I really loved people's comments on why they voted the way they did, but this post is already quite long, so I'm sharing a longer list of excerpts as a sort of "Appendix Comment." 

Why people voted the way they did (& other highlights from the comments) - extended edition

“Realized I'm too partial to [global health] and biased against animal welfare, [so I committed to vote for the] most effective animal organization. Rethink's post was very convincing. CE has the most innovative ideas in GHD and it isn't close. GiveWell is GiveWell.” 

— Someone who voted for all 3 winning orgs (and GiveWell).

We asked voters if they wanted to share a note about why they voted the way they did (or something else). 74 people (~20%) wrote a comment. Some excerpts are slightly tweaked for clarity/length and/or to avoid highly recognizable styles (please reach out if you’re worried and would like me to remove your comment).

See the shortened version in the post above — this is the extended version. There's a bit of repetition, but I think most of it is new.

Rethink Priorities’s funding request post was mentioned a lot to explain why someone is donating to or voting for RP. People also noted specific aspects of RP’s work or approach that they appreciate: 

• “I found the request for funding from Rethink priorities quite compelling, I value their work, in particular the annual survey they run.”
• “I think Rethink Priorities create many public benefits.” (And someone else: “... [RP] are quite productive with the resources they have, and provide a good service to the EA community in terms of generalist-style research on cause areas.”)
• “Reading about [RP’s] plans to do more moral weights and animal welfare work in the coming year and how this depended on marginal funding.”
• “Fish Welfare & Rethink because I think they work on the relatively most neglected current problems, where marginal contributions seriously matter. Global health out of personal interest (but I gave them a much weaker weight).” 
• “I prioritized animal welfare charities, especially ones that focus on neglected groups of animals like Rethink Priorities and Wild Animal Initiative.” 
• “I think of [my top choices] as driving growth in either knowledge or funding, mostly for [global health and development] or EA as a whole.” (From someone who gave points to many projects, with the most going to RP, CE, and GWWC)
• Someone mentioned this market.
• “ALLFED and Rethink Priorities both consist of highly talented and motivated individuals that are working on high-potential, high-impact projects. Both organizations have left a strong impression on me in terms of their approach to reasoning and problem solving. [...] Both organizations have recently posted extremely well-detailed [updates on their financial situation and how additional funding would help]. [...]”

CE’s Incubated Charities Fund (and Charity Entrepreneurship more broadly) got a lot of appreciation for their good and/or unusual ideas and track record: 

• “Outstanding teams and track record” (from someone who gave most of their points to CE’s Fund and some to RP)
• “...direct-action global health charities need more funding now, especially in light of reductions in future funding from Open Phil. [And] there's enough potential upside to charity incubation to put a good bit of money there.”
• "[AWF], because I was convinced by the post about how animal welfare dominates in non-longtermist causes, [CE], so that there can be even more excellent ways of making the world a better place by donating, [GWWC], because I wish we had unlimited money to give to all the others"
• “The Forum's Giving Season inspired me to choose some additional places to donate in addition to my usual GiveWell donation.” (RP, CE)
• “[CE and THL] are actually doing something rather than "analysis", and have great track records.”
• Someone who gave points to CE’s Fund, EAIF, GWWC, and others wrote that they wanted to “support funds or [organizations] that have exponential impact through their work”
• "I lean longtermist but feel like [some orgs’] salaries are too high and more frugal [orgs] like Charity Entrepreneurship are more cost-effective.”

A number of people wrote that they’d updated towards donating to animal welfare as a result of recent discussions (often explicitly because of this post). Many gave a lot of their points to the Animal Welfare Fund, sometimes explicitly citing GWWC’s evaluations of the evaluators. Some also said they wanted to vote for animal welfare to correct for its relative neglectedness in EA or to emphasize that it has a central place in EA:

• “I voted for animal charities to [...] direct the money to where it can do a lot of good, but also to demonstrate to the EA community that *animal welfare belongs as a central EA cause area.* As an EA working on AI risk, I feel very deeply that this community should continue to stand up for sentient beings who are experiencing unimaginable suffering now. [...] Why these particular animal welfare donations [ACE, THL, AWF]? I want to strengthen central institutions in animal welfare so that they can in turn use their best judgment to distribute funds among tried-and-tested and speculative giving opportunities."
• “I think the median EA underweights animal stuff, so I’m throwing all my points towards ACE Movement Grants.”
• “[Gave a lot more points to animal welfare than human health and development] because [the latter is] much less cost-effective than animal welfare: [link to this post]. Gave [fewer points to longtermist candidates] since factory farming could continue if we prevent a catastrophe...”
• “...my vote was mostly [based on] thinking a lot of people would put money on longtermist options. My vote goes to keeping a lot of money on the more consensual areas of the movement (poverty & animal rights; it's true they get a lot of money during this time, but most of it, we know, is not effectively given).”
• “I weakly believe helping non-human animals is probably more cost-effective than helping humans, and GCR-reduction projects seem [uncertain, hard to evaluate, and not capital-constrained right now]. [GWWC] tentatively evaluates the EA Animal Welfare fund as probably more cost-effective than ACE, which is consistent with conversations I had…” (the reference)
• “...I have struggled for years to come up with a ratio I can defend [of human vs. animal donations]. So I just use a [heuristic] and always donate 80% to the charity I think is ‘current best human/animal charity.’ This is why the EA Animal Welfare Fund is currently at 80%… I used to [allocate 80%] to SCI but posts on the Forum have convinced me animal welfare as a field is more funding constrained right now, [so] my marginal dollar means more [and SCI wasn’t on the list]. I am a fan of hits-based giving… AWF [might not pan out], but might also uncover extraordinary potential. I am quite bullish on funding animal welfare efforts in geographically neglected areas or on neglected groups of animals, but I think this is best done the same way VC Investing works: fund a lot of opportunities — even some speculative ones — and then a few gems [will make up for] losses. In a way you could see this 80% as analogous to ‘medium-high risk equity ETF’ in my giving portfolio.”
• “Some recent conversations and readings have swayed me in the direction of large-scale suffering reduction for animals being neglected.”

