“It’s worth noting that this was in the context of direct mail campaigns. It’s not clear if the finding translates to fundraisers from a personal network.”
Thank you for pointing this out, I hadn’t checked the details (which I should have done!). Sorry about that. I’ll edit the post accordingly.
“Did the people who donated to the fundraiser know this? If not, it seems a bit disingenuous.”
I’m in the same camp as Tom Ash here. I had always assumed that at least EA-people knew this would be the case, and non EA-people would guess so—otherwise we might be morally not so great people after all. (“We, the privileged rich, want you to donate money too, otherwise we won’t.”)
Do you think this is something to worry about because it might put people off?
Thank you for pointing this out, I hadn’t checked the details (which I should have done!). Sorry about that. I’ll edit the post accordingly.
No worries. I probably should have titled the post “Did Donation Matching Work in Two Direct Mail Campaigns in Minnesota?”, but then nobody would have read it.
I’m in the same camp as Tom Ash here. I had always assumed that at least EA-people knew this would be the case, and non EA-people would guess so—otherwise we might be morally not so great people after all. (“We, the privileged rich, want you to donate money too, otherwise we won’t.”)
Hmm. Maybe you’re right. At any rate, you’re certainly correct that it’s not unusually disingenuous.
This is something I’d be interested to see research on—is the average donor aware that the money would have been donated anyway? I suspect the answer to this is “no,” at least for some people, since matching campaigns frequently say something like “double your impact” which implies that the money would not be donated otherwise. I also suspect that the people who don’t know this would be put off if they found out.
(It’s worth noting that some matches do involve the donor influencing the matching funds; for instance, CFAR’s December 2013 fundraiser explicitly stated that the last donors had promised to donate elsewhere if the match wasn’t filled, and HCEA’s December 2013 fundraiser allowed donors to choose between GiveWell top charities and split the matching funds the same way.)
If people knew that most matches weren’t actually matching, we’d expect saying “I plan to donate £60k to AMF, please join me!” to have about the same effect as donation matching (unless for some reason people enjoy playing the game where everyone acts like the individual donors are moving double/quadruple the amount they donate). That doesn’t seem likely to me, but intuitions are pretty frequently wrong about this kind of thing.
(A) The final level of the match probably does increase our giving to AMF relative to other places, albeit not by the full amount (my back of the envelope is that each £1 given to the match increased our giving to AMF by £0.5), That’s not dissimilar to the structure of the CFAR match.
(B) Most people, even among my heavily selected friends, don’t naturally think in terms of counterfactuals where altruism is involved. Seriously. When conversations I had with people did touch on counterfactuals, the assumption was that the money would donated otherwise.
(C) if something is not unusually disingenuous, it’s probably not actually misleading people, assuming that said people are not too naive. Think over-the-top THIS PRODUCT WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE adverts.
I wasn’t aware that other matching campaigns use the “Double your impact” line frequently, that’s helpful to know. I think our match wasn’t advertised with phrases like that; I consider this to be pretty dubious and wouldn’t really feel comfortable with it. (This is why I would be a terrible salesperson.)
But point taken, if they are matches advertised like that, then it’s seems like a reasonable assumption that the donation wouldn’t have happened otherwise. It’d be good to know how much assumptions like this from other matches influence recipients of ads for other matches which aren’t advertised like this.
This is something I’d be interested to see research on—is the average donor aware that the money would have been donated anyway?
nods
If people knew that most matches weren’t actually matching, we’d expect saying “I plan to donate £60k to AMF, please join me!” to have about the same effect as donation matching
Hm, I don’t think I agree. Isn’t it a pretty standard psychology finding that people react very differently to the same facts depending on how they are phrased? (Genuine question.) Though I couldn’t quote any offhand.
No worries. I probably should have titled the post “Did Donation Matching Work in Two Direct Mail Campaigns in Minnesota?”, but then nobody would have read it.
:)
I really appreciate all the work you put into it!
“It’s worth noting that this was in the context of direct mail campaigns. It’s not clear if the finding translates to fundraisers from a personal network.”
Thank you for pointing this out, I hadn’t checked the details (which I should have done!). Sorry about that. I’ll edit the post accordingly.
“Did the people who donated to the fundraiser know this? If not, it seems a bit disingenuous.”
I’m in the same camp as Tom Ash here. I had always assumed that at least EA-people knew this would be the case, and non EA-people would guess so—otherwise we might be morally not so great people after all. (“We, the privileged rich, want you to donate money too, otherwise we won’t.”)
Do you think this is something to worry about because it might put people off?
No worries. I probably should have titled the post “Did Donation Matching Work in Two Direct Mail Campaigns in Minnesota?”, but then nobody would have read it.
Hmm. Maybe you’re right. At any rate, you’re certainly correct that it’s not unusually disingenuous.
This is something I’d be interested to see research on—is the average donor aware that the money would have been donated anyway? I suspect the answer to this is “no,” at least for some people, since matching campaigns frequently say something like “double your impact” which implies that the money would not be donated otherwise. I also suspect that the people who don’t know this would be put off if they found out.
(It’s worth noting that some matches do involve the donor influencing the matching funds; for instance, CFAR’s December 2013 fundraiser explicitly stated that the last donors had promised to donate elsewhere if the match wasn’t filled, and HCEA’s December 2013 fundraiser allowed donors to choose between GiveWell top charities and split the matching funds the same way.)
If people knew that most matches weren’t actually matching, we’d expect saying “I plan to donate £60k to AMF, please join me!” to have about the same effect as donation matching (unless for some reason people enjoy playing the game where everyone acts like the individual donors are moving double/quadruple the amount they donate). That doesn’t seem likely to me, but intuitions are pretty frequently wrong about this kind of thing.
A few random observations:
(A) The final level of the match probably does increase our giving to AMF relative to other places, albeit not by the full amount (my back of the envelope is that each £1 given to the match increased our giving to AMF by £0.5), That’s not dissimilar to the structure of the CFAR match.
(B) Most people, even among my heavily selected friends, don’t naturally think in terms of counterfactuals where altruism is involved. Seriously. When conversations I had with people did touch on counterfactuals, the assumption was that the money would donated otherwise.
(C) if something is not unusually disingenuous, it’s probably not actually misleading people, assuming that said people are not too naive. Think over-the-top THIS PRODUCT WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE adverts.
I wasn’t aware that other matching campaigns use the “Double your impact” line frequently, that’s helpful to know. I think our match wasn’t advertised with phrases like that; I consider this to be pretty dubious and wouldn’t really feel comfortable with it. (This is why I would be a terrible salesperson.)
But point taken, if they are matches advertised like that, then it’s seems like a reasonable assumption that the donation wouldn’t have happened otherwise. It’d be good to know how much assumptions like this from other matches influence recipients of ads for other matches which aren’t advertised like this.
nods
Hm, I don’t think I agree. Isn’t it a pretty standard psychology finding that people react very differently to the same facts depending on how they are phrased? (Genuine question.) Though I couldn’t quote any offhand.
:) I really appreciate all the work you put into it!