They may even be able to benefit from a tax write off (I’m not sure the legality of this).
I don’t think they can get a net tax advantage even if they deduct this, because they must also receive the funds to donate, so they have to account for those extra funds as income.
Overall I think this idea could be worth examining. It’s one of the plucky ideas that is in a legal and enforcement grey zone and I guess that many corps will just shrug intensely.
The next statement seems ideological but it’s not: literally every major corp commits similar acts and straddles similar grey lines. This is good perspective for the “morality” of trying to use this matching.
My quick guess is the relevant legal theory that you should be concerned about is fraud or fiduciary duty?
Below are some low quality guesses:
I would probably guess that outright paying people use their matching would be a problem.
I guess your project might be tenable if you were just getting people altruistically to donate and sent them money, and they signed a waiver saying this is what they are doing of their free will with no inducement.
I think for reasonably prudent implementation, fraud or defection by people you give money to will be low.
I would not “close the loop” and get that matched and donated money returned to your entity or have your salary depend on the donees.
I would avoid reputation effects with EA causes and use no branding and start with near EA charities.
Instead of paying people to do this, I would create media and other touches that would make people feel happy and warm. This is powerful and a big deal and worth more to most people than a tax break.
The above sort of seems tenable or at least you can fight it with a legal fund. Again, I see a lot of orgs not caring or reacting.
I love the spirit of this post and I agree with almost everything Charles said. My only difference of opinion is that I don’t think people are taxed on gift income, so long as a giver provides under $16,000 in a year to any single individual and under $12.06MM in their lifetime. Letting participants keep the tax savings could be a polite way to compensate them for their involvement without dampening their altruistic glow.
I’d be excited by a project that explored surrogate donation from employees of these companies to multiply the impact of our giving. I expect the cap on Meta’s Giving Tuesday match will barely scratch the surface of EAs’ personal donations this year. My preliminary thoughts to scale this idea would be:
Learn the fine print of the programs. Some employers explicitly disallow donating money that is given to an employee for this purpose.
Try to form a nuanced understanding of the long term incidence of doing this. I imagine many companies would discontinue or scale back their charity benefits if it was exploited in this way. I suspect that it would still be net good because of which charities would get bonus funding, but companies price in the fact that most employees don’t utilize donation matching & I suspect they would adjust their offering if it were used more.
Focus on employees of companies with the most generous matches first. Possibly establish a fund where EAs could pool their money and funnel them through each surrogate donor to max out the donor’s gift cap.
I want to reiterate what Charles said about disassociating this from EA, and I recommend speaking to a(t least one) lawyer before making any moves. This feels like the type of ends-justifying-means action that is righteous in intent, but underhanded in public appearance.
Feel free to reply here or PM me if you’d like to flesh this out. I think it’s a great idea, thanks for sharing!
Thank you for your feedback, Sam! After thinking futher about this idea and emailing a GWWC contact I think this idea is not worth pursuing any further. I now agree with your statement “This feels like the type of ends-justifying-means action that is righteous in intent, but underhanded in public appearance.” The person I emailed sent me this article on “Considering considerateness: Why communities of do-gooders should be exceptionally considerate” https://www.centreforeffectivealtruism.org/blog/considering-considerateness-why-communities-of-do-gooders-should-be
I think it was a good attempt and worth posting but it’s now time for me to keep brainstorming and see if I can come up with any better ideas. Thank you everyone for your time!
I don’t think they can get a net tax advantage even if they deduct this, because they must also receive the funds to donate, so they have to account for those extra funds as income.
Overall I think this idea could be worth examining. It’s one of the plucky ideas that is in a legal and enforcement grey zone and I guess that many corps will just shrug intensely.
The next statement seems ideological but it’s not: literally every major corp commits similar acts and straddles similar grey lines. This is good perspective for the “morality” of trying to use this matching.
My quick guess is the relevant legal theory that you should be concerned about is fraud or fiduciary duty?
Below are some low quality guesses:
I would probably guess that outright paying people use their matching would be a problem.
I guess your project might be tenable if you were just getting people altruistically to donate and sent them money, and they signed a waiver saying this is what they are doing of their free will with no inducement.
I think for reasonably prudent implementation, fraud or defection by people you give money to will be low.
I would not “close the loop” and get that matched and donated money returned to your entity or have your salary depend on the donees.
I would avoid reputation effects with EA causes and use no branding and start with near EA charities.
Instead of paying people to do this, I would create media and other touches that would make people feel happy and warm. This is powerful and a big deal and worth more to most people than a tax break.
The above sort of seems tenable or at least you can fight it with a legal fund. Again, I see a lot of orgs not caring or reacting.
Good points, thanks for sharing.
I love the spirit of this post and I agree with almost everything Charles said. My only difference of opinion is that I don’t think people are taxed on gift income, so long as a giver provides under $16,000 in a year to any single individual and under $12.06MM in their lifetime. Letting participants keep the tax savings could be a polite way to compensate them for their involvement without dampening their altruistic glow.
I’d be excited by a project that explored surrogate donation from employees of these companies to multiply the impact of our giving. I expect the cap on Meta’s Giving Tuesday match will barely scratch the surface of EAs’ personal donations this year. My preliminary thoughts to scale this idea would be:
Learn the fine print of the programs. Some employers explicitly disallow donating money that is given to an employee for this purpose.
Try to form a nuanced understanding of the long term incidence of doing this. I imagine many companies would discontinue or scale back their charity benefits if it was exploited in this way.
I suspect that it would still be net good because of which charities would get bonus funding, but companies price in the fact that most employees don’t utilize donation matching & I suspect they would adjust their offering if it were used more.
Focus on employees of companies with the most generous matches first. Possibly establish a fund where EAs could pool their money and funnel them through each surrogate donor to max out the donor’s gift cap.
I want to reiterate what Charles said about disassociating this from EA, and I recommend speaking to a(t least one) lawyer before making any moves. This feels like the type of ends-justifying-means action that is righteous in intent, but underhanded in public appearance.
Feel free to reply here or PM me if you’d like to flesh this out. I think it’s a great idea, thanks for sharing!
Thank you for your feedback, Sam! After thinking futher about this idea and emailing a GWWC contact I think this idea is not worth pursuing any further. I now agree with your statement “This feels like the type of ends-justifying-means action that is righteous in intent, but underhanded in public appearance.” The person I emailed sent me this article on “Considering considerateness: Why communities of do-gooders should be exceptionally considerate” https://www.centreforeffectivealtruism.org/blog/considering-considerateness-why-communities-of-do-gooders-should-be
I think it was a good attempt and worth posting but it’s now time for me to keep brainstorming and see if I can come up with any better ideas. Thank you everyone for your time!