Vincent van der Holst

• Vincent van der Holst 19 Jul 2024 14:14 UTC

  2 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Jason’s comment on: AMA: Beast Philan­thropy’s Dar­ren Margolias

  Sorry I missed that point: a 20 minute video might indeed be significantly higher CPV and because it’s not an ad might be favoured higher on that point too.

  All in all it’s hard to say. I suppose GD will have some numbers on increased traffic and increased donations versus baseline, but this will be quite hard to measure correctly even with tracking in place.

• Vincent van der Holst 18 Jul 2024 16:01 UTC

  3 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Jason’s comment on: AMA: Beast Philan­thropy’s Dar­ren Margolias

  I’m not going to do this because of time constraints, but if you really want to know you can run google ads on youtube on just Beast Philantropy videos and get a CPV and you’d know the worth of that video according to advertisers (who probably have a similar target audience to beast philanthropy watchers). Question is if givedirectly’s TA is the Beast Philanthropy TA. My best guess is that it’s not because most donors are older, going to spend less time watching youtube videos and would watch other content than this, so you’d have to discount the CPV with whatever you think is best. If I would do it I would probably discount it with 50-75% and value this at 1-2 cents per view for givedirectly, so 200-400K worth for givedirectly.

• Vincent van der Holst 17 Jul 2024 13:20 UTC

  9 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Sebastian Schwiecker’s comment on: AMA: Beast Philan­thropy’s Dar­ren Margolias

  I just want to note that the vast majority of the money moved is likely to be of the ad revenues from the videos (on the channel they write that they’d donate 100% of ad revenue). Jimmy sometimes spends millions one a single video, and the ad revenues of his videos are dozens of million.

• Vincent van der Holst 8 Jul 2024 10:18 UTC

  6 points

  1 ∶ 0

  on: Vin­cent van der Holst’s Quick takes

  BOAS is closing it’s public investment campaign soon.
  
  Why you might consider this as a very effective use of your money is best captured in my TEDx talk about Profit for Good. Other reasons you might want to invest:

  • We’ve already donated €16.432 donated to charity, which helped distribute 8.648 bed nets, protecting 17.297 people from malaria and preventing 2.783 malaria cases. This not only saves at least 3 lives, but also adds €197.184 to the local economy through reduced illness. We have a feasible path to do multiply tens to ten thousands of times

    • Since we are not profitable I should add that a lot of that money was generated from voluntary donations and my world record attempt for AMF

  • With the first 100 investors we opened a store, signed partnerships with MUD Jeans (you can also invest in them on the same platform!) and United Repair Centre, and hired the core team. We’ve grown revenue with an average of 25% per month this year

  • We have 300K investment from a large bank and foundation, which I cannot disclose yet, so we’re not only backed by ‘friends, family and fools’. This does not mean we are overfunded, we are actually heavily underfunded because our plans are ambitious (and have to be if you want to move millions to EC’s)

  • Invest from €100, so becoming a co-owner of BOAS is feasible for most

  • Up to 100% of your investment as a gift card (yes really!), and lifetime discounts for all investors, so you can always get vintage denim at the best prices in return for you helping us continue to grow fast

  • A unique opportunity to invest in the profit for good system’s change. BOAS was featured by Elle, Parool, Peter Singer, Bangkok Post, Rutger Bregman, BNR, Algemeen Dagblad, BNN Vara/​Dolf Janssen, Radio 538, Metro News and many others for our ability to save jeans and lives, if you think PR is an important indicator of whether this works or not

  • More than 100 people, including Peter Singer and tennis pro Marcus Daniel have already invested in our mission to save jeans and lives

  • We’ve already saved 7.000 jeans and 3 lives, saving 23 million liters of water saved (9 olympic swimming pools), 202.621KG of CO2 saved (2.006 flights from Amsterdam to Barcelona), 14 football fields saved from cotton farming and 488 trash bags of waste saved from being dumped or burned
    
    Why you should not invest?
    

  • Our investment is not made to make you rich. 90% of returns are dedicated to effective charities like the Against Malaria Foundation. That’s the whole idea of Profit for Good

  • This is an investment in a high risk high reward startup. We have a small shot of moving a lot of money to effective charities, but also significant odds of not generating much impact if we go bankrupt

  • EAIF thinks we’re not a good fit for their fund and have rejected investment in BOAS multiple times, I have commented about that in the critical piece of EAIF

  
  You can invest here.
  
  Thanks,
  Vin

• Vincent van der Holst 12 Jun 2024 7:59 UTC

  2 points

  3 ∶ 0

  on: On Es­ti­mates of how much Zakat there is

  First of all, I love the idea of redirecting Zakat to the most effective charities, and regardless of the size of global Zakat, this seems neglected and a large opportunity. I do however think your estimates are off.
  
  I refer to @Stan Pinsent for his great data, and that is basically my view on it too, but I wanted to add a couple of things to that.

