The biases which Peter Hurford discusses in his classic post Why I’m skeptical about unproven causes (and you should be too) seem to be relevant here.
arrowind
Karma: 54
Thanks for the reply. That’s interesting that there was an even split, though an unrepresentative response is as you say an issue. That could cut either way though as as someone said in reply to Jess, members may feel uncomfortable disagreeing with a proposal. Unless you press a lot of members for answers, including ones who aren’t very into the online community, it’s hard to tell what they’re comfortable with as a whole.
I would feel somewhat better if the branding/vision/mission kept a focus on the case for giving some of our money to help those in extreme poverty. I may send an email about having a Skype, or at least an email exchange.
OK that’s reassuring to hear, I think my impression that this was going to happen regardless came from this being reposted here without much discussion of all these negatives. I certainly appreciate the effort to make sure that members are happy with this.
I remember that GWWC management asked us this in the pledgers’ Facebook group, and that a lot of us expressed unhappiness about it, saying that it’d be a big rebranding, change the organisation from the one they joined, be unproductively vague, and we’d “perceive it as a big loss”, etc. So I’m a bit surprised and disappointed to see the apparent determination to push this through regardless of our wishes. (I apologise if I’m wrong to perceive this, and there’s a chance that GWWC will stay focused on the global poor.)
Update: spotted this featured in the sidebar of the https://www.facebook.com/groups/EffectiveAnimalActivism/ making it a good go-to place for animal welfare donors for sure.
Impressive, how did you raise that sort of sum?
Is the idea that buying is significantly more cost-effective than renting, so this’ll let you donate more in the future? I believe whether thats true depends on which property market you’re in.
(derail on voting)
Out of interest, where have you ended up giving so far?
That would be great, but I feel as if a thread isn’t the best venue for it—it would get samey, and people would feel inhibited by the bragginess of it.
Yes, being able to say “I’m part of a group who’s pledged to give 10% of their money to global poverty charities” is really clear, which makes it more approachable to say—partly because you don’t have to get into a complex explanation. 10% is a clear total similar to tithing, and the concept of and case for giving to global poverty charities is pretty well known.
It’d be an interesting experiment to see how much this raised.