I gave comments on this directly to Wayne. I'd encourage others to comment (decently high VOI perhaps), and I'll share my comments later so as not to bias.
This is potentially very exciting idea! Some thoughts:
How does this compare to running a fundraiser for an effective charity (for example via GWWC like this one)
Or possibly running 3 fundraisers simultaneously to get people thinking about comparing charities
You are kind of imposing a burden on people, like if I were to receive this coupon, I'd have a deadline to go and do some stuff, which I might not end up doing, and then feel guilty about
I wonder about the privacy angle, I guess people's choices here are known to the organiser?
The viral effect is interesting but how will it be measured?
I see Giving Coupons as a mechanism for fundraising. As opposed to traditional fundraising ("Please give us money"), Giving Coupons aims to be more participative ("I'm giving money to charity, help me decide which one!"). Giving Coupons tries to introduce a social/interactive element to catalyse charitable giving.
I think you are right that it is a burden. I think most fundraising leverages on some amount of guilt implicitly ("Please donate, or else these people would suffer"). But all Giving Coupons is asking you to do is to go to a website and pick a charity, and even if you discard the coupon, no money is actually "wasted", the donor can simply redistribute the coupon when it expires.
On privacy, the people's choices in aggregate are necessarily known to the organisers. But individual choices don't have to be revealed. Currently, coupons are serialised, but donors do not see choices on a coupon level. Alternatively, coupons may not have to be serialised, assuming coupon receivers can be trusted to only submit once.
One way to measure the viral effect is to count how many people start campaigns after receiving coupons. Another way is to measure the number of campaigns started divided by the number of coupons redeemed, for any given time period. Optimistically, we will know it's viral when the number of campaigns grows exponentially.
AI Use Note: Main body text entirely human written. Claude (Opus 4.8) helped develop models of animal life histories in the appendix.
Cross-posted from Good Structures.
Executive Summary
* Animal advocates sometimes make claims like “there are X of this animal...
“How long have you been v*g*n?”
This is one of the most common icebreakers at animal protection events. It’s a baseline assumption, and it mostly holds true: if you’re out advocating for animals not to be tortured or abused, realistically these days you are v**n, or close. And it makes for good conversation. It seems fairly safe to assume when you meet strangers.
But this assumption is hurting the movement in a way which we don’t always notice: someone new comes into the sp...
Summary
Back in November 2023 I posted here to launch Spiro and raise our first $198k. Two and a half years later this is an update and a fundraiser for the next step.
The short version: we've now reached over-5,900 people with TB preventive medicine, including over 3,000 children under five years old. Our early results have held up well an...
I'm requesting comments and feedback regarding Giving Coupons, a novel mechanism that combines gift-giving, advocacy, and philanthropy, ultimately making charitable giving fun, social and viral.
Introduction
Catalysing charitable giving through viral, coupon-driven donation campaigns.
Built on the idea of "giving the gift of giving", Giving Coupons leverages existing donations to raise awareness of charities, provide social proof of charitable giving, and spark new donations, ultimately multiplying the impact of each donation, and creating a viral giving effect.
Mechanism
As an example, suppose Alice decides to give $100 to three of her favourite charities to celebrate her birthday. Using the Giving Coupons website, Alice creates ten $10 coupons and sends one to each of her friends. These coupons essentially allow her friends to decide how to split the $100 between the three charities.
When her friend Bob receives a coupon, he redeems it on the Giving Coupons website where he sees and reads about the three charities that Alice has selected. Bob then picks one of them to send the $10 to.
After her friends have finished indicating their choices, Alice then distributes her $100 to the three charities accordingly. Furthermore, Alice's friends are also prompted to optionally match the donation with their own money (perhaps as a birthday gift to Alice), creating a money-multiplier effect on the original $100. Such a system allows Alice to raise awareness of her favourite charities while multiplying the impact of her donations.
Sample coupon design
Giving Coupons aims to be a fun and social way to give the gift of giving. Unlike a traditional donation matching campaign, Giving Coupons allows coupon recipients like Bob to participate in charitable giving without having to necessarily donate their own money. By requiring users to choose between charities, we encourage them to learn more about each charity, prompting questions about cause prioritisation and charity effectiveness. Giving Coupons creates opportunities for people to engage with each other, reflect on their values, and inspire each other to be more generous.
Giving Coupons is a flexible mechanism that can be applied in a variety of contexts:
Individuals creating campaigns to promote their favourite causes
Corporations engaging their employees or the public by distributing coupons to them
Philanthropic foundations seeking to multiply their donations through the community
Schools distributing coupons to students as an educational activity
Governments engaging their citizens with participatory budgeting
Grantmakers promoting their projects
Event organisers using coupons as gifts or prizes
Influencers seeking to share their wealth and generosity
Leaders who want to publicly set an example
These coupons can be physical or digital. They can serve as currency, gifts, or incentives. They can be used as tools for marketing and advocacy. They can make giving a part of everyday interactions.
Strategy
The success of Giving Coupons relies on the money multiplier effect and the viral effect.
When coupon recipients match the coupon value or otherwise make their own contribution, this creates the money multiplier effect on the original sum of money committed. A multiplier of 10% would mean that every $100 donated through Giving Coupons generates an additional $10 given to charity. This is a clear, measurable metric that would be attractive to donors seeking to maximise the impact of their giving.
When an individual gives coupons to 10 friends, and some of these friends give coupons to 10 more, a chain of giving is created. This viral effect is key to the true success of this project, allowing Giving Coupons to become a self-sustaining, self-promoting movement.
Status and Next Steps
I personally ran a few successful trials achieving a multiplier effect of up to 20%. I'm now seeking comments, feedback, collaborators and pathways to scale up this project.
What do you think of this idea? Would you use something like this? What are some reasons it might not work? How can/should I scale this up? Please do let me know what you think in the comments, I would appreciate all feedback.
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New video from Ali Abdaal (5.74m YT subscribers): Why I’m giving 10% of my income to charity (forever)
I gave comments on this directly to Wayne. I'd encourage others to comment (decently high VOI perhaps), and I'll share my comments later so as not to bias.
I'd be interested in seeing your comments David!