Thereâs a lot of discussion here (especially if you go through the comments of each piece), and so plenty of room to come to different conclusions.
Hereâs roughly where I come out of this:
Whatâs the relevant counterfactual? Many of these comment threads turn into discussions about earning-to-give vs direct work, but if you have $1000 in your hand, ready to donate, thatâs not the relevant question. Rather, you should ask, âif I donât donate this, what would I do with it instead, and how much impact would that have?â
You say âI know that professional grant makers think that last-dollar funding is not cost effective because they arenât funding more projects, but arenât out of dollars.â I think this frames the issue incorrectly. Itâs not that big funders know that other projects arenât cost-effective, itâs that they donât currently have enough projects that clear a certain cost-effectiveness bar. But crucially, that bar is still far above zero!
This means
there are probably many opportunities that are just as cost-effective that they havenât found (potentially you have information they donât that you could exploit; see this section of the above ADS post)
marginal donations should have a cost-effectiveness at worst just below that bar, which means youâre only doing a little worse than the big funders. (This point taken from Benjamin Todd here.)
There have been a few posts discussing the value of small donations over the past year, notably:
Benjamin Todd on âDespite billions of extra funding, small donors can still have a significant impactâ
a counterpoint, AppliedDivinityStudies on âA Red-Team Against the Impact of Small Donationsâ
a counter-counterpoint, Michael Townsend on âThe value of small donations from a longtermist perspectiveâ
Thereâs a lot of discussion here (especially if you go through the comments of each piece), and so plenty of room to come to different conclusions.
Hereâs roughly where I come out of this:
Whatâs the relevant counterfactual? Many of these comment threads turn into discussions about earning-to-give vs direct work, but if you have $1000 in your hand, ready to donate, thatâs not the relevant question. Rather, you should ask, âif I donât donate this, what would I do with it instead, and how much impact would that have?â
You say âI know that professional grant makers think that last-dollar funding is not cost effective because they arenât funding more projects, but arenât out of dollars.â I think this frames the issue incorrectly. Itâs not that big funders know that other projects arenât cost-effective, itâs that they donât currently have enough projects that clear a certain cost-effectiveness bar. But crucially, that bar is still far above zero!
This means
there are probably many opportunities that are just as cost-effective that they havenât found (potentially you have information they donât that you could exploit; see this section of the above ADS post)
marginal donations should have a cost-effectiveness at worst just below that bar, which means youâre only doing a little worse than the big funders. (This point taken from Benjamin Todd here.)