Interesting view, but I have a different perspective based on my experience in the effective giving and AIM startup space. I haven't observed organisations being pushed toward premature scaling or unnecessary short-term funding growth. In fact, I've seen quite different dynamics at play often pushing in the opposite direction. Would be curious to hear specific examples from others where they've seen this pattern occur?

One concern I've got about this model for funding EA groups is about the incentive structure this creates. While member donations could provide useful feedback, this might lead community builders to optimise for member satisfaction rather than impact. A group running popular social events might receive more donations than one doing the harder work of developing people's capabilities to tackle pressing challenges.

The ultimate measure of an EA group's success should be its ability to develop capable individuals who can contribute meaningfully to improving the world. This might require not running popular programs that increase immediate member satisfaction.

FWIW I completely agree that EA uni groups should be able to fund themselves a fair bit like most other uni groups and societies do. Definitely worth having 'scholarship' options for those who request it, but the default should be that these EA uni groups do whatever is 'normal' for socialites at their university. I also think that this would go some way to make EA seems less weird. 

Thank you for raising this important point about double-counting, Ian! This is something we go to great pains to avoid when evaluating the counterfactual impact of fundraising efforts in the effective giving space. For example, we're careful not to count donations that would have happened anyway or were primarily inspired by other organisations when accounting for our own organisation's counterfactual multiplier. 

Where I see it a bit differently is around the question of individual impact credit. Rather than worrying about dividing up credit between meta-donors and direct donors, I think what matters most is maximising our collective impact as a community. When you donate to an EG organisation, you might indeed be counterfactually responsible for 2x or more money going to effective charities - and so too are the people who choose to donate after learning about effective charities through your meta-donation. Since we're all working toward the same goal of maximising good done, this isn't a zero-sum game where we need to divide up credit.

This accounting question really only becomes crucial when we need to make decisions about where to direct scarce funding - we want to fund the organisations that will be most effective at growing the total pool of donations to effective charities.

That said, I think your approach of allocating 15% to evaluators makes a lot of practical sense as a way to sustainably support the ecosystem. It aligns nicely with the thrust of Ollie Base's argument in his post "Consider donating to whoever helped you" while avoiding getting too caught up in precise impact attribution. And as you note, GiveWell's excess funds regranting policy makes this particularly straightforward in their case and this policiy is something we are working to put in place at GWWC too.

Hey @Henri Thunberg 🔸 really exciting that you'll be making a donation in this space. Happy to talk this through with you if you'd like :) I've DM'd you :) 

In some ways this level of advising was what @Spencer R. Ericson 🔸 was trying to do with SoGive. Although, they've now pivoted as I think there was not sufficient interest or willingness to pay from this size of donor. See this post on SoGive's expanded advising and custom research service (I think now outdated). 

I've already seen all the GWWC stuff (and think it's awesome!), but seeing your more recent work on GCR visualisations reminded me how much we lost with you moving on from GWWC... and how much you're now bringing to the rest of the EA space! Absolutely fantastic work :) 

I completely agree that focusing on pledges for students over direct fundraising is a good idea! In our latest internal impact evaluation (2022) at GWWC we found that each new 10% Pledge results in roughly $100,000 USD donated to high impact funding opportunities over the lifetime of the pledge (and we conservatively estimate that ~1/5 of that is counterfactual). Because of this, in my view focusing on promoting pledges is the more impactful path as one single 10% Pledge would raise more in the longrun as the most successful student fundraising campaign imaginable. It also has the added benefit of making a clear case for effective and significant giving which I think helps to promote positive values in the world and demonstrates the kind of principles that we care about in the EA community.

OTOH I think that often people feel like students might not feel able to make such a big commitment. However, I think that this is a little overcautious. I took the 10% Pledge as a student and found giving incredibly manageable. The 10% Pledge encouraged students to aim for about 1% of their spending money, which for me amounted to roughly £100 a year—less than the cost of a couple of pints each month. It was easy and, honestly, it felt really rewarding. Getting into the habit of giving early on has been very helpful as well. It became a core part of my identity, something I felt really proud of. Once I started working full-time, giving 10% of my income was easy. I simply was able to set it aside each month and hardly noticed it was gone. Since I had never been accustomed to that extra 10%, I've never felt like I was sacrificing anything.

Hey! Glad you want to bring more effective giving into your uni group. I myself took the 10% Pledge as student and still think it was amongst the best decisions I've ever made :) 

I now work at Giving What We Can and we've developed a guide for how we can support / collaborate with EA groups to further our shared mission of spreading the ideas of effective giving, and effective altruism more broadly. I've DM'd you a link