I'm very curious to hear more about your experience running an EA group. I've been running (with a co-leader) an EA group at Texas A&M and it is very challenging. Though we just recently became an official student org so hopefully that helps outreach opportunities.
What do you think went wrong while you were leading?
Maybe this one is different, but my prior from time in non-profits is that matching gifts are gimmicks ~100% of the time. How it works is the donor already committed the money and they're trying to encourage more people to give using some creative accounting, so it seems highly, highly unlikely that the donor will till them to pound sand if they only raise $297,000 by 7/10. At worst, some of the money will be delayed and they'll announce an extension to the campaign because they're so close. Again, maybe this is an exception and you know first hand that they really, truly won't get the $300,000 unless we all give, but I am skeptical (but I gave anyway both to signal that I'm not trying to throw cold water on this and because we all love animal welfare anyway).
Also, this is unrelated, but did you ever publish the results of your reader survey from a few weeks back?
Thanks. I am confident in my analysis of the first point, but to be clear I have no objection to matching gift gimmicks (my work with non-profits is overwhelmingly not EA-related (unless you think the church is the most effective charity of all)).
And thanks for the link, would be cool to see the full results at some point.
"The money they have through the pac is only spent on opposing this bill" was also strange because your donation link was to a 501(c)4, not the AMPA PAC.
The conclusion of my research is that the donation link you gave probably does not go 100% to opposing the Save Our Bacon Act. I'm sorry if I sound too confrontational, that's not my intent. Having accurate information is important to defeating the Save Our Bacon Act, and knowing the answers to the questions I'm asking may affect if/how I donate. On utilitarian terms, your answers to these questions can affect a good number of expected $ donated or animal utils gained.
So I ask you to either correct these statements or explain why they are actually true.
Good stuff. Speaking of starting a club at your university, you should also consider starting an animal rights group. Myself and a few others are involved a project now to try and reach out to as many schools as we can across the US and get students there to start animal rights groups. If anyone reading this is interested in starting a group at their school, please DM me!
Really appreciate the PSA
I just donated $500 to ACE
I'm very curious to hear more about your experience running an EA group. I've been running (with a co-leader) an EA group at Texas A&M and it is very challenging. Though we just recently became an official student org so hopefully that helps outreach opportunities.
What do you think went wrong while you were leading?
I didn't run enough events, basically, and wasn't good at getting people to go to the event that I did run.
Lmk if you want any help! I ran events for EA Oxford and also ran an EA group at Davidson briefly.
Im also interested to hear more. I’m running EA @ UIUC next semester.
Maybe this one is different, but my prior from time in non-profits is that matching gifts are gimmicks ~100% of the time. How it works is the donor already committed the money and they're trying to encourage more people to give using some creative accounting, so it seems highly, highly unlikely that the donor will till them to pound sand if they only raise $297,000 by 7/10. At worst, some of the money will be delayed and they'll announce an extension to the campaign because they're so close. Again, maybe this is an exception and you know first hand that they really, truly won't get the $300,000 unless we all give, but I am skeptical (but I gave anyway both to signal that I'm not trying to throw cold water on this and because we all love animal welfare anyway).
Also, this is unrelated, but did you ever publish the results of your reader survey from a few weeks back?
Not too sure about the first thing.
I talked about a bunch of the results here https://benthams.substack.com/p/effective-altruist-writing-is-impactful?utm_source=publication-search
Thanks. I am confident in my analysis of the first point, but to be clear I have no objection to matching gift gimmicks (my work with non-profits is overwhelmingly not EA-related (unless you think the church is the most effective charity of all)).
And thanks for the link, would be cool to see the full results at some point.
Wish I had seen this before doing an EA Animal Welfare donation swap with someone on the EA forum
Speaking of time sensitive do gooding opportunities, about the Save Our Bacon Act.
- Is it still a time sensitive do-gooding opportunity?
- You stated earlier that all donations to the AMPA go towards opposing the Save Our Bacon Act (technically your exact quote was "The money they have through the pac is only spent on opposing this bill"). It was in this comment https://benthams.substack.com/p/the-most-important-decision-for-animals/comment/270197239, and the donation link was https://donorbox.org/american-meat-producers-association. Can you provide any proof of this?
I'm pretty sure your claim is false. The FEC at https://www.fec.gov/data/committee/C00929828/?tab=spending#total-disbursements indicates that they spent $1000 on Annie Craig's campaign, and their other expenditures are all legal fees or transaction fees.
"The money they have through the pac is only spent on opposing this bill" was also strange because your donation link was to a 501(c)4, not the AMPA PAC.
The conclusion of my research is that the donation link you gave probably does not go 100% to opposing the Save Our Bacon Act. I'm sorry if I sound too confrontational, that's not my intent. Having accurate information is important to defeating the Save Our Bacon Act, and knowing the answers to the questions I'm asking may affect if/how I donate. On utilitarian terms, your answers to these questions can affect a good number of expected $ donated or animal utils gained.
So I ask you to either correct these statements or explain why they are actually true.
Yes, is this true?
Thanks for sending this out - seems like good opportunities.
ACE reached the full $300,000. Good job everyone.
Has Mobius reached the full $10k for monthly donations?
Good stuff. Speaking of starting a club at your university, you should also consider starting an animal rights group. Myself and a few others are involved a project now to try and reach out to as many schools as we can across the US and get students there to start animal rights groups. If anyone reading this is interested in starting a group at their school, please DM me!