They still mislead about how long it takes for a ‘invest and then donate’ strategy to beat ‘donate now. As I said above, with your numbers invest and donate can win in 9 years, not 40. The problem is that ‘invest and then donate’ corresponds to many different strategies for different donation dates. If you completely ignore the benefits after year X, then waiting to donate in year X will look bad because the rapid post-donation compounding is pushed out of the window you’re looking at (like gaming the CBO 10 year window in U.S. budget fights).
The strategy (for your figures) that maximizes returns with a horizon of X years, where X is 9 or greater, is to save and invest, the donate 8 years before X, so that you get the last year of above 5% returns in year X:
s 20% in the first year, 18% in the second, then 16%, 14%, 12%, 10%, 8%, 6%, 4%, and then 3%
You should add that curve (size of impact in year X, donating 8 years before X) to your graph, which would pass ‘donate now’ at 9 years and then go substantially above it at 40 years.
They still mislead about how long it takes for a ‘invest and then donate’ strategy to beat ‘donate now. As I said above, with your numbers invest and donate can win in 9 years, not 40. The problem is that ‘invest and then donate’ corresponds to many different strategies for different donation dates. If you completely ignore the benefits after year X, then waiting to donate in year X will look bad because the rapid post-donation compounding is pushed out of the window you’re looking at (like gaming the CBO 10 year window in U.S. budget fights).
The strategy (for your figures) that maximizes returns with a horizon of X years, where X is 9 or greater, is to save and invest, the donate 8 years before X, so that you get the last year of above 5% returns in year X:
You should add that curve (size of impact in year X, donating 8 years before X) to your graph, which would pass ‘donate now’ at 9 years and then go substantially above it at 40 years.