What a beautiful idea! De-escalating the political campaigning spend arms race and redirecting the money to high-impact charity sounds lovely! I have some thoughts, not all encouraging.
(1) I suspect your platform might not actually generate much donations
Getting donors to actually navigate to a donation platform is notoriously hard.
My intuition says that the idea is cute enough that it will get some attention (including, perhaps, from the press) but not enough to move lots of money.
However that’s just my intuition. Don’t trust it. A better guide than my intuition is if you can find a constituency who is willing to promote your concept, and who has influence over political funders. Alternatively, if you have evidence (perhaps conduct some primary research, if necessary?) that people with opposing political views often talk to each other and lament the fact that they throw so much money away in a futile manner, then maybe some press attention could spark something.
(2) To justify your spend, you probably want to generate >$1m in the near to mid term
As a rough rule of thumb, fundraising spend should generate c4x as much as the fundraising cost itself. So if you’re going to spend $250k, then you want to generate c$1m to justify the investment.
This is because you should get some reward for taking business risk.
If you believed that the political campaigning spend has some positive benefits (e.g. spreading useful information, or maybe you think that political engagement is an intrinsic good) then your threshold should be higher.
However you probably don’t believe this, and given the amount of money spent on political campaigning, I think I agree.
If you believed that the campaign spend is actually harmful, then you could justify a lower target. However note that this would be a fairly convenient belief for you to have, so aim to have really good evidence before even considering this.
(3) Find ways to lower your costs, e.g. through collaboration
If my guesses are right, you have a problem: you need to generate c$1m of donations, and I don’t think you will. So to help resolve this...
… I question the value of building your own donation platform.
There is already a plethora of donation platforms who have already spent c$250k in creating a platform. Collaborating with them could
lower your costs (and hence lower the $1m target)
allow you to expend more effort on getting donors and spreading your message
Downsides are:
you would probably have to accept some compromises about the nature of the donation platform
After all, if it hasn’t been designed with your needs in mind, it probably won’t be perfect.
However I expect that your project probably will achieve more impact through getting people to think about and talk about the problem, and less through the actual donations raised. If my expectations are right, then compromises on the details of the platform are OK.
Groups you could collaborate with:
SoGive runs a donation platform (Full disclosure: I founded and run SoGive)
Momentum might be a good fit for you (I can intro you if you wish)
(4) You want to “nudge” users to an apolitical, high-impact charity, such as AMF.
We at SoGive have seen some donors interact with this sort of campaign in the past. I suggest that you want to take the following approach:
As far as your donors are concerned, the money is going “to charity”, which means that they aren’t thinking too much about what that charity is, they will just assume that anything is good
You need to avoid anything political, because that would distract from the message. So no veterans charities, no climate change, nothing obviously political
Because your donors aren’t thinking about what the charity is, suggesting something like AMF will work just fine. Feel free to include something on your website explaining the rationale (e.g. “careful analysis, bang for buck, etc etc”). Not many people will read it.
I also suggesting making this a “nudge”; i.e. allow users to donate to any charity, but make the default AMF. Not many users will depart from the default.
Good luck, and let me know if you want to talk further!
You (the OP) could also think of collaborating with an existing platform as a lower cost test of the idea. If it works well in that situation and you later realise that the lack of a tailored platform is a barrier to scaling up, you could seek to create one at that point.
Another thought on the lower cost test idea: try to get buy-in from Republicans before spending as much time on outreach to Democrats. If you’re failing to get interest from Republicans, the idea might not work.
(Also, like Sanjay, I really like the idea in principle.)
Thanks—that was really helpful! The 4x rule of thumb you mentioned makes sense and is good to know. We may contact you about collaborating; we’re probably not yet at the stage where we’ll be making this decision, but we’ll keep you posted! And your “nudging” suggestion makes sense, especially in light of what Ryan Carey said about people hating choosing between charities.
