Possible Reasons to Donate to Innefective Causes
I was recently realizing that in the last year I have spent a non-insignificant amount on charities and causes that I would normally not consider giving to, and quite a few of them are things that I wouldn’t consider the most effective or most beneficial charities. For someone that spends a good portion of my life and energy promoting the most effective causes, and encourages everyone to think hard about what they spend their philanthropic money on, it seems counter-intuitive that I would throw money at a lot of non-optimized charities & causes.
I would wager there are lots of people out there who think deeply about philanthropy and giving that do wind up donating to causes they wouldn’t necessarily recommend to others. There are a number of reasons I’ve chosen to do this and I thought I would share a few with you and see if anyone else has reasons for supporting causes outside of traditional EA charities.
1. It is my friend’s pet cause
Most of you are thinking that is a terrible justification for donating to a cause, but let me explain. First, I don’t donate to causes I think are not doing good or potentially doing harm. Usually I trust my friend’s judgment on this, but a quick reputation check helps.
Whenever a friend puts up a “Donate to this” request on Facebook I usually try to throw at least $10 at it. Ten bucks seems like a paltry amount—and it is—but anyone that has run a fundraising campaign knows most of the time you are stalking the page watching little donations tick in, spending time trying to figure out who that anonymous donation was from, and wondering why Aunt Agnes hasn’t ponied up yet. There is a Pavlovian response we have to watching donations roll in. It is warm and fuzzy! $10 seems like a good deal to give my friend have such a great warm fuzzy feeling.
It is also substantially easier to ask friends and family to donate to your fundraiser when they know you donated to theirs. So while my money may not be doing the most good, it is an investment in generating a lot of good in the future. I’m spending a small amount and will likely get a large return when I ask for a donation to a much more effective cause.
2. It makes me more likely to continue to donate
I definitely fall into the moral consistency camp when it comes to moral-licensing. I do something I think of as good and my brain gets a kick of dopamine (or maybe the dopamine comes into play as I enter my credit card information). Point is I get a big surge from my reward system. I am doing good things! I am being morally consistent with my stated values! I am helping! Good girl *pat*
Plus, it turns out I never lament spending that money. I will frequently look at my bank account and think about that latte this morning that I didn’t really need. I’ve never had the experience of looking at my statement and thinking “If only I hadn’t given that $20 to the ‘Save the Cute Animals and Cure the Terrible Sickness Foundation’ ”
3. Add my name to the list please!
There are loads of groups out there that, on top of doing their mission work, also work on public policy, advocacy and lobbying. Planned Parenthood is a great example of this. While 65% of their budget went to medical services, 16% went to non-medical services, many of which centered around petitioning and advocacy.
Part of what makes any advocacy work successful is the ability to cite their number of supporters. If you can say you have 8 million supporters, chances are better you can get a representative to listen. Large numbers add clout and legitimacy to your campaigns.
So even if I just give $10 or $2 my name, little as it is, gets thrown in that pile of names. A lot of advocacy can boil down to comparing who has a bigger pile. Policy is a big sticky mess that is hard to measure and harder to influence, but a small amount of money to add my name to a list of people who say “yes I agree with this thing, please count me in” seems like a good, low cost place to start.
4. It is a service I use/appreciate or think I should be paying for anyway
I am lucky enough to live in the amazing city of Seattle. Seattle has some of the best radio around. You remember radio right? Such good radio even the White House press office takes note. So when John in the Morning comes on the air and asks me to pony up some spare change, I do.
This public radio station is a service I use almost daily. It adds dramatically to my life satisfaction and my feeling of being connected to the world, and particularly to my city. I don’t consider this philanthropy, these donations come out of my entertainment budget. I am giving for me, for selfish reasons, driven by my passions and needs. So I don’t consider this part of my philanthropic giving, but the US tax code does, so I’m listing it here.
5. Signal boost a campaign or cause
I’m not the only one that runs event fundraisers. Loads of people do! Most of the time my friends choose highly effective charities, so usually it is something I’m totally on board with, but I also run across a lot of interesting random fundraisers. Sometimes it is just a great concept for a fundraiser, and I want to encourage people to think creatively about fundraising and philanthropy. Sometimes it is for a unique organization that I support in theory, but don’t have any evidence for yet.
