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?
Small extra comment - I think the costs of slow fundraising are potentially much worse than 'a month of staff time'. Fundraising mainly takes up the time of senior management, so it bottlenecks the rest of the organisation. It usually becomes the 'top idea on your mind' meaning it especially absorbs your most creative, focused hours. If fundraising results become more volatile (even if in expectation you get the same amount of money) it forces you to become more risk-averse and spend longer contingency planning, which makes it harder to reach really ambitious goals.
In general, we want an ecosystem where the link between expected impact and getting money is quick and reliable.
I think the fact that it's a very stressful activity is also pretty relevant.