I did find one thing you said a bit odd, which is that veterans’ charities strike you as political. To me they seem fairly apolitical, as people all across the political spectrum support veterans (even if Republicans tend to feel more positively). I don’t think a Democrat would feel negatively about someone donating to a veterans’ charity. But I’m curious whether other people think veterans’ charities are political. (Because I do think that we will ultimately need to make a concerted effort to appeal to Republicans, and this feels to me like a way to do that without alienating Democrats.)
I don’t have a strong opinion on this, because my experiences are more based on the UK than the US, which may be different.
However if your intuition said that veterans charities are more likely to appeal to Republicans than Democrats, Democrats might have the same intuition
What I can say is that veterans’ charities (certainly in the UK, and probably in the US too) are rich with organisations whose impact enormously underperforms AMF. By several orders of magnitude. So if you did decide to include a veterans’ charity, you would need a really good reason.
And if you need someone to assess the charities you’re considering, let me know—I can get someone from the SoGive analysis team to take a look.
Thanks. Basically the way I’m thinking about this in my head is: we have some effective charities, and some charities that are meant to encourage people to participate. If we end up getting 10 million in donations, only a quarter of which goes to effective charities, I think that would be a bigger success than getting 1 million in donations, all of which goes to effective charities. I’m thinking about the most effective way to get the platform off the ground, because if it doesn’t get off the ground then no money will be sent to charities anyway, and at least my intuition is that it may be helpful to have some charities that are not effective but appealing. (On the other hand, what some people have said about people not wanting to choose between charities and being okay with whatever has made me update against this.) Do you think this strategy would be misguided?
I would find it extremely surprising if compromising on charity choice led to you getting 10x more donations. Based on past experience, I’d surprised if it got you 10% more donations.
Many people would express preferences about where to donate if asked if they have preferences. However if they are going through a donation UX, every time they have one fewer click it’s a win for them, and very few donors have preferences strong enough to overcome their desire for a clean UX. (I think this is intuitive for many non-EA people).
Hence my recommendation to focus on just one charity (or basket of high impact charities), but allow users the option to donate to anything if they don’t like the default choice.
What a beautiful idea! De-escalating the political campaigning spend arms race and redirecting the money to high-impact charity sounds lovely! I have some thoughts, not all encouraging.
(1) I suspect your platform might not actually generate much donations
Getting donors to actually navigate to a donation platform is notoriously hard.
My intuition says that the idea is cute enough that it will get some attention (including, perhaps, from the press) but not enough to move lots of money.
However that’s just my intuition. Don’t trust it. A better guide than my intuition is if you can find a constituency who is willing to promote your concept, and who has influence over political funders. Alternatively, if you have evidence (perhaps conduct some primary research, if necessary?) that people with opposing political views often talk to each other and lament the fact that they throw so much money away in a futile manner, then maybe some press attention could spark something.
(2) To justify your spend, you probably want to generate >$1m in the near to mid term
As a rough rule of thumb, fundraising spend should generate c4x as much as the fundraising cost itself. So if you’re going to spend $250k, then you want to generate c$1m to justify the investment.
This is because you should get some reward for taking business risk.
If you believed that the political campaigning spend has some positive benefits (e.g. spreading useful information, or maybe you think that political engagement is an intrinsic good) then your threshold should be higher.
However you probably don’t believe this, and given the amount of money spent on political campaigning, I think I agree.
If you believed that the campaign spend is actually harmful, then you could justify a lower target. However note that this would be a fairly convenient belief for you to have, so aim to have really good evidence before even considering this.
(3) Find ways to lower your costs, e.g. through collaboration
If my guesses are right, you have a problem: you need to generate c$1m of donations, and I don’t think you will. So to help resolve this...
… I question the value of building your own donation platform.
There is already a plethora of donation platforms who have already spent c$250k in creating a platform. Collaborating with them could
lower your costs (and hence lower the $1m target)
allow you to expend more effort on getting donors and spreading your message
Downsides are:
you would probably have to accept some compromises about the nature of the donation platform
After all, if it hasn’t been designed with your needs in mind, it probably won’t be perfect.