Really this bullet can be summed up like this: Hey person, I dig your thinking and I support you. +1
6. A handful of other EA/rationalist related items
These are sort of tertiary justifications that lend legitimacy to my above reasons.
I’m in favor of being cause neutral. I don’t want to get stuck in a giving pattern that may make me ineffective, so flexing my donation muscles in other places seems like a good way to avoid this.
I don’t know everything and you are probably loads smarter than me. If someone says “hey this thing over here is really important” I should lean towards giving it a shot, or investigating further.This cause you have identified could be super duper important and I just don’t know it yet.
Sometimes ineffective or high-cost things have enormous nu-knowable great outcomes.
I wouldn’t have spent the money on any other charity. The money I donate to one-off fundraisers and annual memberships is money that I otherwise would have spent on toys for my cats, or a meal out with friends.
What about any of you? Do you spend any amount on charities or nonprofits outside of the EA realm? If so why? Are there things that you give to that are traditionally defined as a ‘cause’ area that you don’t consider part of your donations (example 4)? What are your experiences talking with other EAs about donating outside GW recommended charities?
re-post (with edits) from my blog.
This seems like an extremely important point, especially if the friend is likely to donate more than you did or donates the same amount but has some chance of being converted in the process.
I do, for example, in the case of supporting online content producers (see e.g. Patreon). They’re not technically charities or nonprofits, but I am giving away my money for nothing, so it’s kinda like charity. I do so because I want to provide incentives for them to keep doing the work they do.
It is, I suppose, a bit like donating to GiveWell or any of the other meta-charities. By GiveWell’s own standards, it is technically speaking not a top charity, but it still does work that I believe matters a lot, even if its benefits are not easily measurable.
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Great post Syd, this is something I think about a lot, and I have a few more things to add.
Making visible donations is a good way to boost (even if only slightly) the culture of giving and make it seem more normal, encouraging others to do so as well. Also, not getting many donations can be discouraging to someone raising money for a cause, especially if they have put a lot of effort into an activity and it is their first time. It may even discourage them from doing so again.
I also like to think about the converse—by not donating, are you really doing any better a job at convincing people to donate to more effective charities? Probably not much, I would say.
I would exercise caution with this though. You’ve mentioned this but I would not donate to charities that I think are highly ineffective. If pressed, I couldn’t give you a cut off point, but for example if asked to do the ice bucket challenge knowing how ineffective that cause was at doing good, I would refuse, or make a statement about the effectiveness of charities.
In answer to your question, I once made a donation to a medical research foundation working on a cause that my girlfriend was really passionate about for her birthday. This made her more happy than anything else I got her would have, and came out of my budget for presents, not donations.
I have participated in Movember for the last 2 years and raised quite a bit of money, and last year I convinced some friends to join me in a team. Since then I have doubled down on my EA-ness quite a bit, and now a friend has asked me if I wanted to start a team again this year. I’m stuck, my primary concern being that, as the head of an EA chapter, it might look hypocritical to talk about donating to effective charities while raising money for a less effective charity. I suppose, if I take my own advice, there wouldn’t be much cannibalism of donations to more effective charities, but I am more concerned about the statement. If anyone has any response to this I would love to hear it.
I would love to know if you decided to go forward with Movember this year. I would also be really torn about this. On one hand making a visual statement about being philanthropic helps destigmatize talking about where you donate and why. This is good if your long term goal is to create a large culture shift more towards EA values. The downside being that it takes a long time and a ton of effort and may mean people donate sub-optimally. I think you are right that this is very unlikely to pull any money from highly effective causes since this strategy is aimed at signally groups and people outside of EA.
However Inside EA and as an organizer it can feel hypocritical, I totally understand/agree. It can feel like not ‘walking the walk’ so to speak. I think there could be a number of solutions. One could be participating in Movember but fundraising for an EA charity—you get the benefits mentioned above but get to give money to an EA cause. The other could be to find the most effective men’s health organization you can and donate to them instead. In both of these cases I think the key would be to talk a lot about why.
