Yeah, maybe. I’m trying to think of groups that do this besides the usual suspects (governments, corporations, religions, and nonprofits) that we could learn from. The ideal example might be a group that has formal titles but is still mostly run by volunteers. Maybe Scouting? The Society for Creative Anachronism / LARPing? Volunteer organizations? Service groups like Rotary/Lions/City Year/etc.?
I guess Giving What We Can would probably be the organization we’d want to administer the titles? It does kinda feel like someone should award you a title after you’ve pledged to donate 10% of your income to charity for the rest of your life (or after you’ve made your first 10% donation say, to better align incentives). This is something simple GWWC could do to recognize layperson EAs.
Gamification of EA… I wonder how many achievements I can unlock! You could have an achievement for working at a recognized EA organization for at least 6 months, having donated for 5 (then 10) consecutive years, etc. etc.
I think some people love this kind of thing - I remember being drawn to scouting once I read about all the steps you could take to earn different badges and awards, and how disappointed I was when I joined a troop and realized the other girls were not interested in grubbing after badges in their spare time, so that pursuing the status symbols would make me look like a dweeb. Other people hate that kind of thing from the beginning.
It probably has a lot to do with whether they see the people handing out rewards as having real authority (“Who are they to tell me how good I am?”) Whereas several people have pointed to examples of those who are relieved to have some category that indicates one can be a “casual” EA, as this lets them self-identify as EA without being super involved.
Gamification of EA… I wonder how many achievements I can unlock! You could have an achievement for working at a recognized EA organization for at least 6 months, having donated for 5 (then 10) consecutive years, etc. etc.
There’s been discussion of this and ‘EA points systems’ over the past. Here’s the .impact page for the idea.
Feminism has first/second/third wave feminists, but I think that’s not an ideal example due to infighting within the feminism movement.
Volunteer organizations certainly have lots of different titles to choose from. For example, leader/organizer/activist vs. member/participant. We can have “leader” EA leader vs. “normal” EA for example.
If we’re going to make it organizational, I’d say The Life You Can Save can award the lower-level EA status, as their pledge minimum is 1%, and maybe GWWC can award higher-level EA status, but I’m not convinced organizations should be the ones doing the awards.
Perhaps a community-recognized standard, or something like that, with people ascribing it to themselves. After all, all giving is self-reported anyhow. Moreover, I think we should have a standard that’s based on resourced contributed, not money contributed. For example, if you spend your resources—time and money—convincing others to give effectively, that could mean you’re doing quite a bit more good in the long run than contributing yourself.
So my take would be that devoting 1% of your resources, however defined, to EA causes should be sufficient to be at the lower-level threshold of an EA. Not sure what the higher-level threshold should be.
I think the honor system is not super scalable in the long run. There’s always a small portion of the population who are jerks. If telling people you are an “official EA” means something, then there well be an incentive to fake this. I would like to see GWWC work towards eventually doing donation verification.
I also think receiving a title from someone else is significantly more meaningful than bestowing it upon yourself. One complaint I’ve heard about Google’s promotion process is that you have to nominate yourself, which works against people who have humbler dispositions. For some reason this blog post I read recently also comes to mind. If you are giving 10% of your income to effective charities, or even 1%, I think there should be an organization that says “no, you really are being a good person, please take this token of our gratitude on behalf of those you’re helping”.
For example, if you spend your resources—time and money—convincing others to give effectively, that could mean you’re doing quite a bit more good in the long run than contributing yourself.
Of course. I’m in favor of there being a broad range of merit badges one could earn in this thought experiment.
Ok, you convinced me, I updated toward your position of the benefits of having an external source of bestowing a title. Not sure if GWWC is the best source for it, but that’s a downstream question.
I would like to see GWWC work towards eventually doing donation verification.
