That said, it does seem to me that once one had decided on an organization to give to, one should separately optimize how to make that donation (considering donation matching opportunities, whether the donation is or can be tax deductible (which may mean investigating whether a donation swap with another EA makes sense and whether practicing donation bunching makes sense), fees, etc.)
Yeah, both good points. To further complicate things, if you’re concerned about the net costs of your donation (e.g. both the transaction fees, as well as the administrative costs involved) then sometimes paying the transaction fee means that it’s actually cheaper overall to process the transaction. For example, the service paid for by the credit card fees on EA Funds (Stripe) allows us to automate almost all of the accounting, saving a huge amount of person-hours and keeping running costs lower. Obviously there’s a break-even point, and for larger donations it definitely makes sense to seek to avoid percentage-based fees.
That said, it does seem to me that once one had decided on an organization to give to, one should separately optimize how to make that donation (considering donation matching opportunities, whether the donation is or can be tax deductible (which may mean investigating whether a donation swap with another EA makes sense and whether practicing donation bunching makes sense), fees, etc.)
Yeah, both good points. To further complicate things, if you’re concerned about the net costs of your donation (e.g. both the transaction fees, as well as the administrative costs involved) then sometimes paying the transaction fee means that it’s actually cheaper overall to process the transaction. For example, the service paid for by the credit card fees on EA Funds (Stripe) allows us to automate almost all of the accounting, saving a huge amount of person-hours and keeping running costs lower. Obviously there’s a break-even point, and for larger donations it definitely makes sense to seek to avoid percentage-based fees.