How strong should these commitments be? If I commit now to give $50k (for example) to a charity next year, and then strong evidence comes out that they are less effective in the meantime, should I still donate? Presumably I have to donate despite some such evidence, or there is no commitment, but it seems plausible these commitments shouldn’t hold in the event that the charity turns out to be fraudulent, etc.
I agree that they shouldn’t hold if the charity turns out to be fraudulent (violating trust one way gives justification in breaking promises the other way). I guess the line should probably be such that a charity acting in good faith can more-or-less count on the commitments. Otherwise it seems like the charity gets back the problem of second-guessing its donors, and may not make the forward-going plans the commitments were supposed to facilitate.
I can see some appeal to drawing the line such that evidence of radically less effectiveness was enough to break the commitment, but not normal levels of update. In theory this could give similarly high levels of certainty. However, the fact that different people might reasonably interpret evidence different ways may worry the charity, and again lose the benefit of the commitment. Compared to the presumably small chance of actually having to pay the cost of funding despite big negative updates, this seems like it could be enough to leave fraud as the line in the sand. I’d love to know whether this seems correct to others.
All of this is made easier if the people running the charity are likely to also be receptive to high-quality evidence, in which case they could be willing to either restructure to address problems, or dissolve commitments.
In any case, thanks for asking the question. This is something it’s helpful to be particularly clear about ahead of time, to avoid the extra uncertainty costs that come with ambiguity.
How strong should these commitments be? If I commit now to give $50k (for example) to a charity next year, and then strong evidence comes out that they are less effective in the meantime, should I still donate? Presumably I have to donate despite some such evidence, or there is no commitment, but it seems plausible these commitments shouldn’t hold in the event that the charity turns out to be fraudulent, etc.
I agree that they shouldn’t hold if the charity turns out to be fraudulent (violating trust one way gives justification in breaking promises the other way). I guess the line should probably be such that a charity acting in good faith can more-or-less count on the commitments. Otherwise it seems like the charity gets back the problem of second-guessing its donors, and may not make the forward-going plans the commitments were supposed to facilitate.
I can see some appeal to drawing the line such that evidence of radically less effectiveness was enough to break the commitment, but not normal levels of update. In theory this could give similarly high levels of certainty. However, the fact that different people might reasonably interpret evidence different ways may worry the charity, and again lose the benefit of the commitment. Compared to the presumably small chance of actually having to pay the cost of funding despite big negative updates, this seems like it could be enough to leave fraud as the line in the sand. I’d love to know whether this seems correct to others.
All of this is made easier if the people running the charity are likely to also be receptive to high-quality evidence, in which case they could be willing to either restructure to address problems, or dissolve commitments.
In any case, thanks for asking the question. This is something it’s helpful to be particularly clear about ahead of time, to avoid the extra uncertainty costs that come with ambiguity.