Do you think the time costs will go down next year? That strikes me as the most significant drawback to this project. “500 hours or more of people’s time” for ~$48k matched is ~$96/hr, which is good, but appears to be on the lower end of fundraising ROI that I’ve tracked.
Still, this project seems to at least be competitive with Project for Awesome. I also suspect the value of bringing EAs together to work on a clear, common goal is an underrated form of impact through building community bonds and cohesion.
Yes, if we try again in 2018, I think we can avoid some of the learning curve and improve efficiency. I’d also hope we can use what we learned to get more than 13% matched.
Hopefully...since it’s a zero-sum game though, I’m not necessarily convinced that we can improve efficiency and learn from our mistakes more than other groups. In fact, I’d expect the %matched to go down next year, as the % of the matching funds directed by the EA community was far larger than the % of total annual donations made by EAs (and so we’re likely to revert to the mean)
Great to see such thorough analysis!
Do you think the time costs will go down next year? That strikes me as the most significant drawback to this project. “500 hours or more of people’s time” for ~$48k matched is ~$96/hr, which is good, but appears to be on the lower end of fundraising ROI that I’ve tracked.
Still, this project seems to at least be competitive with Project for Awesome. I also suspect the value of bringing EAs together to work on a clear, common goal is an underrated form of impact through building community bonds and cohesion.
Yes, if we try again in 2018, I think we can avoid some of the learning curve and improve efficiency. I’d also hope we can use what we learned to get more than 13% matched.
Hopefully...since it’s a zero-sum game though, I’m not necessarily convinced that we can improve efficiency and learn from our mistakes more than other groups. In fact, I’d expect the %matched to go down next year, as the % of the matching funds directed by the EA community was far larger than the % of total annual donations made by EAs (and so we’re likely to revert to the mean)
I think we are much more organised than most, and hence more able to learn from our mistakes.
But would this view have predicted we’d only get 13% matched, well below the EA consensus prediction?
I agree that this is a risk.