  Total yearly global philanthropy seems around 841 billion. 590 of which are remittances, which some don’t even see as philanthropy. More than 90% of philanthropy flows from wealthy countries that are either non-muslim or where a significant part of muslims are secular and/​or don’t follow zakat rules.

  I would put my confidence interval that Zakat is less than 350 billion USD at 90%. It seems incredibly unlikely that more than 30% of global philanthropy stems from Zakat for the reasons stated by Stan, and looking at global giving.

  This is not hard data, but I’ve also run ad campaigns for large NGO’s, and they promote more during Zakat, and I know it was driving less than 10% of yearly donations for these charities (and one of these was a popular charity for muslims).

• Vincent van der Holst 12 Jun 2024 7:40 UTC

  3 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Imma’s comment on: I dou­bled the world record cy­cling with­out hands for AMF

  Hi Imma, thanks!

  I was concerned about the wind, but between 6AM and 1PM the wind force was 3 where when we talked it was expected to be 4. I’m very stable with 3 and getting unstable, but not impossible, at 4. I already did 175KM before the wind picked up so that was great.

  The course is a loop, but it’s basically two long sides with 2 relatively short sides. I had crosswind on the short sides, which is very good because crosswind is much more unstable than head or tail. One of the short sides was really well covered by trees and houses behind those trees so the wind was totally fine there. The other short side was more windy, but I proactively sped up for more balance on that side, which was doable because it was just a short bit.

  Ultimately I got super lucky with the weather. It was dry, warm, not too much wind and from the right angles. The days after it was very windy and rainy here and I would not have gone so far or even managed to break the record.

  I also slept relatively well before the event (where I was stressed and exhausted on thursday I was pretty good on friday) and had what cyclists call ‘good legs’, which you sometimes have and sometimes don’t, so I feel incredibly lucky that everything came together so well on the day itself.

• Vincent van der Holst 12 Jun 2024 7:33 UTC

  1 point

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: James Herbert’s comment on: I dou­bled the world record cy­cling with­out hands for AMF

  Thanks James, and also for the help sharing this so we could raise more money!

• Vincent van der Holst 12 Jun 2024 7:33 UTC

  6 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: NickLaing’s comment on: I dou­bled the world record cy­cling with­out hands for AMF

  Haha I value transparency. I was very worried about the balance when peeing but it went very well.

I dou­bled the world record cy­cling with­out hands for AMF

• Vincent van der Holst 24 May 2024 16:27 UTC

  1 point

  0 ∶ 1

  in reply to: calebp’s comment on: Lies and dis­re­spect from the EA In­fras­truc­ture Fund

  Thanks for the reply Caleb. I’m not arguing it’s not a good fit here (although I disagree with that too, obviously, otherwise I wouldn’t apply to EAIF). Ultimately you guys decide the fit. What I’m arguing is that I felt disrespected by our interactions, and it seems I’m not alone.

  I stand by that your feedback contained multiple factual errors. An example is the feedback mentioning we don’t have transparent financials even though all of that was linked clearly (and was even publicly available at that time). Happy to go into other examples but I don’t think we’re going to agree on this.
  
  FWIW I’m happy for you to share public details of our grant application, we’re transparent. I don’t think the public will disagree with you our project is not a fit, because other funders have also declined our Profit for Good ideas so far.

• Vincent van der Holst 23 May 2024 8:13 UTC

  0 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Ramiro’s comment on: I’m at­tempt­ing a world record to raise money for AMF

  Thank you so much!

• Vincent van der Holst 23 May 2024 8:12 UTC

  14 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: finm’s comment on: I’m at­tempt­ing a world record to raise money for AMF

  Hi finm,

  Good question! It’s a closed loop where they normally hold bike races. It’s 2.5KM per loop and I will be doing as many loops as I can. It’s got one bridge that slows down my speed and that’s the most tricky part due to balance. When I’m cruising at 25kmh the bike is very stable, but I go down to about 15 when I ascend the small bridge so that’s where I need to stay focused!
  
  It’s in The Netherlands so it’s otherwise completely flat, and because it’s closed there’s no other traffic or traffic lights. It’s just me, my butt and I.

• Vincent van der Holst 21 May 2024 12:43 UTC

  10 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Julia_Wise’s comment on: I’m at­tempt­ing a world record to raise money for AMF

  Amazing! I’ll reach out to huff to see if they can cover it for more donations!

• Vincent van der Holst 20 May 2024 15:44 UTC

  6 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Brad West’s comment on: I’m at­tempt­ing a world record to raise money for AMF

  This really means a lot to me Brad, and I’m glad that I can be of help to you sometimes (and appreciate all the help you give me!).

• Vincent van der Holst 20 May 2024 15:24 UTC

  4 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: DLMRBN 🔸’s comment on: I’m at­tempt­ing a world record to raise money for AMF

  I will indeed be wearing a helmet! :)

I’m at­tempt­ing a world record to raise money for AMF

• Vincent van der Holst 20 May 2024 12:32 UTC

  7 points

  0 ∶ 0

  on: A Linkpost to Vin­cent van der Holst’s TEDx Talk- How Profit for Good Busi­nesses Can Trans­form Philan­thropy and Save Lives –

  Thanks for sharing it Brad, and I invite everyone to debate this in the comments.

