Letâs say youâre going to donate some money, and plan to put some time
into figuring out the best place to donate. The more time you put
into your decision the better itâs likely to be, but at some point you
need to stop looking and actually make the donation. The more youâre
donating the longer it makes sense to go, since itâs more valuable to
better direct a larger amount of money. Can you get the benefits of the
deeper research without increasing time spent on research? Weirdly,
you can! About five years ago, Carl Schulman proposed
(and
ran the first) âdonor lotteryâ.
Say instead of donating $1k, you get together with 100
other people and you each put in $1k. You select one of the people at
random (1:100) to choose where the pool ($100k) goes. This turns your
100% chance of directing $1k into a 1% chance of directing $100k. The
goal is to make research more efficient:
If you win, youâre working with enough money that itâs worth it
for you to put serious time into figuring out your best donation option.
If you lose, you donât need to put any time into determining where
your money should go.
This isnât that different from giving your money to GiveWell or similar to decide how
to distribute, in that itâs delegating the decision to someone who can put
in more research. Except that it doesnât require identifying someone
better at allocating funds than you are, it just requires that you
would:
Make better decisions in allocating $100k than $1k
Prefer a 1% chance of a well-allocated $100k to a 100% chance of a
somewhat less well-allocated $1k.
If you come at this from a theoretical perspective this can seem
really neat: better considered donations, more efficient use of
research time, strictly better, literally no downsides, why would you
not do this?
Despite basically agreeing with all of the above, however, Iâve not
participated in a donor lottery, and I think theyâre likely slightly
negative on balance. There actually are downsides, just not
in areas that the logic above considers.
The biggest downside is that it makes your donation decisions less
legible: itâs harder for people to understand what youâre doing and
why. Lets say youâre talking to a friend:
Friend: Youâre really into charity stuff, right? Where did you decide to
donate this year?
You: I put my money into a donor lottery. I traded my $10k for a 1%
chance of donating $1M.
Friend: Did you win?
You: No, but Iâm glad I did it! Let me explain whyâŚ
There are a few different ways this could go. Your friend could:
Listen to your explanation at length, and
think âthis is really cool, more efficient donation allocation, I bet
EA is full of great ideas like this, I should learn more!â
Listen to your explanation at length, and think âmaybe this
works, but it seems like it could probably go wrong somehow.â
Not have time or interest for the full explanation, and be left
thinking you irresponsibly gambled away your annual donation.
I think (b) and (c) are going to happen often enough to outweigh both
the benefit (a) and the benefit of the additional research. And this
is in some sense a best case: your friend thinks well of you and is
likely to give you the benefit of the doubt. The same conversation
with someone you know less well or who doesnât have the same baseline
assumption that youâre an honest and principled person trying to do
the right thing would likely go very poorly.
The other problem with that conversation is that youâre not really
answering the question! Theyâre trying to figure out where they
should donate, and are looking for your advice. Even if they come
away thinking your decision to participate in the lottery makes some
sense, theyâre unlikely to decide to participate the first time they
hear about the idea, and so do still need to decide where to
give. Itâs much better if you can explain what charity you picked,
how you were thinking about it, and be able to answer followups.
Importantly, I think this is better than explaining the donor lottery
at illustrating EA thinking and helping people figure out if learning
more about EA is something theyâd enjoy.
I also have two smaller objections to donor lotteries:
If with some research you have a good chance of identifying
better donation opportunities than âgive to GiveWell or EA Fundsâ, Iâd be
excited for you to do that and write up your results. I think youâd
likely influence other funders enough that the time investment would
be worth it, and youâd learn a lot. If this goes well you get the
benefit of winning a donor lottery without having to actually win!
When I was earning to give I was in a position similar to
someone who had won a donor lottery, in that I had enough money to
allocate that it would be worth putting in substantial time deciding
what to do with it. But in practice I didnât end up putting in that
much time, the time I did put in didnât shift my views, and I ended up donating to the same places I expect I
would have if Iâd been donating much less money.
