Quick summary of my section: I donated to the Donation Election Fund for the reasons described here, to someone’s political campaign[1], and in some cases I didn’t take compensation I was supposed to get from organizations I’d happily donate to.
I feel weird donating to political campaigns (I grew up ~avoiding politics and still have a lot of the same beliefs and intuitions). But I talked to some people I know about the value of this campaign and tried to estimate the cost-effectiveness of the donation (my conclusion was that it was very close to donating to the LTFF, even when I was ignoring impact that might come from animal welfare improvements, which is important to me), and was compelled by the consideration that I had an unusual ability to donate to the campaign as a US citizen. (I’m interested in hearing people’s thoughts about this, but will probably not actively participate in public discussions about the decision.)
Just to comment on your footnote: my intuition is that political spending can be very effective and it is an important component of my family’s donations. For anyone interested in this I really recommend Ezra Klein’s interview with Amanda Litman from Run for Something.
She speaks compellingly about how most political donations, especially on the left, are reactionary and not necessarily effective, but about how in certain races and particularly state and local races, tiny sums of money can really make a huge difference. I don’t think she explicitly uses an ITN framework but it definitely fits, and their work is in what has in recent history been a very neglected space IMO.
There was an earlier post from lots of people at CEA, including me: Here’s where CEA staff are donating in 2023
Quick summary of my section: I donated to the Donation Election Fund for the reasons described here, to someone’s political campaign[1], and in some cases I didn’t take compensation I was supposed to get from organizations I’d happily donate to.
I feel weird donating to political campaigns (I grew up ~avoiding politics and still have a lot of the same beliefs and intuitions). But I talked to some people I know about the value of this campaign and tried to estimate the cost-effectiveness of the donation (my conclusion was that it was very close to donating to the LTFF, even when I was ignoring impact that might come from animal welfare improvements, which is important to me), and was compelled by the consideration that I had an unusual ability to donate to the campaign as a US citizen. (I’m interested in hearing people’s thoughts about this, but will probably not actively participate in public discussions about the decision.)
Just to comment on your footnote: my intuition is that political spending can be very effective and it is an important component of my family’s donations. For anyone interested in this I really recommend Ezra Klein’s interview with Amanda Litman from Run for Something.
She speaks compellingly about how most political donations, especially on the left, are reactionary and not necessarily effective, but about how in certain races and particularly state and local races, tiny sums of money can really make a huge difference. I don’t think she explicitly uses an ITN framework but it definitely fits, and their work is in what has in recent history been a very neglected space IMO.