However I expect that your project probably will achieve more impact through getting people to think about and talk about the problem, and less through the actual donations raised. If my expectations are right, then compromises on the details of the platform are OK.
Groups you could collaborate with:
SoGive runs a donation platform (Full disclosure: I founded and run SoGive)
Momentum might be a good fit for you (I can intro you if you wish)
(4) You want to “nudge” users to an apolitical, high-impact charity, such as AMF.
We at SoGive have seen some donors interact with this sort of campaign in the past. I suggest that you want to take the following approach:
As far as your donors are concerned, the money is going “to charity”, which means that they aren’t thinking too much about what that charity is, they will just assume that anything is good
You need to avoid anything political, because that would distract from the message. So no veterans charities, no climate change, nothing obviously political
Because your donors aren’t thinking about what the charity is, suggesting something like AMF will work just fine. Feel free to include something on your website explaining the rationale (e.g. “careful analysis, bang for buck, etc etc”). Not many people will read it.
I also suggesting making this a “nudge”; i.e. allow users to donate to any charity, but make the default AMF. Not many users will depart from the default.
Good luck, and let me know if you want to talk further!
You (the OP) could also think of collaborating with an existing platform as a lower cost test of the idea. If it works well in that situation and you later realise that the lack of a tailored platform is a barrier to scaling up, you could seek to create one at that point.
Another thought on the lower cost test idea: try to get buy-in from Republicans before spending as much time on outreach to Democrats. If you’re failing to get interest from Republicans, the idea might not work.
(Also, like Sanjay, I really like the idea in principle.)
Thanks—that was really helpful! The 4x rule of thumb you mentioned makes sense and is good to know. We may contact you about collaborating; we’re probably not yet at the stage where we’ll be making this decision, but we’ll keep you posted! And your “nudging” suggestion makes sense, especially in light of what Ryan Carey said about people hating choosing between charities.
I did find one thing you said a bit odd, which is that veterans’ charities strike you as political. To me they seem fairly apolitical, as people all across the political spectrum support veterans (even if Republicans tend to feel more positively). I don’t think a Democrat would feel negatively about someone donating to a veterans’ charity. But I’m curious whether other people think veterans’ charities are political. (Because I do think that we will ultimately need to make a concerted effort to appeal to Republicans, and this feels to me like a way to do that without alienating Democrats.)
Re veterans’ charities:
I don’t have a strong opinion on this, because my experiences are more based on the UK than the US, which may be different.
However if your intuition said that veterans charities are more likely to appeal to Republicans than Democrats, Democrats might have the same intuition
What I can say is that veterans’ charities (certainly in the UK, and probably in the US too) are rich with organisations whose impact enormously underperforms AMF. By several orders of magnitude. So if you did decide to include a veterans’ charity, you would need a really good reason.
And if you need someone to assess the charities you’re considering, let me know—I can get someone from the SoGive analysis team to take a look.
Thanks. Basically the way I’m thinking about this in my head is: we have some effective charities, and some charities that are meant to encourage people to participate. If we end up getting 10 million in donations, only a quarter of which goes to effective charities, I think that would be a bigger success than getting 1 million in donations, all of which goes to effective charities. I’m thinking about the most effective way to get the platform off the ground, because if it doesn’t get off the ground then no money will be sent to charities anyway, and at least my intuition is that it may be helpful to have some charities that are not effective but appealing. (On the other hand, what some people have said about people not wanting to choose between charities and being okay with whatever has made me update against this.) Do you think this strategy would be misguided?
I would find it extremely surprising if compromising on charity choice led to you getting 10x more donations. Based on past experience, I’d surprised if it got you 10% more donations.
Many people would express preferences about where to donate if asked if they have preferences. However if they are going through a donation UX, every time they have one fewer click it’s a win for them, and very few donors have preferences strong enough to overcome their desire for a clean UX. (I think this is intuitive for many non-EA people).
Hence my recommendation to focus on just one charity (or basket of high impact charities), but allow users the option to donate to anything if they don’t like the default choice.