I’m not really seeing a dire need for this proposal. 10% effective donations has brand recognition and is a nice round number, as you point out. It is used by other groups, such as religious groups, making it easy to re-funnel donations to e.g. religious communities to effective charities. This leaves 90% of your income at your disposal, part of which you may spend on fuzzy causes. It does not seem required to me to change the 10% to allow for fuzzy donations, nor do I think there’s a motivation to make donations to fuzzy causes morally required.
Example 1: Someone wants to support a cause dear to their heart that is ineffective, but also recognizes the need for effective charity. Previously, they donated 10% to effective charities and 5% to fuzzy charities. On the new proposal, they donate 8% to effective charities, and 5% to fuzzy charities. This seems to be worse than the initial situation.
Example 2: Someone does not see a specific reason to privilege fuzzy charities. They donate 10% to effective charities. On the new proposal, they donate 8% to effective charities, and 2% to some other charity. This seems to be worse than the initial situation.
Example 3: Someone sometimes gives to inefficient causes for personal reasons. They read your proposal above, feeling happy to see their actions justified from an impartial standpoint for the reasons indicated above. A newspaper asks them why they give to charities they themselves consider inefficient. They say they do public donations to fuzzy causes to improve the reputation of EA/score “reputation points”/send them this post. The newspaper publishes an op-ed on how EA is greenwashing its charity. This seems to be worse than the initial situation.
In my personal life, I do not at all feel hindered to donate to fuzzy causes by the fact that I pledged 10% of my income to effective charities. If a friend starts a fundraiser, or I see a homeless person, or some speculative but cool idea comes up, I gladly shoot them some of my income. This feels good. There is no need to adjust the 10% amount in order to enable me to get my fuzzies from these alternative giving opportunities. At the same time, there are reasons to believe the proposal hurts brand recognition and can lead to worse situations, as indicated in the example.
See my new post for a partial response to this portion of your argument:
I’m not really seeing a dire need for this proposal. 10% effective donations has brand recognition and is a nice round number, as you point out. It is used by other groups, such as religious groups, making it easy to re-funnel donations to e.g. religious communities to effective charities. This leaves 90% of your income at your disposal, part of which you may spend on fuzzy causes. It does not seem required to me to change the 10% to allow for fuzzy donations, nor do I think there’s a motivation to make donations to fuzzy causes morally required.
Thanks for your thoughtful comment. Based on your comment and others, I am going to focus my next post in this series on how I think about movement reputation in general, including some specific replies to your points here. Just flagging that lack of a substantive reply here is because I’m going to write a full-scale post on the subject, hopefully over the next few days.
I’m not really seeing a dire need for this proposal. 10% effective donations has brand recognition and is a nice round number, as you point out. It is used by other groups, such as religious groups, making it easy to re-funnel donations to e.g. religious communities to effective charities. This leaves 90% of your income at your disposal, part of which you may spend on fuzzy causes. It does not seem required to me to change the 10% to allow for fuzzy donations, nor do I think there’s a motivation to make donations to fuzzy causes morally required.
Example 1: Someone wants to support a cause dear to their heart that is ineffective, but also recognizes the need for effective charity. Previously, they donated 10% to effective charities and 5% to fuzzy charities. On the new proposal, they donate 8% to effective charities, and 5% to fuzzy charities. This seems to be worse than the initial situation.
Example 2: Someone does not see a specific reason to privilege fuzzy charities. They donate 10% to effective charities. On the new proposal, they donate 8% to effective charities, and 2% to some other charity. This seems to be worse than the initial situation.
Example 3: Someone sometimes gives to inefficient causes for personal reasons. They read your proposal above, feeling happy to see their actions justified from an impartial standpoint for the reasons indicated above. A newspaper asks them why they give to charities they themselves consider inefficient. They say they do public donations to fuzzy causes to improve the reputation of EA/score “reputation points”/send them this post. The newspaper publishes an op-ed on how EA is greenwashing its charity. This seems to be worse than the initial situation.
In my personal life, I do not at all feel hindered to donate to fuzzy causes by the fact that I pledged 10% of my income to effective charities. If a friend starts a fundraiser, or I see a homeless person, or some speculative but cool idea comes up, I gladly shoot them some of my income. This feels good. There is no need to adjust the 10% amount in order to enable me to get my fuzzies from these alternative giving opportunities. At the same time, there are reasons to believe the proposal hurts brand recognition and can lead to worse situations, as indicated in the example.
See my new post for a partial response to this portion of your argument:
I appreciate the notification and will take a look!
Thanks for your thoughtful comment. Based on your comment and others, I am going to focus my next post in this series on how I think about movement reputation in general, including some specific replies to your points here. Just flagging that lack of a substantive reply here is because I’m going to write a full-scale post on the subject, hopefully over the next few days.