Thank you for raising this important point about double-counting, Ian! This is something we go to great pains to avoid when evaluating the counterfactual impact of fundraising efforts in the effective giving space. For example, weâre careful not to count donations that would have happened anyway or were primarily inspired by other organisations when accounting for our own organisationâs counterfactual multiplier.
Where I see it a bit differently is around the question of individual impact credit. Rather than worrying about dividing up credit between meta-donors and direct donors, I think what matters most is maximising our collective impact as a community. When you donate to an EG organisation, you might indeed be counterfactually responsible for 2x or more money going to effective charitiesâand so too are the people who choose to donate after learning about effective charities through your meta-donation. Since weâre all working toward the same goal of maximising good done, this isnât a zero-sum game where we need to divide up credit.
This accounting question really only becomes crucial when we need to make decisions about where to direct scarce fundingâwe want to fund the organisations that will be most effective at growing the total pool of donations to effective charities.
That said, I think your approach of allocating 15% to evaluators makes a lot of practical sense as a way to sustainably support the ecosystem. It aligns nicely with the thrust of Ollie Baseâs argument in his post âConsider donating to whoever helped youâ while avoiding getting too caught up in precise impact attribution. And as you note, GiveWellâs excess funds regranting policy makes this particularly straightforward in their case and this policiy is something we are working to put in place at GWWC too.
Thank you for raising this important point about double-counting, Ian! This is something we go to great pains to avoid when evaluating the counterfactual impact of fundraising efforts in the effective giving space. For example, weâre careful not to count donations that would have happened anyway or were primarily inspired by other organisations when accounting for our own organisationâs counterfactual multiplier.
Where I see it a bit differently is around the question of individual impact credit. Rather than worrying about dividing up credit between meta-donors and direct donors, I think what matters most is maximising our collective impact as a community. When you donate to an EG organisation, you might indeed be counterfactually responsible for 2x or more money going to effective charitiesâand so too are the people who choose to donate after learning about effective charities through your meta-donation. Since weâre all working toward the same goal of maximising good done, this isnât a zero-sum game where we need to divide up credit.
This accounting question really only becomes crucial when we need to make decisions about where to direct scarce fundingâwe want to fund the organisations that will be most effective at growing the total pool of donations to effective charities.
That said, I think your approach of allocating 15% to evaluators makes a lot of practical sense as a way to sustainably support the ecosystem. It aligns nicely with the thrust of Ollie Baseâs argument in his post âConsider donating to whoever helped youâ while avoiding getting too caught up in precise impact attribution. And as you note, GiveWellâs excess funds regranting policy makes this particularly straightforward in their case and this policiy is something we are working to put in place at GWWC too.