One thing that gets closer to this is that we now have a Trust through which people can donate to our recommended charities, which means we have a more direct sense of how much people are donating. (It also has other important benefits, like donors being able to get tax deductions on charities that aren’t registered in the UK.) At the moment this is only a UK registered charity, but we’re hoping to broaden the process to other countries.
Yeah, maybe. I’m trying to think of groups that do this besides the usual suspects (governments, corporations, religions, and nonprofits) that we could learn from. The ideal example might be a group that has formal titles but is still mostly run by volunteers. Maybe Scouting? The Society for Creative Anachronism / LARPing? Volunteer organizations? Service groups like Rotary/Lions/City Year/etc.?
I guess Giving What We Can would probably be the organization we’d want to administer the titles? It does kinda feel like someone should award you a title after you’ve pledged to donate 10% of your income to charity for the rest of your life (or after you’ve made your first 10% donation say, to better align incentives). This is something simple GWWC could do to recognize layperson EAs.
Gamification of EA… I wonder how many achievements I can unlock! You could have an achievement for working at a recognized EA organization for at least 6 months, having donated for 5 (then 10) consecutive years, etc. etc.
I think some people love this kind of thing - I remember being drawn to scouting once I read about all the steps you could take to earn different badges and awards, and how disappointed I was when I joined a troop and realized the other girls were not interested in grubbing after badges in their spare time, so that pursuing the status symbols would make me look like a dweeb. Other people hate that kind of thing from the beginning.
It probably has a lot to do with whether they see the people handing out rewards as having real authority (“Who are they to tell me how good I am?”) Whereas several people have pointed to examples of those who are relieved to have some category that indicates one can be a “casual” EA, as this lets them self-identify as EA without being super involved.
There’s been discussion of this and ‘EA points systems’ over the past. Here’s the .impact page for the idea.
Feminism has first/second/third wave feminists, but I think that’s not an ideal example due to infighting within the feminism movement.
Volunteer organizations certainly have lots of different titles to choose from. For example, leader/organizer/activist vs. member/participant. We can have “leader” EA leader vs. “normal” EA for example.
If we’re going to make it organizational, I’d say The Life You Can Save can award the lower-level EA status, as their pledge minimum is 1%, and maybe GWWC can award higher-level EA status, but I’m not convinced organizations should be the ones doing the awards.
Gamification of EA—intriguing!
What alternatives did you have in mind?
Perhaps a community-recognized standard, or something like that, with people ascribing it to themselves. After all, all giving is self-reported anyhow. Moreover, I think we should have a standard that’s based on resourced contributed, not money contributed. For example, if you spend your resources—time and money—convincing others to give effectively, that could mean you’re doing quite a bit more good in the long run than contributing yourself.
So my take would be that devoting 1% of your resources, however defined, to EA causes should be sufficient to be at the lower-level threshold of an EA. Not sure what the higher-level threshold should be.
I think the honor system is not super scalable in the long run. There’s always a small portion of the population who are jerks. If telling people you are an “official EA” means something, then there well be an incentive to fake this. I would like to see GWWC work towards eventually doing donation verification.
I also think receiving a title from someone else is significantly more meaningful than bestowing it upon yourself. One complaint I’ve heard about Google’s promotion process is that you have to nominate yourself, which works against people who have humbler dispositions. For some reason this blog post I read recently also comes to mind. If you are giving 10% of your income to effective charities, or even 1%, I think there should be an organization that says “no, you really are being a good person, please take this token of our gratitude on behalf of those you’re helping”.
Of course. I’m in favor of there being a broad range of merit badges one could earn in this thought experiment.
Ok, you convinced me, I updated toward your position of the benefits of having an external source of bestowing a title. Not sure if GWWC is the best source for it, but that’s a downstream question.
One thing that gets closer to this is that we now have a Trust through which people can donate to our recommended charities, which means we have a more direct sense of how much people are donating. (It also has other important benefits, like donors being able to get tax deductions on charities that aren’t registered in the UK.) At the moment this is only a UK registered charity, but we’re hoping to broaden the process to other countries.