Yeah, I often don’t agree with people arguing they don’t want to give to ineffective causes, since I think in most cases the actual counterfactual for where the money is given is not an effective charity, but a new video game or a fancy night out. (There are people who are different though. I just don’t think it’s true for many.)
Well said Denise, the likelihood for cannibalisation from more effective charities is typically low when people ask friends and family for donations.
I went through a similar struggle in the aftermath of the Nepal earthquakes earlier this year. I had spent 5 weeks volunteering in a Nepali village the year before, and they had been hit quite hard. Given my unique experience, I knew I could convince colleagues to donate to this cause even though I knew disaster relief is not the most effective cause. I asked Peter Singer for advice who suggested the above, that donations made from colleagues would not be likely to be made elsewhere if I didn’t say anything.
“I don’t consider this philanthropy, these donations come out of my entertainment budget.” This is a good point to make, even for donations not related to your entertainment like public radio. Very few people donate their entire income minus what they need to survive, even those who donate to effective charities (EAs). So if these kinds of donations are not coming out of your budget you would use to donate to effective charities, I don’t see it as an issue. Besides, if you’re like me you get more enjoyment from making a $10 donation than buying a $10 meal.
This post seems to be about a mix of giving that you think isn’t the most effective (public radio) and giving that you think is (plausibly) the most effective but isn’t widely acknowledged to be effective within EA.
Yes, that is an accurate summation. I don’t think many of these causes are the ‘most’ effective, but I believe them to be potentially effective but lack measurements. We don’t talk very often about other potentially effective benefits of donating outside of core EA charities. I think there is benefit in discussing/exploring exceptions or other donation strategies people may have.
“1. It is my friend’s pet cause”
Well, if it’s anonymous then it’s not obvious what you are accomplishing (compared to disease treatments etc). If it’s a reciprocation mechanism then I can imagine that working but only if you have an approximately 1:1 or better ratio of marginal donations reciprocated—which doesn’t seem likely to me, but you’ll have to make that judgement on your own.
“2. It makes me more likely to continue to donate”
Or you could just donate based on solid principles and not deny your own ability to make decisions?
“3. Add my name to the list please!”
A list with millions of names on it? It means hardly anything to have a single additional name on it. Every charity can make a list of supporters. Not sure what a $2 donation is needed for though—you’d be much more efficient donating $0.01.
“4. It is a service I use/appreciate or think I should be paying for anyway”
I’m a little confused because you’re making a claim about moral obligations to various people, while you also claim that you’re merely giving because you want to. Egoism and contractualism are two different approaches to morality, and neither is part of effective altruism. If you have other moral beliefs besides robust improvements to issues like poverty etc, or simply don’t care about those things at all, then there’s not much to be said outside of the realm of moral philosophy.
“5. Signal boost a campaign or cause”
Sure, again you’ll have to make those kinds of judgements yourself. If it’s an effective cause though, you might be able to talk to other EAs and see if anyone else will support it, because multiple opinions are important for these judgements. If EAs aren’t convinced then that might be a reason to give more thought to the matter.
“I’m in favor of being cause neutral. I don’t want to get stuck in a giving pattern that may make me ineffective, so flexing my donation muscles in other places seems like a good way to avoid this.”
I don’t understand the logic behind this. If you want to avoid ineffective giving, then give to the most effective causes. If you want to be cause neutral as a general rule, you’ll have to have some separate justification for that because placing arbitrary constraints like that reduce your effectiveness. You can’t maximize cause neutrality and effectiveness at the same time.
“I don’t know everything and you are probably loads smarter than me. If someone says “hey this thing over here is really important” I should lean towards giving it a shot, or investigating further.This cause you have identified could be super duper important and I just don’t know it yet.”
So that would imply supporting the projects which EA-oriented research and decision making has decided to prioritize, right? Because other people, regardless of how smart, aren’t generally using the right values or framework.
“Sometimes ineffective or high-cost things have enormous nu-knowable great outcomes.”
Unexpected outcomes cut both ways. Effective charities can also have even more enormous unknowable great outcomes, and ineffective charities can be even worse than they seem.
“I wouldn’t have spent the money on any other charity. The money I donate to one-off fundraisers and annual memberships is money that I otherwise would have spent on toys for my cats, or a meal out with friends.”
