Ease of fundraising / counterfactual impact of donations. Let’s say you are deciding which charity you should start. Charity A could do a very cost-effective intervention but only people who already donate to cost-effective charities would be interested in supporting it. Charity B could do a slightly less cost-effective intervention but would have a mainstream appeal and could fundraise from people who don’t donate to any charities or donate to ineffective charities. Other things being equal, you would do more good by starting Charity B, even though it would be less cost-effective. Firstly, Charity B wouldn’t take funding away from other effective charities.. Secondly, Charity B could grow to be much larger and hence do more good (provided that its intervention is scalable).
I think that this is an important point that you raised, so thank you!
I just wanted to say that thanks to your question, I added the following bullet point to my article List of ways in which cost-effectiveness estimates can be misleading:
Ease of fundraising / counterfactual impact of donations. Let’s say you are deciding which charity you should start. Charity A could do a very cost-effective intervention but only people who already donate to cost-effective charities would be interested in supporting it. Charity B could do a slightly less cost-effective intervention but would have a mainstream appeal and could fundraise from people who don’t donate to any charities or donate to ineffective charities. Other things being equal, you would do more good by starting Charity B, even though it would be less cost-effective. Firstly, Charity B wouldn’t take funding away from other effective charities.. Secondly, Charity B could grow to be much larger and hence do more good (provided that its intervention is scalable).
I think that this is an important point that you raised, so thank you!