In a comment on GWWC's recent fundraising appeal, I asked whether prospective donors were holding off on donating until the end of the fundraiser, out of the worry that it would hit its goal early and thus their donation would not have any counterfactual impact. About 50% of people who answered the poll said that they were influenced "at least in part" by this reasoning.
So it sounds like we might have a coordination problem on our hands that causes everyone to wait until the last minute to donate to large fundraisers. Unfortunately, as Rob Wiblin notes, this
comes at the cost that we have to put in more time - perhaps a month of staff time - in order to eventually reach our goal. In addition, there's the stress and uncertainty it creates for us.
So it seems like it might be useful to figure out a more efficient way of allocating EA donations that didn't waste so much org time by donors waiting until the last minute. What are people's thoughts on how we could accomplish this?
Here are the figures from Ben's poll so anyone can refer to them:
" how many folks have held off donating to GWWC in order to see whether their fundraiser hits its goal without their donations (so that their donation would have been replaceable/had no counterfactual impact)? "
I donated 0 (0%)
I refrained from donating PRIMARILY for the above reason 1 (3%)
I refrained from donating AT LEAST IN PART for the above reason 13 (45%)
The above reason didn't affect my decision at all 15 (52%)
And here are the figures from my poll with a fuller set of options:
I donated money that'd otherwise have gone to direct support of the global poor 0 (0%)
I donated money that'd otherwise have gone to help others 0 (0%)
I donated money that wouldn't have otherwise have gone to help anyone else (e.g. I'd have spent it on myself) 1 (8%)
My main reason for not donating was the thought that my donation wouldn't raise GWWC's counterfactual spending 0 (0%)
My main reason for not donating was not being sufficiently convinced that increasing GWWC's spending would do the most good 12 (92%)
I thought donating would raise GWWC's counterfactual spending and this would do the most good, but nonetheless didn't donate 0 (0%)
Of course these polls aren't fully comparable, as saying "I refrained from donating AT LEAST IN PART for the above reason" means only that you think it's one reason for not donating, and as 'Larks' points out there are two possible ways of cashing out "My main reason for not donating was the thought that my donation wouldn't raise GWWC's counterfactual spending":
Thanks for this! Do you know how many respondents there were for each poll?