I do believe that anonymous fund raising removes information about community participation that is very valuable to potential donors. Part of making a donation is responding the signal that you are not the only one sending a check to a hopeless office somewhere.
The reason I specified anonymity was to reduce the likelihood of a social stigma attached to not donating. The idea of pressuring people into an otherwise voluntary gesture of support makes me very uncomfortable.
However, I may be overcautious on that aspect, and I defer to your greater experience with fundraising. Do you have any other empirical observations about response to fundraising efforts? You could consider submitting an article on the subject, either as it relates to instrumental rationality, or for the benefit of anyone else who might want to organize a rationality-related non-profit.
I think your caution is warranted, the fact that you can see the other people in the synagogue who don’t stand up could be very hurtful to the nonparticipants. Highlighting individual donors or small groups is a good way to show public support without giving away to much information about your membership’s participation as a whole.
If you are interested in more rigorous studies (we did ours in excel), you might want to try Dean Karlan’s “Does Price Matter in Charitable Giving? Evidence from a Large-Scale Natural Field Experiment ”
http://karlan.yale.edu/p/MatchingGrant.pdf
Amongst a group of people who know and interact with each other regularly such as a synagogue those who have the means to donate money and those who do not would be an extremely obvious piece of information to the members of that group.
There are actually two actions taken here by members, they either do not donate or they donate a certain amount. To the members of the group the amount donated is as much of an information channel as the choice to donate or not to donate. Those who donate a lot and are rich may cause offence by donating less than expected, those who donate a little when there is no expectation may gain esteem.
You are proposing a situation in which an individual donates less than expected by such a magnitude that it seriously affects people’s esteem for them. This is possible, although given social pressures unlikely. It can occur at all because the magnitude of the donation combined with the wealth of the individual and the support for the cause are all easily calculable. Magnitude of donation is known, wealth is implied by clothes, status symbols or frank discussions about income, and support for the place of worship is expected to be high.
In a group of rational people donating to support a cause they have the option of donating, not donating and voicing support or criticism. You have established a reasonable grounds for why people do not arbitrarily voice support, and for why people voice criticism. But let’s look at the amount donated and imagine it were being done publicly, is there a state where people can be hurt by donation or non-donation?
Even if the amount donated and a reasonable guess at the wealth of the individual are available, the amount donated can still vary by the level of support the person feels for the cause. There is no level of donation that is ‘incorrect’ just as there is no arbitrary ‘correct’ level of support. Therefore the situation is most unlikely to cause social harm to the individual donating, or those who do not donate as there is a rational reason for any level of donation.
The reason I specified anonymity was to reduce the likelihood of a social stigma attached to not donating. The idea of pressuring people into an otherwise voluntary gesture of support makes me very uncomfortable.
However, I may be overcautious on that aspect, and I defer to your greater experience with fundraising. Do you have any other empirical observations about response to fundraising efforts? You could consider submitting an article on the subject, either as it relates to instrumental rationality, or for the benefit of anyone else who might want to organize a rationality-related non-profit.
I think your caution is warranted, the fact that you can see the other people in the synagogue who don’t stand up could be very hurtful to the nonparticipants. Highlighting individual donors or small groups is a good way to show public support without giving away to much information about your membership’s participation as a whole.
If you are interested in more rigorous studies (we did ours in excel), you might want to try Dean Karlan’s “Does Price Matter in Charitable Giving? Evidence from a Large-Scale Natural Field Experiment ” http://karlan.yale.edu/p/MatchingGrant.pdf
I will try to dig up some other papers online
Amongst a group of people who know and interact with each other regularly such as a synagogue those who have the means to donate money and those who do not would be an extremely obvious piece of information to the members of that group.
There are actually two actions taken here by members, they either do not donate or they donate a certain amount. To the members of the group the amount donated is as much of an information channel as the choice to donate or not to donate. Those who donate a lot and are rich may cause offence by donating less than expected, those who donate a little when there is no expectation may gain esteem.
You are proposing a situation in which an individual donates less than expected by such a magnitude that it seriously affects people’s esteem for them. This is possible, although given social pressures unlikely. It can occur at all because the magnitude of the donation combined with the wealth of the individual and the support for the cause are all easily calculable. Magnitude of donation is known, wealth is implied by clothes, status symbols or frank discussions about income, and support for the place of worship is expected to be high.
In a group of rational people donating to support a cause they have the option of donating, not donating and voicing support or criticism. You have established a reasonable grounds for why people do not arbitrarily voice support, and for why people voice criticism. But let’s look at the amount donated and imagine it were being done publicly, is there a state where people can be hurt by donation or non-donation?
Even if the amount donated and a reasonable guess at the wealth of the individual are available, the amount donated can still vary by the level of support the person feels for the cause. There is no level of donation that is ‘incorrect’ just as there is no arbitrary ‘correct’ level of support. Therefore the situation is most unlikely to cause social harm to the individual donating, or those who do not donate as there is a rational reason for any level of donation.