Hello all,
I am currently conducting preliminary research on the impact and sustainability of the Buy-One-Give-One model, as a means for effective fundraising options.
For those who are familiar with this model, could you kindly share your thoughts/insight for the following questions? it will be highly appreciated and of good use for doing "good."
- For over a decade or more, TOMS, Warby Parker and Pampers have been incorporating the B1G1 (Buy-1-Give-1) model to sell their products and to ‘do good’. To date, TOMS has given away over 88 million pairs of shoes, WP tens of millions of glasses and eye tests, and Pampers over 300 million MNT vaccines. Would the Centre for EA define these companies as “effective” forms of altruism?
- How does the EA team measure “effectiveness?” Is compassionate consumption really the best way to alleviate global suffering and to reduce economic inequalities? Can you really change the world, one purchase at a time?
- What are your primary reservations of the B1G1 model and the causes that they support (free shoes, eye wear or vaccines)?
- Are these companies making a lasting difference to global health and development or is it merely a marketing gimmick?
- How could these companies ‘do good’ better or is the model fundamentally flawed? For example, they are not handing out de-worming tablets or insecticide treated bednets, which are proven to be more effective?
- A core part of EA is cause-neutrality. However, the three B1G1 companies all focus on a cause linked to their products, rather than a value for money/ effective product (You can’t eat shoes nor specs). What are your thoughts?
- TOMS, in response to criticism of its shoe giving model, has partnered with local shoe manufacturers to make a third of their products in the communities that they give to. This seems like a more efficient way of giving and creating local capacity. Does this iteration of TOMS make it a more effective form of altruism?
- Should Pampers not be looking at more institutional/systemic issues around newborn and maternal child heath? When over 5 million children under 5 continue to die each year, is it fair to call the Pampers initiative a ‘simplistic’ stop gap measure for children who may not even make it beyond 5 years of age?
- These B1G1 companies have mobilized millions of consumers to ‘do good’. I argue that they should keep the momentum going by encouraging these customers to do more on the giving scale. For example, they could inform them about GiveWell, 80,000 hours, GiveDirectly or other proven measures that offer more than just a fleeting, one-off transaction and ‘feelgood’ moment. What are your thoughts?
- Some argue that Millennials are the driving force behind the growth of B1G1 companies and the desire to do good via ‘compassionate consumerism’? Agree/disagree?
- Does the EA movement believe that there is a growing trend for people – especially over the past decade of so – to try and do more ‘good’? After all Peter Singer has been arguing for this for almost five decades. What has triggered this more recent change/interest?
- Could B1G1 brands do more for their chosen causes by motivating their customers to make a more meaningful, long-term contribution/difference to the plight of the world’s poor?
I think whether or not B1G1 is effective depends on what you care about. It's clearly not the most effective way to, say, give shoes to people without shoes, since its creating an inefficiency by tying the supply of free shoes to the demand for shoes from wealthy people. And this is to say nothing of whether or not giving shoes to people without shoes is an effective use of money relative to the alternatives.
But, maybe B1G1 is effective in making people more altruistic, and is an effective intervention for creating the conditions under which people will give more effectively. Intuitively I doubt it and expect it fails on this measure because of effects like people feeling their good doing responsibility is discharged by their purchase and so may feel they less owe others more altruism because they already bought $X of "good" goods, thus decreasing their giving on the margin. But I'm not an expert here so I could very well be wrong.
The difficulty is that B1G1 potentially has many effects to consider other than just the direct good done via giving, although that we even need consider those effects is itself evidence in my eyes that it's not effective since we don't, for example, think much about how people giving money to AMF will influence their charitable thoughts since we already feel pretty good about the outcomes of the donations.