I agree with others here that EA groups should try activities that:
1. Do a significant, easily quantifiable amount of good;
2. Address important problems;
3. Have some EA motivation; and
4. Give people a chance to talk about their EA worldview with non-EAs.
I think organ donor drives hit points 2 and 3 well, and aren’t too bad on 1 or 4 (the impact isn’t easy to quantify and organ donation isn’t an EA cause area, but the topic is at least clearly positive/altruistic).
But even if a donor registration drive is a reasonable candidate for group activity, is it really better than other available options?
Examples:
Promoting some important piece of local legislation (there Open Phil-related ballot initiatives in at least three states before the 2016 election).
Any of the other opportunities mentioned in the EA Volunteering group (including research and assistance with writing projects).
Other “classic” forms of volunteering that seem tractable/neglected (e.g. helping at a local shelter, manning an emotional support hotline)
Learning skills that might help them make a bigger impact later (not just skills related to research or other “EA” pursuits, but also things like CPR or “how to administer Naloxone”)
This is far from a complete list.
I don’t know how good these things are compared to donor registration drives, but it seems like a group should examine a few different options before deciding to carry out an activity. Or, if they don’t have confidence in their ability to estimate impact (or time to do so), they may just want to choose an activity based on other features (e.g. how well it will help the group bond, how convenient it is, how appealing it will be to new members, how well it ties into EA).
I think you’re ignoring how much easier, more discrete, and more scalable an organ donation registration drive is than any of these examples.
Also, how many people have to learn CPR through a 4-hour certification for one of them to actually use it? I don’t know how favorably it actually compares to the lifesaving potential of spending a few minutes per person registering them to donate their organs.
I don’t know how good these things are compared to donor registration drives.
As I mentioned before, I’m not claiming that any of these examples are necessarily better! I’m just trying to gesture to the number of other options groups might have, and the fact that it would be good to see even very rough cost-benefit analyses for different options.
For example, organ donation registration drives are indeed easy, discrete, and scalable, but even if promoting legislation isn’t quite as good on those fronts, perhaps the expected impact is good enough to make it a better bet in some places and times.
CPR is rarely successful, especially when performed by non-professionals outside of a hospital, so I doubt it beats organ donation, but it’s a plausible thing a group could look into. Other first-aid-ish interventions seem more promising, and EA groups could even consider expanding into other “social intervention” areas (e.g. a workshop on when it makes sense to call 911 if you see someone who looks to be very ill/unconscious).
All of that said, I’d have no objection whatsoever to a group running a well-organized donor registration drive, for the reasons I noted in my first post.
Summary: Maybe groups should do this, but there are a lot of things groups should “maybe” do, and this doesn’t seem like a clear best candidate.
I agree with others here that EA groups should try activities that:
I think organ donor drives hit points 2 and 3 well, and aren’t too bad on 1 or 4 (the impact isn’t easy to quantify and organ donation isn’t an EA cause area, but the topic is at least clearly positive/altruistic).
But even if a donor registration drive is a reasonable candidate for group activity, is it really better than other available options?
Examples:
Promoting some important piece of local legislation (there Open Phil-related ballot initiatives in at least three states before the 2016 election).
Any of the other opportunities mentioned in the EA Volunteering group (including research and assistance with writing projects).
Other “classic” forms of volunteering that seem tractable/neglected (e.g. helping at a local shelter, manning an emotional support hotline)
Learning skills that might help them make a bigger impact later (not just skills related to research or other “EA” pursuits, but also things like CPR or “how to administer Naloxone”)
This is far from a complete list.
I don’t know how good these things are compared to donor registration drives, but it seems like a group should examine a few different options before deciding to carry out an activity. Or, if they don’t have confidence in their ability to estimate impact (or time to do so), they may just want to choose an activity based on other features (e.g. how well it will help the group bond, how convenient it is, how appealing it will be to new members, how well it ties into EA).
I think you’re ignoring how much easier, more discrete, and more scalable an organ donation registration drive is than any of these examples.
Also, how many people have to learn CPR through a 4-hour certification for one of them to actually use it? I don’t know how favorably it actually compares to the lifesaving potential of spending a few minutes per person registering them to donate their organs.
As I mentioned before, I’m not claiming that any of these examples are necessarily better! I’m just trying to gesture to the number of other options groups might have, and the fact that it would be good to see even very rough cost-benefit analyses for different options.
For example, organ donation registration drives are indeed easy, discrete, and scalable, but even if promoting legislation isn’t quite as good on those fronts, perhaps the expected impact is good enough to make it a better bet in some places and times.
CPR is rarely successful, especially when performed by non-professionals outside of a hospital, so I doubt it beats organ donation, but it’s a plausible thing a group could look into. Other first-aid-ish interventions seem more promising, and EA groups could even consider expanding into other “social intervention” areas (e.g. a workshop on when it makes sense to call 911 if you see someone who looks to be very ill/unconscious).
All of that said, I’d have no objection whatsoever to a group running a well-organized donor registration drive, for the reasons I noted in my first post.
This perspective makes a lot of sense to me :-)