(I think the tradeoffs were less against donor lotteries in 2016 when they were first proposed, because there were many fewer people
working full time on how to allocate EA money.)
Mildly Against Donor Lotteries
Link post
Letâs say youâre going to donate some money, and plan to put some time into figuring out the best place to donate. The more time you put into your decision the better itâs likely to be, but at some point you need to stop looking and actually make the donation. The more youâre donating the longer it makes sense to go, since itâs more valuable to better direct a larger amount of money. Can you get the benefits of the deeper research without increasing time spent on research? Weirdly, you can! About five years ago, Carl Schulman proposed (and ran the first) âdonor lotteryâ.
Say instead of donating $1k, you get together with 100 other people and you each put in $1k. You select one of the people at random (1:100) to choose where the pool ($100k) goes. This turns your 100% chance of directing $1k into a 1% chance of directing $100k. The goal is to make research more efficient:
If you win, youâre working with enough money that itâs worth it for you to put serious time into figuring out your best donation option.
If you lose, you donât need to put any time into determining where your money should go.
This isnât that different from giving your money to GiveWell or similar to decide how to distribute, in that itâs delegating the decision to someone who can put in more research. Except that it doesnât require identifying someone better at allocating funds than you are, it just requires that you would:
Make better decisions in allocating $100k than $1k
Prefer a 1% chance of a well-allocated $100k to a 100% chance of a somewhat less well-allocated $1k.
If you come at this from a theoretical perspective this can seem really neat: better considered donations, more efficient use of research time, strictly better, literally no downsides, why would you not do this?
Despite basically agreeing with all of the above, however, Iâve not participated in a donor lottery, and I think theyâre likely slightly negative on balance. There actually are downsides, just not in areas that the logic above considers.
The biggest downside is that it makes your donation decisions less legible: itâs harder for people to understand what youâre doing and why. Lets say youâre talking to a friend:
There are a few different ways this could go. Your friend could:
Listen to your explanation at length, and think âthis is really cool, more efficient donation allocation, I bet EA is full of great ideas like this, I should learn more!â
Listen to your explanation at length, and think âmaybe this works, but it seems like it could probably go wrong somehow.â
Not have time or interest for the full explanation, and be left thinking you irresponsibly gambled away your annual donation.
I think (b) and (c) are going to happen often enough to outweigh both the benefit (a) and the benefit of the additional research. And this is in some sense a best case: your friend thinks well of you and is likely to give you the benefit of the doubt. The same conversation with someone you know less well or who doesnât have the same baseline assumption that youâre an honest and principled person trying to do the right thing would likely go very poorly.
The other problem with that conversation is that youâre not really answering the question! Theyâre trying to figure out where they should donate, and are looking for your advice. Even if they come away thinking your decision to participate in the lottery makes some sense, theyâre unlikely to decide to participate the first time they hear about the idea, and so do still need to decide where to give. Itâs much better if you can explain what charity you picked, how you were thinking about it, and be able to answer followups. Importantly, I think this is better than explaining the donor lottery at illustrating EA thinking and helping people figure out if learning more about EA is something theyâd enjoy.
I also have two smaller objections to donor lotteries:
If with some research you have a good chance of identifying better donation opportunities than âgive to GiveWell or EA Fundsâ, Iâd be excited for you to do that and write up your results. I think youâd likely influence other funders enough that the time investment would be worth it, and youâd learn a lot. If this goes well you get the benefit of winning a donor lottery without having to actually win!
When I was earning to give I was in a position similar to someone who had won a donor lottery, in that I had enough money to allocate that it would be worth putting in substantial time deciding what to do with it. But in practice I didnât end up putting in that much time, the time I did put in didnât shift my views, and I ended up donating to the same places I expect I would have if Iâd been donating much less money.
(I think the tradeoffs were less against donor lotteries in 2016 when they were first proposed, because there were many fewer people working full time on how to allocate EA money.)
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