g. choose an area to specialise in and spend 1-2 days per month on research...
You might reconsider labeling this group as ‘substantial’ donors (rather than ‘medium’ donors) given the historic average of <$10K/year for EA donors. That survey data suggests the $2M donor level is likely close to the far right end of the donor distribution. There may be a risk that framing the $200K-$2M range as ‘medium’ raises eyebrows and undoes some of the goals of the post. Given efforts to reduce legacy ETG-centric perceptions of EA from the 2010s, I worry this tack could rub those new to EA the wrong way. The average donor may be surprised to learn EA orgs perceive a $1.99M/year donor as medium-sized. They may wonder if a ≤$199K donor would be a small donor, and perhaps a ≤$99K donor is extra-small and (core message of this post aside) near-inconsequential? If a donor with a typical income perceives four- or five-figure annual donations as a source of real financial anxiety — but perhaps ‘extra-small’ in the lights of EA leaders — that may be demoralizing, and reduce their warm glow for making future donations at that scale in the future.
One point I really like is:
making donations also helps to build the effective altruism community, since it’s a hard-to-fake symbol that we’re serious about doing good, and that helps to get more people on board.
For new and small-scale charities, I also hope there’s a warm glow on the recipient side when individuals chip in $100 here and there to smaller meta and other charities via opportunities like this.
Ben never used the term “medium” again so he could have just written “I’d especially encourage people donating $200k - $2m per year to think seriously...”
That said, I’m fine with the label “medium donor” for what Ben was referring to because I like language that conveys that the vast majority of donors are “small donors.” There are far more people who donate 3-5 figures annually (<$100k per year) than there are who donate 6-8 figures annually (“megadonors”) or 9+ figures annually (“gigadonors”). Calling a median EA donor who donates 4 figures a “medium donor” would feel wrong.
Completely agree with the thrust of this post.
I do have one small phraseology suggestion here:
You might reconsider labeling this group as ‘substantial’ donors (rather than ‘medium’ donors) given the historic average of <$10K/year for EA donors. That survey data suggests the $2M donor level is likely close to the far right end of the donor distribution. There may be a risk that framing the $200K-$2M range as ‘medium’ raises eyebrows and undoes some of the goals of the post. Given efforts to reduce legacy ETG-centric perceptions of EA from the 2010s, I worry this tack could rub those new to EA the wrong way. The average donor may be surprised to learn EA orgs perceive a $1.99M/year donor as medium-sized. They may wonder if a ≤$199K donor would be a small donor, and perhaps a ≤$99K donor is extra-small and (core message of this post aside) near-inconsequential? If a donor with a typical income perceives four- or five-figure annual donations as a source of real financial anxiety — but perhaps ‘extra-small’ in the lights of EA leaders — that may be demoralizing, and reduce their warm glow for making future donations at that scale in the future.
One point I really like is:
For new and small-scale charities, I also hope there’s a warm glow on the recipient side when individuals chip in $100 here and there to smaller meta and other charities via opportunities like this.
Ben never used the term “medium” again so he could have just written “I’d especially encourage people donating $200k - $2m per year to think seriously...”
I agree that’s better—have changed it.
That said, I’m fine with the label “medium donor” for what Ben was referring to because I like language that conveys that the vast majority of donors are “small donors.” There are far more people who donate 3-5 figures annually (<$100k per year) than there are who donate 6-8 figures annually (“megadonors”) or 9+ figures annually (“gigadonors”). Calling a median EA donor who donates 4 figures a “medium donor” would feel wrong.