Considering Directed Kidney Donation Within the EA Community

Unwobblypanda

DylanRMatthews

Your kidney is yours: you can donate it to whoever you like. I don't think there's anything worse about directing it to a particular community than to a particular family member or friend; indeed, some of the highest rates of non-directed donation are among Orthodox Jews in the NYC area, which feels somewhat analogous to what you're considering.
In terms of the moral impact of your donation, one of the most important variables is the length of your donation chain. You may have already read up on this but if not: many people in need of a kidney have family members who want to donate but are incompatible due to various antibodies. So those family members commit to donate on the condition that their loved one gets a kidney from somewhere else. These chains are hard to set up only among directed donors, because every kidney donor needs a kidney back. Non-directed donors can help get a chain going, and they can get very long. Mine was 4 kidneys; one particularly huge chain was 30 long. Participating in a chain can mean you're contributing (at least somewhat, counterfactually) to multiple donations, not just one.
Setting up chains is hard and time-consuming. The nurses who operate the logistics here are among the most clever people I've met. It's really tough, complex work. There's tradeoffs involved: it might take months to set up a chain of real size, which could make life less convenient for the non-directed donor (I've been there!). Insisting on directing your donation will definitely make setting up a chain a good deal harder. That could overwhelm the motivation to give to an EA, depending on how much you value intra-community donation versus trying to get as many people kidneys as possible.
Speaking just for myself, one of the most important EA values to me is the idea that all sentient beings should be in my scope of moral concern. Everyone matters. For me, that pushed toward non-directed donation rather than giving within a particular family or community.
If you want a simple, one-sentence piece of advice: I'd give non-directed, wait for a reasonably long chain, and hope for the best. But I'm not you, and it's your body, and whatever you do, I'm grateful you're considering donation and thinking about it this carefully.

DylanRMatthews

Your kidney is yours: you can donate it to whoever you like. I don't think there's anything worse about directing it to a particular community than to a particular family member or friend; indeed, some of the highest rates of non-directed donation are among Orthodox Jews in the NYC area, which feels somewhat analogous to what you're considering.
In terms of the moral impact of your donation, one of the most important variables is the length of your donation chain. You may have already read up on this but if not: many people in need of a kidney have family members who want to donate but are incompatible due to various antibodies. So those family members commit to donate on the condition that their loved one gets a kidney from somewhere else. These chains are hard to set up only among directed donors, because every kidney donor needs a kidney back. Non-directed donors can help get a chain going, and they can get very long. Mine was 4 kidneys; one particularly huge chain was 30 long. Participating in a chain can mean you're contributing (at least somewhat, counterfactually) to multiple donations, not just one.
Setting up chains is hard and time-consuming. The nurses who operate the logistics here are among the most clever people I've met. It's really tough, complex work. There's tradeoffs involved: it might take months to set up a chain of real size, which could make life less convenient for the non-directed donor (I've been there!). Insisting on directing your donation will definitely make setting up a chain a good deal harder. That could overwhelm the motivation to give to an EA, depending on how much you value intra-community donation versus trying to get as many people kidneys as possible.
Speaking just for myself, one of the most important EA values to me is the idea that all sentient beings should be in my scope of moral concern. Everyone matters. For me, that pushed toward non-directed donation rather than giving within a particular family or community.
If you want a simple, one-sentence piece of advice: I'd give non-directed, wait for a reasonably long chain, and hope for the best. But I'm not you, and it's your body, and whatever you do, I'm grateful you're considering donation and thinking about it this carefully.