And here are some comments about why people gave points or donated to other candidates, or other considerations people shared:

• “I feel like big charities get a lot of attention and smaller charities don't always get enough. But they still do important work.” (Someone who gave points to AWF, but also FWI, WAI, ACE Movement Grants, and Faunalytics.)
• “I prefer helping other humans rise over poverty, disease and suffering... once we can help a majority of people come out of poverty and live without [danger], we should collectively focus on other animals.” (AMF, GD, and others.)
• “AI x-risk seems clearly the most important and highest expected value. Wild Animal Initiative is a huge neglected need and maybe investing a bit more in it might have a positive impact on AI x-risk too.” (LTFF, WAI, and others)
• “I allocated [my points] in adjustment from an estimate of EA dollars by cause area. I made it 4:1 for animal welfare to global health because of a post I read, and made MIRI and ALLFED about 80% of longtermist funding (40% each) when I read that ALLFED could be more effective than AI safety. Since many people in the EA community have confidence in AI safety being the most important cause, I wasn't ready to put ALLFED quite over the mark until more research is done. I put The Humane League as 80% of animal welfare funding, because of the 10 million dollar funding gap. When I didn't have time to research, I just distributed funds evenly within a cause area.” I think they’re referencing this post on animal welfare and possibly this post re: ALLFED (or posts linked in it). 
• “I don't normally donate anything to ‘meta’ work like research or fundraising, but thinking about a larger pot of money, I wanted to give some to the best of those [areas]” (GW, RP, some others)
• “I prioritize longtermism, and I think that we might be able to influence how AI treats wild animals (e.g. in simulations). I generally have picked organizations that have a lot of room for more funding...” (ALLFED, RP, WAI)
• “...saving lives does not seem as urgent to me as mitigating suffering. GiveDirectly has for years to me seemed like a better [bet] with regard to a mitigating long-term suffering perspective. GiveDirectly is [the] rock-solid input-output play […] in my portfolio.”
• “[ALLFED] seems like the only x-risk-focused charity where marginal dollars from individual donors matter a lot. [Others seem much more] talent-constrained. … [And they’re working on a relatively neglected set of problems in x-risk.]”
• Someone who gave most of their points to MIRI said they “expect Yudkowsky & Soares will select the best grantmakers [...] to spend their money…” Another MIRI voter (who also gave points to EAIF and LTFF) said they wished some projects were candidates that aren’t, and that they hoped MIRI would donate to those projects and other theoretical researchers, as they prioritize fundamental AI alignment work.
• “I am pretty longtermist so I favored those organizations, but I also wanted to put some options on the board from a wide variety of cause areas due to the nature of the ranked choice voting — i.e., in case longtermist charities all lost out and the winners were dominated by animal welfare, I at least wanted to express an opinion on which animal-welfare charities seem best to me.”
• “I included GWWC after I noticed the community is not paying enough attention to Earning to Give and the growth of GWWC pledges have stagnated over the last few years.”

Broader patterns: 

• A number of people said they work in one field (often existential risk reduction) but want to donate or direct at least some funding to a different field (often global health, animal welfare, or cross-cause charities), either because they believe those causes need funding more (while others might need labor more) or because they wanted to split their/EA resources across causes. Some also explicitly wanted to split their vote across causes. E.g.:
  • “As an EA working on AI risk, I feel very deeply that this community should continue to stand up for sentient beings who are experiencing unimaginable suffering now.”
  • “…and THL and GFI as I think they represent good orgs working on short-term causes. … I prioritise short-term causes slightly less than catastrophic risks at present, but think it is important for a portfolio approach to funding.” (Someone who also said they work for a specific risk-oriented org.) 
  • “​​Good split between long-term decisive impact and near-term efficient impact.”
  • “I wanted a split between the major 3 pillars (Animal Welfare, GH&D, Longtermism/GCR) of EA. I'm generally more support of 'big tent'/cause area buckets for donations rather than EV maxxing”
• Some referenced specific posts or recent changes, while others said they went with cached thoughts: 
  • “Basically a nebulous combination of my assessment of each project (mostly formed before the election), as well as the fact that each has (in the lead-up to the election) vocally reported being funding-constrained.”
  • “I (somewhat) know all the organizations and went with my cached judgments of the cost-effectiveness of marginal donations to them.”

