Solving donation coordination problems

In principle this can work OK with consequentialist donors who reason about the costs of delay and the counterfactual impacts of others' money. The decision problem for consequentialist donors is very complicated though. Also, there is a bunch of negative-sum jockeying which would be nice to eliminate. (Owen suggests encouraging epistmic modesty. That makes sense, but even if the participants were perfect reasoners they would still destroy value in negative sum conflict, and it seems like that's a more fundamental problem.)

Delay plays a natural role in the naive consequentialist decision procedure. The most enthusiastic donors will give earliest, with less natural donors stepping in only as things get increasingly dire. This kind of works, but the direness is completely unnecessary and it would be nice to do the same thing without e.g. having charities operate on the brink of bankruptcy.

A related problem is the signaling dynamic between fundraisers---who want to convince donors that the need is significant---and donors---who may treat fundraisers' claims as cheap talk.

One natural solution to all of these issues is for charities to explicitly allocate credit to donors vs. employees vs. volunteers, and for every to try to get as much "credit" as possible. The fraction allocated to donors can then be adjusted to raise the desired amount of money, and the most enthusiastic donors---those willing to donate in exchange for the smallest share of the charity's impact---will be the ones to donate. This can provide a much more honest signal about charity's need for funds.

This is not the most realistic solution. But it would be nice to see someone try it some day, e.g. by raising money by selling certificates for their activities. I don't think the logistics are complicated, and I think the scheme may be a significant improvement over the status quo (with lots of VOI); I think the biggest problem is that it's not good for morale or donor communications.

One possibility is to encourage epistemic modesty for beliefs about which are the top charities, relative to cohorts who would make the same decision as you at least once.

Suppose I am wondering about donating to GWWC, but am not sure if I will just displace another donor. From an outside view, it is not obvious which of us would make best alternative use of the money (presumably we will both look for valuable giving opportunities). I think people often don't fully take this into account, and assume that holding the money themselves may be much better. But if you think the value is comparable (even if you think your judgement might on average be a little better) it could well be good to donate as soon as the opportunity arises, in order to increase the efficiency of the entire process.

Here are the figures from Ben's poll so anyone can refer to them:

" how many folks have held off donating to GWWC in order to see whether their fundraiser hits its goal without their donations (so that their donation would have been replaceable/had no counterfactual impact)? "

I donated 0 (0%)

I refrained from donating PRIMARILY for the above reason 1 (3%)

I refrained from donating AT LEAST IN PART for the above reason 13 (45%)

The above reason didn't affect my decision at all 15 (52%)

And here are the figures from my poll with a fuller set of options:

I donated money that'd otherwise have gone to direct support of the global poor 0 (0%)

I donated money that'd otherwise have gone to help others 0 (0%)

I donated money that wouldn't have otherwise have gone to help anyone else (e.g. I'd have spent it on myself) 1 (8%)

My main reason for not donating was the thought that my donation wouldn't raise GWWC's counterfactual spending 0 (0%)

My main reason for not donating was not being sufficiently convinced that increasing GWWC's spending would do the most good 12 (92%)

I thought donating would raise GWWC's counterfactual spending and this would do the most good, but nonetheless didn't donate 0 (0%)

Of course these polls aren't fully comparable, as saying "I refrained from donating AT LEAST IN PART for the above reason" means only that you think it's one reason for not donating, and as 'Larks' points out there are two possible ways of cashing out "My main reason for not donating was the thought that my donation wouldn't raise GWWC's counterfactual spending":

• My donation would cause others to donate less
• My donation would cause CEA central to transfer resources away from GWWC but only one of these is what Ben was talking about.

Maybe price in the cost of staff time spent on the fundraiser - that is, if everyone donates immediately, it takes $X to fill the fundraiser. But if everyone donates at the end, it takes $X + $Y, where $Y is the cost of additional staff time spend on the fundraiser.

Small extra comment - I think the costs of slow fundraising are potentially much worse than 'a month of staff time'. Fundraising mainly takes up the time of senior management, so it bottlenecks the rest of the organisation. It usually becomes the 'top idea on your mind' meaning it especially absorbs your most creative, focused hours. If fundraising results become more volatile (even if in expectation you get the same amount of money) it forces you to become more risk-averse and spend longer contingency planning, which makes it harder to reach really ambitious goals.

In general, we want an ecosystem where the link between expected impact and getting money is quick and reliable.

Many organisations, such as Oxfam, try to get their donors to set up regular (weekly/fortnightly/monthly) donations instead of giving a lump sum. This is largely done to make the organisation's funding more steady and predictable. Have any thoughts on this?

One possibility is to assign social kudos for having made significant donations to impactful charities. This could be done implicitly, or explicitly by charities issuing equity in the good they achieve (similar to certificates of impact, but assigned before-the-fact rather than after).

This would encourage a culture of donating to what appear to be the best opportunities early, lest they disappear.

The thought you ascribe to most EAs (which I think is very likely accurate) is something like this: if I donate now, it will just mean I divert money from what I think is a highly effective charity to GWWC, and then another EA who would have donated to GWWC later on will instead donate to another charity that EA thinks is highly effective.

So the cost of donating to GWWC seems to be that money goes from your favorite charity to some other EA's favorite charity, and the benefit is that GWWC spends less time fundraising. Perhaps EAs are just thinking about this wrong - why should we think our favorite charity is that much more effective than some other prospective GWWC donor (or at least so much more effective that it is worth wasting GWWC staff's time)?

Would it work to run shorter fundraisers? If it's the case that most donation money is tied up in this dynamic, then running a shorter fundraiser wouldn't significantly reduce the amount of money raised (of course, that might not be true)

I think it has to happen in a way that mostly doesn't require EA organizations to spend large amounts of time courting individual minor donors. I also don't think more matching fundraisers is the solution.

Some possible partial solutions: a stronger culture of giving to learn, established by prominent clever donors (Give now, note reports later). Using EA Ventures to arrange funding "rounds" where many donors or investors must be involved for the funding round to go ahead, or using a similar incentive structure, Kickstartr could be used.

If you are holding back for this reason roll an N sided die and donate if a certain number comes up. N can be tuned such that on average we fulfill fundraisers in a timely manner.