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This is a good discussion, but I think that you’re missing the strongest argument, in this context, against donation-splitting: we’re not in a one-shot. Within the context of a one-shot, it makes much more sense to donation-split. But there’s a charity that I donate to in part because I am convinced that they are very financially constrained (iteration impact). Furthermore, Donors can respond to each other within a year. If most EAs give around December/January, OpenPhil and GWWC can distribute in February, after hearing from relevant orgs how much funding they received. If a charity is credible in saying that they’re under their expected funding, again, people can donate in response. So in practice I don’t expect donation splitting to have that positive an effect on charity financing uncertainty, particularly compared to something like multi-year commitments.
That makes a lot of sense, Keller! In addition, donation splitting seems to make the most sense within cause areas, but diminishing returns here can be mitigated by donating to funds (e.g. Animal Welfare Fund) instead of particular charities (e.g. The Humane League).
Seems reasonable.
Thanks for this!
If trying to avoid diminishing marginal returns within a cause area was the only reason for donation splitting, then I think pooling donations in a managed fund could be a more effective way of coordinating. Fund managers can specialize in researching where the highest-marginal-value funding gaps are.
But there’s also a funging argument that, given the existence of large funds that are trying to do this, it matters less exactly which high-impact charities smaller donors choose. For example, if smaller donations were suboptimally allocated across GiveWell’s top charities, the GiveWell Top Charities Fund would attempt to balance things out.
I agree with both of these points.
Executive summary: The main arguments for and against donation splitting among effective altruists are discussed, with some tentative conclusions that mild splitting may be beneficial if judgments among donors are correlated enough.
Key points:
Donation splitting risks missing funding gaps at top charities, but complete concentration also risks oversaturation.
The crux is how correlated donor judgments are, especially within cause areas. Available evidence suggests mild-to-moderate correlation.
If judgments are correlated enough to risk collective oversaturation, mild splitting helps smooth funding.
For an individual donor causal impact seems to favor concentrating on the best option.
As a community recommendation, coordinating on mild splitting may be beneficial if correlation and listening are high enough.
Concrete coordination proposals could help realize these benefits but have not been made here.
This comment was auto-generated by the EA Forum Team. Feel free to point out issues with this summary by replying to the comment, and contact us if you have feedback.
I don’t understand this sentence. If donation splitting is already happening to some degree, doesn’t that make correlation less important, which weakens the case for donation splitting on the margin? But the context seems to suggest that JP thinks it strengthens the case for donation splitting.