People also shared thoughts related to Giving Season: 

• “...Would have LOVED more debates/ posts about ‘LTFF vs ALLFED?’ and ‘EA Funds Animal Welfare Fund vs. The Humane League?’” (This person also cited two posts.)
• “The whole giving season event is the reason I finished a [related text] that had been sitting in my drafts for a couple months. … I also found the marginal funding posts super interesting.  It made me more excited about earning to give and helped me understand the perspective of nonprofits engaged in fundraising, particularly the posts from RP (Peter Wildeford and Abraham Rowe).  Because it sounds like they would use funds for things that I consider promising, like moral weight research and cross-cause cost-effectiveness modeling, I allocated more votes toward them."
• “Not sure how much that is because of the Donation Election or just the Forum in general, but it led quite naturally to me reading most of the related posts on the Forum. Due to this I'm now donating to Rethink Priorities this year & I was able to recommend impactful climate charities to non-EA friends who wanted to donate in that area.”
• “Loved this! Really pushed me to think about donation priorities through a compare/contrast and consideration of the marginal dollar way which I've always meant to work on more, but haven't done so enough. I have a few ingrained priors I have formed overtime which initially formed my idea of what would be relatively highest and what wouldn't be considered. I think that the major updates to my priors were from info on the EA Forum, especially recent grant info. For instance, Rethink Priorities got a big boon from this, while EA Infrastructure Funds got a downgrade (the name mislead me at first). As a side note, it would be cool if someone developed software for a version of this for private donations! (maybe this already exists?) Especially if it is as simple and easy to operate as this; excel sheets work (and are needed for more complicated analyses), but take effort to read.  Only additional functions needed would be an ability to add more funds/charities and a way for it to be easily cross-posted to social media for further conversation.”

Finally, shoutout to the voter who added: “Thank you for listening to my TED talk. I am legally obligated to tell you this is not financia-, err, altruism advice” after their (decently long) comment. 

Thanks for sharing the results, and the detailed analysis, Lizka!

I would be curious to know:

• How the results would look like if votes were weighted by karma (or the logarithm of karma).
• More about who voted. For example, the distributions of karma and years since joining the EA Forum.

TL;DR: We ran a Donation Election in which 341 Forum users^[1] voted on how we should allocate the Donation Election Fund ($34,856^[2]).

So there were as many voters as 8 % (= 341/4443) of the monthly active EA Forum users in November. One could have voted quite quickly, so I wonder whether you have any thoughts on why participation was not higher.

One can discern from the spreadsheet where the points of each eliminated organization went, at least initially:

• It does not appear that any organization's elimination "sent" points predominately to orgs in the same cause area.
• GWWC's elimination predominately sent points to organizations I would classify as neartermist.
• EAIF's elimination sent over twice as many points to LTFF as to the next highest benefactor (RP). 
• LTFF's elimination sent almost as many points to RP as the other two winners.

None of this was too unexpected to me, but it is mildly interesting to get harder data on the relationship between cause area support and support for specific cross-cause / meta organizations. Specifically, we can see which cross-cause organizations voters tended to gravitate toward when an object-level charity in a given cause was eliminated. 

(I only marked third-place gains that subjectively seemed to clearly exceed the rest of the field.)

I recall there was some discussion about different voting systems for the Donation Election. I think it would be interesting to see whether/how different the results would have been with a different system. We can't really retrofit the data to quadratic voting, but I think it would be possible for approval voting and rank-choice voting (for approval voting we could just say that any candidate receiving points from a person is approved, unless they voted for many candidates in which case just the top 12). I am not sure what codebase you have at the backend for this, but I could imagine switching the voting system could be fairly easy; maybe it isn't worth it though.

Probably no way to answer this with available data, but I'm curious about the extent to which individual revealed preferences (election votes edition) are concordant or discordant with their revealed preferences (personal donations edition). To the extent they are discordant, what factors might explain the discordance, and what might we learn from having two different types of revealed preferences to pull from? This loops back into some of the discussions earlier in the year about whether there should be more of a community voice in funding allocation and if so how that could be carried out in a way that is less open to manipulation.

For instance, I think this system makes it frictionless for me to specify smaller preferences (and even mildly encouraged doing so). That strikes me as an advantage it has over GWWC pledge fulfillment information, where even if I take the time to give to the organization that is tenth on my list, I might not take the time to enter that donation into the GWWC database. In contrast, I think the structure of the Donation Election mildly encouraged me to give points to organizations I thought would generate lots of other votes as well.^[1]

(My own votes didn't track my donations that closely, but that may be due to unusual personal circumstances this year for me).

1. ^{^}

   Only mildly so -- e.g., a voter would be disenfranchised in all rounds after all organizations to which they assigned votes were eliminated. They would be treated as indifferent among all remaining choices. Thus, a rational voter who was not indifferent would distribute points such that they threw at least one point to an organization they expected to be in the top four. Given that most voters gave points to 2-4 organizations, this probably creates a small bias toward organizations perceived as more popular.