Self-described effective altruists in the latest EA Survey reported $9.8 million in donations in 2016. However, most of these donations were not matched counter-factually. That is, most of the donations did not generate matching funds representing new money towards effective nonprofits as a whole.
Given the existence of counter-factual donation matching opportunities like Facebook’s upcoming #GivingTuesday matching campaign, this is a massive missed opportunity. Up to $2 million total in donations to nonprofits will be matched by Facebook and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation starting on Nov 28 at 8 AM EST.
By donating to the most effective nonprofit you know of through a Facebook fundraiser on Tuesday soon after 8 AM EST rather than donating directly to the nonprofit at a later time, you can cause part of the $2 million available in matching funds to go to that effective nonprofit also rather than let it go to a nonprofit of average effectiveness. This is a huge opportunity to substantially increase the amount of funding that the world’s most effective nonprofits receive merely by donating in the right place at the right time.
There is a $50,000 matching limit on each nonprofit and a $1,000 matching limit on each fundraiser so some coordination is necessary for us to take advantage of this opportunity and make our donations go nearly twice as far. Here’s how you can help:
- Mark yourself as ‘Going’ to the Facebook event EA #GivingTuesday Donation Matching.
- Use this donation planning sheet to help create fundraisers and let others know which fundraisers you are donating to after 8 AM EST on Tuesday.
- Join the Facebook group EA #GivingTuesday Donation Matching for further discussion, coordination, and to ask for help.
For the benefit of future readers: Giving Tuesday happened, and the matching funds were exhausted within about 90 seconds. In total of ~$370k in donations we matched ~$46k, or about 13%, which was lower than hoped. William wrote up a lessons-learned document as a Google doc.