I too am finding it hard to articulate. Maybe it’s just captured in the impact I talked about in the original post about creating jobs, helping the startup ecosystem, giving me money I can then donate, etc. So I shouldn’t pretend that in addition to all that there is some other nebulous “benefit of a company vs nonprofit” just to increase the warm fuzzies I feel.
But there’s also a mathematical sense in which a shilling saved (the way Kapu has impact) is better than a shilling earned.
Imagine someone makes and eans exactly 500 shillings per day. You can either cut their cost of living to 250, or give them 250.
It’s better to cut their costs to 250. That way now they earn 200% of their cost or living! If instead you give them 250, they only have 150% of their cost or living
The other benefit compared to giving cash is you avoid the sense of unfairness from people who don’t get given money. I think the new documentary in Givedirectly—Free Money—illustrates this downside well (though I don’t share the overall tone of the documentary which I feel is unnecessarily down on GiveDirectly).
I also have an intuition that it just feels better psychologically for a person to save a shilling vs to be given a shilling for free at random. Maybe mistaken.
I too am finding it hard to articulate. Maybe it’s just captured in the impact I talked about in the original post about creating jobs, helping the startup ecosystem, giving me money I can then donate, etc. So I shouldn’t pretend that in addition to all that there is some other nebulous “benefit of a company vs nonprofit” just to increase the warm fuzzies I feel.
But there’s also a mathematical sense in which a shilling saved (the way Kapu has impact) is better than a shilling earned.
Imagine someone makes and eans exactly 500 shillings per day. You can either cut their cost of living to 250, or give them 250.
It’s better to cut their costs to 250. That way now they earn 200% of their cost or living! If instead you give them 250, they only have 150% of their cost or living
The other benefit compared to giving cash is you avoid the sense of unfairness from people who don’t get given money. I think the new documentary in Givedirectly—Free Money—illustrates this downside well (though I don’t share the overall tone of the documentary which I feel is unnecessarily down on GiveDirectly).
I also have an intuition that it just feels better psychologically for a person to save a shilling vs to be given a shilling for free at random. Maybe mistaken.