On your first point, your way of describing things may or may not be clearer, but it’s not accurate. See my response to Ben Milwood about how the money flows. You may see the two scenarios as being the same in effect, but in that case our comms are equally accurate in describing the effect and more accurate in describing the money flows. We’ve chosen what we believe to be the most clear, intuitive and compelling way to explain things.
On the first part of your second point, yes—some bonus funding money would have otherwise been given to help animals (like anyone convinced by this post), while other bonus funding money (and so far the majority) wouldn’t have. So it is not the case that all bonus funds would otherwise go to help animals, which your original critique suggested was the case. That’s what I wanted to correct the claim.
Regarding your more limited claim, I don’t agree that “every dollar donated to the bonus pool is one that will be paid out to effective animal charities regardless of how other donors behave” because dollars in the fund very literally get paid out to favorite charities that needn’t be super-effective or support animals.
Plus, when thinking about the counterfactual impact of the bonus system, I think what’s relevant is what would have happened to those dollars if the fund didn’t exist—not just what would have happened to them once already in the bonus fund. As explained, many donations to the bonus fund would not have been donated at all were it not for the fund or would not have gone to effective animal charities. And were it not for regulator donors generating demand for bonus funding, we could not fundraise for the bonus fund. The two groups of donors incentivise one another to donate and lead to more total donations to effective farmed animal charities than if the system did not exist. We explain this in our comms. I believe that how our system works is in keeping with the spirit of even the most naive interpretation, in that, whether you’re a regular or bonus donor, your participation in the system leads to more money being donated than would have occurred otherwise.
It’s fair enough that you would have chosen to communicate things differently in our position. Thank you for giving the system some thought and voicing your perspective on how you would choose to communicate things! It’s helpful for us to consider such perspectives as we continuously improve our platform.
If that’s what it takes for you to feel your donation is being meaningfully matched then it’s another reason this platform isn’t the right choice for you. But that’s a very specific requirement that our platform never claims to meet, and that plenty of folks don’t share with you, as evidenced by existing donations through our platform. Many other donors are excited by the prospect of having both their donation to the favorite and super-effective charity receive a bonus. This is what happens on our platform, and is what’s laid out as they step through the process. No one is donating under any misapprehension that after splitting their donation and receiving a bonus they get more than the total amount they donated given to their favorite charity.
We are not “baiting” people in with the promise to cause more dollars than they donate to go to their favorite charity and then “switching” to a split and boost mechanism. Rather, the platform (as we lay out on our landing page, and repeat throughout) promises to allow you to help fix factory farming while supporting your favorite charity too, and to get your donations to both charities boosted. The platform isn’t about getting more than the total amount you donated to go to your favorite charity (it’s about splitting and boosting your donation) so the fact that it doesn’t do that is a feature and not a bug