Because the donor lottery weights by donation size, the Benefactor or a large earning-to-give donor are much more likely to win than someone doing object-level work who can only afford a smaller donation. Preferences will still get funded in proportion to the financial resources of each donor, so the preferences of those with little money remain almost unaccounted for (even though there is little reason to think they wouldn’t do as well as the more likely winners). Psychologically, I can understand why the current donor lottery would be unappealing to most smaller donors.
Weighting by size is necessary if you want to make the donor lottery trustless—because a donor’s EV is the same as if they donated to their preferred causes directly, adding someone who secretly wants to give to a cat rescue doesn’t harm other donors. But if you employ methods of verifying trustworthiness, a donor lottery doesn’t have to be trustless. Turning the pot over to a committee of lottery winners, rather than a single winner, would further increase confidence that the winners would make reasonable choices.
Thus, one moderate step toward amplifying the preferences of those with less money would be a weighted donor lottery—donors would get a multiplier on their monetary donation amount based on how much time-commitment skin in the game they had. Of course, this would require other donors to accept a lower percentage of tickets than their financial contribution percentage, which would be where people or organizations with a lot of money would come in. The amount of funding directed by of Open Phil (and formerly, FTX) has caused people to move away from earning-to-give, which reduced the supply of potential entrants who would be willing to accept a significantly lower share of tickets per dollar than smaller donors. So I would support large donors providing some funds to a weighted donor lottery in a way that boosts the winning odds—either solo or as part of a committee—for donors who can demonstrate time-commitment skin in the game.[1]
Contributing a smaller amount to the pot without taking any tickets is mostly equivalent—and perhaps optically superior—to taking tickets on a somewhat larger contribution.
Because the donor lottery weights by donation size, the Benefactor or a large earning-to-give donor are much more likely to win than someone doing object-level work who can only afford a smaller donation. Preferences will still get funded in proportion to the financial resources of each donor, so the preferences of those with little money remain almost unaccounted for (even though there is little reason to think they wouldn’t do as well as the more likely winners). Psychologically, I can understand why the current donor lottery would be unappealing to most smaller donors.
Weighting by size is necessary if you want to make the donor lottery trustless—because a donor’s EV is the same as if they donated to their preferred causes directly, adding someone who secretly wants to give to a cat rescue doesn’t harm other donors. But if you employ methods of verifying trustworthiness, a donor lottery doesn’t have to be trustless. Turning the pot over to a committee of lottery winners, rather than a single winner, would further increase confidence that the winners would make reasonable choices.
Thus, one moderate step toward amplifying the preferences of those with less money would be a weighted donor lottery—donors would get a multiplier on their monetary donation amount based on how much time-commitment skin in the game they had. Of course, this would require other donors to accept a lower percentage of tickets than their financial contribution percentage, which would be where people or organizations with a lot of money would come in. The amount of funding directed by of Open Phil (and formerly, FTX) has caused people to move away from earning-to-give, which reduced the supply of potential entrants who would be willing to accept a significantly lower share of tickets per dollar than smaller donors. So I would support large donors providing some funds to a weighted donor lottery in a way that boosts the winning odds—either solo or as part of a committee—for donors who can demonstrate time-commitment skin in the game.[1]
Contributing a smaller amount to the pot without taking any tickets is mostly equivalent—and perhaps optically superior—to taking tickets on a somewhat larger contribution.