The idea that EA charities should somehow court epistemic virtue among their donors seems to me to be over-asking in a way that will drastically reduce their effectiveness.
No human behaves like some kind of Spock stereotype making all their decisions merely by weighing the evidence. We all respond to cheerleading and upbeat pronouncements and make spontaneous choices based on what we happen to see first. We are all more likely to give when asked in ways which make us feel bad/guilty for saying no or when we forget that we are even doing it (annual credit card billing).
If EA charities insist on cultivating donations only in circumstances where the donors are best equipped to make a careful judgement, e.g., eschewing ‘Give Now’ impulse donations, fundraising parties with liquor and peer pressure and insist on reminding us each time another donation is about to be deducted from our account, they will lose out on a huge amount of donations. Worse, because of the role of overhead in charity work, the lack of sufficient donations will actually make such charities bad choices.
Moreover, there is nothing morally wrong with putting your organization’s best foot forward or using standard charity/advertising tactics. Despite the joke it’s not morally wrong to make a good first impression. If there is a trade off between reducing suffering and improving epistemic virtue there is no question which is more important and if that requires implying they are highly effective so be it.
I mean it’s important charities are incentivized to be effective but imagine if the law required every charitable solicitation to disclose the fraction of donations that went into fundraising and overhead. It’s unlikely the increased effectiveness that resulted would make up for the huge losses that forcing people to face the unpleasant fact that even the best charities can only send a fraction of their donation to the intended beneficiaries.
What EA charities should do, however, is pursue a market segmentation strategy. Avoid any falsehoods (as well as annoying behavior likely to result in substantial criticism) when putting a good face on their situation/effectiveness and make sure detailed truthful and complete data and analysis is available for those who put in the work to look for it.
Everyone is better off this way. No on is lied to. The charities get more money and can do more with it. The people who decide to give for impulsive or other less than rational reasons can feel good about themselves rather than feeling guilty they didn’t put more time into their charitable decisions. The people who care about choosing the most effective evidence backed charitable efforts can access that data and feel good about themselves for looking past the surface. Finally, by having the same institution chase both the smart and dumb money the system works to funnel the dumb money toward smart outcomes (charities which lose all their smart money will tend to wither or at least change practices).
The idea that EA charities should somehow court epistemic virtue among their donors seems to me to be over-asking in a way that will drastically reduce their effectiveness.
No human behaves like some kind of Spock stereotype making all their decisions merely by weighing the evidence. We all respond to cheerleading and upbeat pronouncements and make spontaneous choices based on what we happen to see first. We are all more likely to give when asked in ways which make us feel bad/guilty for saying no or when we forget that we are even doing it (annual credit card billing).
If EA charities insist on cultivating donations only in circumstances where the donors are best equipped to make a careful judgement, e.g., eschewing ‘Give Now’ impulse donations, fundraising parties with liquor and peer pressure and insist on reminding us each time another donation is about to be deducted from our account, they will lose out on a huge amount of donations. Worse, because of the role of overhead in charity work, the lack of sufficient donations will actually make such charities bad choices.
Moreover, there is nothing morally wrong with putting your organization’s best foot forward or using standard charity/advertising tactics. Despite the joke it’s not morally wrong to make a good first impression. If there is a trade off between reducing suffering and improving epistemic virtue there is no question which is more important and if that requires implying they are highly effective so be it.
I mean it’s important charities are incentivized to be effective but imagine if the law required every charitable solicitation to disclose the fraction of donations that went into fundraising and overhead. It’s unlikely the increased effectiveness that resulted would make up for the huge losses that forcing people to face the unpleasant fact that even the best charities can only send a fraction of their donation to the intended beneficiaries.
What EA charities should do, however, is pursue a market segmentation strategy. Avoid any falsehoods (as well as annoying behavior likely to result in substantial criticism) when putting a good face on their situation/effectiveness and make sure detailed truthful and complete data and analysis is available for those who put in the work to look for it.
Everyone is better off this way. No on is lied to. The charities get more money and can do more with it. The people who decide to give for impulsive or other less than rational reasons can feel good about themselves rather than feeling guilty they didn’t put more time into their charitable decisions. The people who care about choosing the most effective evidence backed charitable efforts can access that data and feel good about themselves for looking past the surface. Finally, by having the same institution chase both the smart and dumb money the system works to funnel the dumb money toward smart outcomes (charities which lose all their smart money will tend to wither or at least change practices).