I agree that you’d raise considerably less money for these organisations. You need to sell people on the end charities like GiveDirectly first, and only once they’re on board with these move to less widely accepted causes. A birthday or Christmas fundraiser doesn’t afford much scope to persuade people of novel charities (compared with, say, an in depth personal conversation). So it’s probably not the best venue for them.
But there’s another perspective where people donate wherever you want because it’s about helping you and the abstract “charity” (as in “I’m donating to charity”). Gina was able to raise $500 for her animal rights org, Jacy has moved money from his friends to ACE, and Kaj raised $500 for poverty, animal rights, and MIRI. (...Though I’d still have to check whether they appealed mainly to people already in the AR/MIRI/EA sphere or not, and I agree my argument is wrong if they didn’t.)
I agree that you’d raise considerably less money for these organisations. You need to sell people on the end charities like GiveDirectly first, and only once they’re on board with these move to less widely accepted causes. A birthday or Christmas fundraiser doesn’t afford much scope to persuade people of novel charities (compared with, say, an in depth personal conversation). So it’s probably not the best venue for them.
That makes sense.
But there’s another perspective where people donate wherever you want because it’s about helping you and the abstract “charity” (as in “I’m donating to charity”). Gina was able to raise $500 for her animal rights org, Jacy has moved money from his friends to ACE, and Kaj raised $500 for poverty, animal rights, and MIRI. (...Though I’d still have to check whether they appealed mainly to people already in the AR/MIRI/EA sphere or not, and I agree my argument is wrong if they didn’t.)