So interesting! From the outset, this idea made no sense but now it feels quite ingenious.
It seems like this accelerator worked in a similar way to the Giving What We Can pledge – most people who sign that pledge would’ve probably already donated 2-3% of their wealth, but signing the pledge makes that number go up to 10% or more because the 10% anchor makes them rethink what an appropriate number might be and also provides social proof that it is a reasonable thing. Similarly here, the participants would’ve already given 10% away, but the program made it reasonable and socially validated to say “yeah, we’ll give half of it away, that sounds reasonable”. Is this a good rephrase?
Self-selection effects on the program are also interesting here—would you say the accelerator community was particularly better than any other accelerator community? More generous and helpful, similar core values, etc.
Hi there! I don’t have large scale data on this, but I do have the sense from speaking to our participants that many of them experienced a lack of culture fit with some other startup communities, which they experienced as very money driven, status obsessed or uncollaborative in a variety of ways, so I definitely think that having the pledge as a selection mechanism to find people who genuinely care about impact was an attraction to some of our participants.
So interesting! From the outset, this idea made no sense but now it feels quite ingenious.
It seems like this accelerator worked in a similar way to the Giving What We Can pledge – most people who sign that pledge would’ve probably already donated 2-3% of their wealth, but signing the pledge makes that number go up to 10% or more because the 10% anchor makes them rethink what an appropriate number might be and also provides social proof that it is a reasonable thing. Similarly here, the participants would’ve already given 10% away, but the program made it reasonable and socially validated to say “yeah, we’ll give half of it away, that sounds reasonable”. Is this a good rephrase?
Self-selection effects on the program are also interesting here—would you say the accelerator community was particularly better than any other accelerator community? More generous and helpful, similar core values, etc.
Hi there! I don’t have large scale data on this, but I do have the sense from speaking to our participants that many of them experienced a lack of culture fit with some other startup communities, which they experienced as very money driven, status obsessed or uncollaborative in a variety of ways, so I definitely think that having the pledge as a selection mechanism to find people who genuinely care about impact was an attraction to some of our participants.