Simply what would work out best for the charities rather than the donors. Would it be in the best interests of a given charity to have donors interested in giving all their charity money to one charity, or to have donors split it between a bunch of charities?
Can’t say I’ve seen specific models. I imagine it depends on what the utility functions of charities are. If the charities are run by people just looking to keep their jobs/get status, I’d guess they want people to donate to them rather than other charities on the margin, and that would lead to people donating to lots of charities. If charities just want to help make the world better then that implies that they want people to donate to the single best charitiy. Since there are many charities in the world, that supports theory 1.
I don’t think it depends on the motivations of those in the charities, based on my views of the insides of a few—some of which had succumbed thoroughly to the Iron Law of Institutions (where the people working there didn’t believe any more), some of which were pretty solidly oriented to their stated purpose, and some of which were in between (some recoverable, some not).
I think we can reasonably just assume, without making this question meaninglessly hypothetical, that the charities want money and we don’t need to go more deeply into it for the question to be applicable to the real world—and I am indeed asking because I am interested in the real world applications of this question:
What is the best giving strategy for charities to encourage: for people to spread their donations, or for people to give their year’s charity spend to a single charity?
(For a start, I would guess this would vary with size and fame of charity. Large charities would be more confident of being the winner, small charities would be more pleased to get anything at all. Then there is the fact that not only are the donors not independent actors, the donors and charities aren’t either. Can a donor and a charity be said to be conspiring to achieve their aim? I think they can. This complicates things, though I’m not sure if it’s enough to make a difference.)
[And I would be flatly amazed if there wasn’t considerable study on this subject already, as there have been enough large charities for long enough who would be considerably interested in the topic that anything claiming to be a radical breakthrough in thinking on the subject from outside the charity field will need to be assessed in the context of existing work, rather than being regarded as a completely new idea in an unexplored field. As I recall, there was no mention of any past work in this area at all. Is there actually none, or did the authors just not look?]
I’m not sure how you’d design a model for “encouragement” and its effects. Care to elaborate on what sort of model you’re thinking about?
Simply what would work out best for the charities rather than the donors. Would it be in the best interests of a given charity to have donors interested in giving all their charity money to one charity, or to have donors split it between a bunch of charities?
Can’t say I’ve seen specific models. I imagine it depends on what the utility functions of charities are. If the charities are run by people just looking to keep their jobs/get status, I’d guess they want people to donate to them rather than other charities on the margin, and that would lead to people donating to lots of charities. If charities just want to help make the world better then that implies that they want people to donate to the single best charitiy. Since there are many charities in the world, that supports theory 1.
I don’t think it depends on the motivations of those in the charities, based on my views of the insides of a few—some of which had succumbed thoroughly to the Iron Law of Institutions (where the people working there didn’t believe any more), some of which were pretty solidly oriented to their stated purpose, and some of which were in between (some recoverable, some not).
I think we can reasonably just assume, without making this question meaninglessly hypothetical, that the charities want money and we don’t need to go more deeply into it for the question to be applicable to the real world—and I am indeed asking because I am interested in the real world applications of this question:
What is the best giving strategy for charities to encourage: for people to spread their donations, or for people to give their year’s charity spend to a single charity?
(For a start, I would guess this would vary with size and fame of charity. Large charities would be more confident of being the winner, small charities would be more pleased to get anything at all. Then there is the fact that not only are the donors not independent actors, the donors and charities aren’t either. Can a donor and a charity be said to be conspiring to achieve their aim? I think they can. This complicates things, though I’m not sure if it’s enough to make a difference.)
[And I would be flatly amazed if there wasn’t considerable study on this subject already, as there have been enough large charities for long enough who would be considerably interested in the topic that anything claiming to be a radical breakthrough in thinking on the subject from outside the charity field will need to be assessed in the context of existing work, rather than being regarded as a completely new idea in an unexplored field. As I recall, there was no mention of any past work in this area at all. Is there actually none, or did the authors just not look?]