Illustrative anecdote: A few years ago, I was in charge of our first year seminars at Georgetown. Every year, we pick a non-profit partner who gives the students a real problem that non-profit needs to have fixed. The students act as consultants to offer solutions in a case competition. The winners usually intern with the organization afterward to implement their ideas. I picked a major EA charity. They said, “We need to figure out how to raise money from more diverse sources other than EA people. Almost all of our money comes from EA utilitarians and libertarians. How can we appeal to more people without diluting our message or using non-evidence-based forms of marketing?” During their presentation, I asked them, “Look, if you are evidence-based, what about the strong evidence that evidence-based marketing doesn’t appeal to the majority of donors? If EA is about taking effective means to one’s ends, doesn’t that mean sometimes using non-EA arguments and forms of persuasion?”
What do you think are EAs getting wrong and why?
EAs are bad at marketing to non-EAs.
Illustrative anecdote: A few years ago, I was in charge of our first year seminars at Georgetown. Every year, we pick a non-profit partner who gives the students a real problem that non-profit needs to have fixed. The students act as consultants to offer solutions in a case competition. The winners usually intern with the organization afterward to implement their ideas. I picked a major EA charity. They said, “We need to figure out how to raise money from more diverse sources other than EA people. Almost all of our money comes from EA utilitarians and libertarians. How can we appeal to more people without diluting our message or using non-evidence-based forms of marketing?” During their presentation, I asked them, “Look, if you are evidence-based, what about the strong evidence that evidence-based marketing doesn’t appeal to the majority of donors? If EA is about taking effective means to one’s ends, doesn’t that mean sometimes using non-EA arguments and forms of persuasion?”