• Vincent van der Holst 18 Apr 2024 13:40 UTC

  −3 points

  0 ∶ 1

  in reply to: Tom Barnes’s comment on: Lies and dis­re­spect from the EA In­fras­truc­ture Fund

  @Tom Barnes thank you for this insight. Your team and Caleb must work under a lot of pressure and this post, even when important, must not be nice for you to read.
  
  It was clear to me from our EAIF applications and interactions that your team is overworked, understaffed and or burned out. I think it’s so important that you are honest about that, and you work on a process that keeps your quality high. It seems from this post that EAIF is not meeting timelines, not communication clearly, and it was clear from the feedback on our application that it was not carefully reviewed (I can share the feedback and the errors and inconsistencies in that).

  Can you limit applications somehow and focus on making better decisions on fewer applications with clear communication? I’d rather wait for your team to carefully consider our application, so I don’t have to waste time drafting it every 6 months and it not being carefully reviewed.

• Vincent van der Holst 18 Apr 2024 13:27 UTC

  3 points

  3 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Alix Pham’s comment on: Lies and dis­re­spect from the EA In­fras­truc­ture Fund

  We also had feedback with very clear inconsistencies (e.g. saying we had closed accounting, even when it was publicly available and clearly linked. Saying our application had not changed from last rejection, even though we applied with a completely different project). Disrespectful.

• Vincent van der Holst 18 Apr 2024 13:18 UTC

  14 points

  0 ∶ 2

  on: Lies and dis­re­spect from the EA In­fras­truc­ture Fund

  @Igor Ivanov my experience with Caleb and EAIF have been incredibly similar (with the exception of Michael Aird who is smart, helpful and emphatic). I’m unfortunately not surprised to see this post and its many upvotes, and I know of multiple people who have ranted about EAIF’s disrespectful and unemphatic ways of working. I hope they will also start speaking up, and your post has persuaded me to do so, so thanks for that!

  I will disclose the email I sent to Caleb below. In his defence: he did reply with feedback after this email for which I’m thankful. Unfortunately the feedback contained factual errors about our application and company, and made it clear that our application was not carefully reviewed (or reviewed at all). We recently got another application rejected by Caleb, even though I specifically asked for someone else to review it too, because I believe he has something against me (no clue what that would be since he always ignored me and we never met).

  I still believe EAIF and its managers are good people trying to do a good job, I just don’t think they are actually doing a good job based on others and my experiences.

  Here’s the email:

  
  Hi Caleb,

  I hope you are well!

  I know it’s not your policy, but after many applications that are, and I mean this respectfully, wasting a lot of time on both ends, I think it’s in both our interests if we have some clarity on our applications. Many others and myself think EAIF is an incredibly good fit with our common goals, but after the declined applications it’s clear EAIF does not think so (at least currently). That’s fine, but because we continue to believe this is a good fit we’re continuing to apply and up until now wasting a lot of EA’s time. At this stage I’m confident it would help a lot if you could give a little bit of feedback, even if it’s just one line of feedback, so we can either move on or reapply with something that we both agree if effective.

  I hesitated to write this because I’m anxious it will hurt our future within EA because I believe you and EAIF have a position of power, but I have decided honesty is more important and it’s more helpful if you know who this is coming from so I decided not to be anonymous. This might be emotional and irrational and not at all true, but I have the feeling you don’t like me or the work that I’m doing. If true, I haven’t figured out why, but I’d prefer to hear that out loud so I can stop frustrating you (if I am) and I can stop being frustrated by not being answered. For context: I have read up on EAIF’s and your work, I’ve been to two office hours on two EAG’s, I went to your talk and I tried to get both written or F2F feedback at multiple occasions, each time emphasizing I’d do whatever would be easiest for you, and even if it was one minute of feedback it would help us a lot. I tried to be very respectful of your time because I completely understand you are incredibly busy. You wrote me back once that you could give feedback but after replying I was again ignored. If I may be completely frank I have found it quite disrespectful, considering how respectful I tried to be with your time and space, and how much time we put into our applications.

  These are just emotional observations and they do not constitute truth, but I think it’s helpful for you to know the impression you and EAIF (although others at or affiliated to EAIF did reply to our requests for help, most of them pointing to you to ask for feedback) are leaving on me. I’m very sorry if this is making you feel bad, I don’t at all think that you are a bad person and I admire the amazing work you do. I’m just sharing the impression our encounters (or the lack thereof) have made me feel.
  
  Any feedback would be helpful because I believe it will help EAIF save considerable time in the future. I would appreciate it if our next EAIF will be reviewed by someone else so we can remove any personal biases there might be between you and us. We continue to believe the fit is great and won’t give up until we get clear feedback saying otherwise.
  
  Thanks and all the best,
  

  Vin