Would the following structure be possible? (Apologies if this idea has already been considered.)
Your organization allows EAs to register their donations and then later apply to “refund” up to 50% of them. When someone applies, they receive a refund in the form of a grant from an established non-profit like OpenPhil. Essentially, this lets people apply for guaranteed transitional/emergency funds and uses donation history to verify that the person is aligned and not trying to game the system.
Since the original donation still goes directly and fully to the charity, there should (hopefully) be no legal issues. However, this proposal would require the insurance pool to be funded by something than the “refundable” donations.
The only “gaming” of the system that one could do here would be to essentially force the pool to do a 1-for-1 match of any donation. (By donating, refunding 50%, donating that 50%, refunding 25%, etc.)
Thanks for all your work on this! I agree with Charles that it would be worthwhile to check whether this would be a legitimate charity in the US and UK.
Personally, I think the old, “refund” version (where one can easily recoup 50% of one’s donations) is likely to be much more impactful than the new “bread fund” version.
To me, the bread fund version feels like a last resort on the order of asking relatives for help, while the refund version feels like something you can rely on. Most people are risk averse with respect to their personal finances, and I think the (perceived) uncertainty of going through individual funders would feel significant to most people.
I’m thinking about a case like an emergency fund that there’s a 10% chance you need to use at some point during the year. Personally, I wouldn’t want a 10% chance of needing to rely on the bread fund. However, I would be happy with a 10% chance that I need to reverse some of my donations.
In some sense, the refund version allows one to donate aggressively and then “undo” some of the donations later if necessary. This seems like it more directly encourages/enables donations.
Have you run a poll to see how people feel about the two versions?