I don’t see how this can be the case unless you artificially and arbitrarily emplace such a mechanism into your decisions. Many people worry about sacrificing luxuries and such towards saving lives, but it’s still less demanding to take money from one philanthropic area and redirect towards another. So, sure spending on suboptimal charities is better than none at all, as long as you recognize that it’s still not as good as other options.
“What about any of you? Do you spend any amount on charities or nonprofits outside of the EA realm?”
No, but if I had such an idea, I wouldn’t ignore it but I would bring it to public discussion and see what everyone thought.
Meta: lots of points worth discussing here, but the tone seemed unnecessarily hostile.
That is great if that works for you. I think it’s important to recognize that humans aren’t moist robots, and if the path to getting a particular person to donate more to AMF is for them to give to the Make A Wish For Dying Kittens fund, then idonating to MAWFDK is the effective choice.
That’s a really big “if.” Most of the time we just figure out the best thing to do, and then do it because we’re free human beings who can make our own decisions. I’m not accustomed to providing rationalization for biases, that’s just not the way I think. But hey, if it works it works.
I appreciate your advice not to bring divergent opinions “to public discussion [to] see what everyone thought”—your reception may in fact convince me this is an good course of action in the future. I fear this may have fallen into the trap of making EA unwelcoming by coming across as presumptuous or even hostile. I would like to think this wasn’t your intention and you were hoping to have a conversation so I’ll address some of your concerns or assumptions.
A point of clarity: I’m not a strict consequentialist—so there are many things here where we may disagree because I see inherent value in an action taken in good faith in order to test a theory or support a potentially larger good. From your comment I think you would disagree with this.
I would also like to make clear, these donations do not make up a majority of my donation dollars; these instances are exceptions to the rule.
I usually find that I get a 1:1 ratio or better. I also know that a $10 donation to AMF is doing much more good, to the point that it will likely more than offset any potential harm my donation did, so there was a net benefit.
I consider operant conditioning a solid principle and a good way to work towards making increasingly good decisions. I don’t deny my autonomy, but I also am aware that my mind often needs encouragement to function more effectively.
You are correct. Usually I default to a few dollars because I assume the credit processing system won’t accept anything less. Next time I will try this.
I am stating that I feel a contract myself in many of these instances. I also think it is OK to donate out of personal passion—say to the arts. And I completely agree, both of these are not effective altruism. I would even say they only tangentially count as altruism. As I stated I list these here because we traditionally define this allocation of resources as “donations to nonprofits” and are tax exempt. I also list it here because I believe there is space in EA to engage with people who want to continue to donate to things like arts programs or public radio, by encouraging them to realize that these donations aren’t part of your charity work, and if they want to make a difference they should also be giving to effective causes.
Re: Cause neutrality. What I am addressing here is the tendency of donors to become emotionally attached to a cause they donate to. This means that if there is no more room for funding, or if a more effective cause arises they are less likely to shift their donations. My theory is I will be more willing to shift the larger portion of my giving, if necessary, since I am not completely invested in any single cause area.
Unexpected outcomes: Yes I agree that there is also a possibility that the charity is ineffective and even potentially doing harm. I would refer you to my comment about not being a strict consequentalist as well as my statement about giving all charities a reputation check. This is just a personal judgment call.
I do! :) I budget very carefully, and my allocated charity donations get deducted monthly on a set schedule. The money that I give to secondary ‘ineffective’ causes comes out of my ‘fun money’ budget, so I know very clearly what other things I may have spent that money on.
Hopefully that lends some clarity to my post. I think it is important to be open and welcoming to people who are deeply interested in philanthropy but may not yet have heard of or bought into many of the ideas of EA. To this end I think it is a valuable exercise to think about the intersections of EA thinking and traditional giving, such as the things described above. Creating a bridge between more common giving habits and really effective giving is a useful way of helping people level up their thinking when it comes to philanthropy.
Well then I don’t see this as substantially different than typical cases of people spending less than maximum amounts of money on effective charities; whether it’s material goods or suboptimal charities is not a dichotomy which bothers me. Normally I talk about establishing greater total optimal contributions, and if you’ve deliberately set up a counterfactual to preclude it then I suppose it’s not a discussion that you’re keen to have.