This article is disappointing: it gives a very strong impression that you wrote the bottom line first. As a result, this looks not so much as an article about “How valuable is volunteering?”, but rather a collection of arguments designed to steer a reader from volunteering towards effective altruism.
Since that is essentially what you’re doing, you should be more open about that, and then the article would be more effective as well. The way it looks now, I imagine reading it as a high school student and immediately thinking: “this guy isn’t really interested in finding out the value of volunteering. He has his own agenda to sell.”
The logical structure of the article makes it clear that you’re eliminating options one by one:
Want to volunteer to help people who can pay? Bad idea.
Still want to do that? Another reason it’s a bad idea.
What’s left, helping people in need? No, cash is better
Still want to help? Don’t, you’ll be hurting others!
Want to spend your time volunteering? Don’t, your time is too valuable, donate cash instead.
Want to volunteer? It’s costly for the nonprofit to train you, don’t be so selfish.
Bummer, what should I do then? Glad you asked! There’s this thing called effective altruism...
You never try to see why volunteering may be more valuable than donating. There’s no attempt to understand, much less steelman, the opposing side. Here, off the top of my head:
When volunteering, a person sees the fruits of their labor immediately; when donating money, there’s uncertainty about whether it really goes to the stated goal, or is squandered due to incompetence, inefficiency, fraud. Organizations that track and rank charities solve this only partially, since you need to trust them, too, and their ability to understand the charities may be limited. Depending on how people estimate the degree of uncertainty, they may rationally prefer volunteering.
Volunteering may be a way to train oneself effectively to help others, by using social pleasure and cohesiveness. Some people are just not motivated enough by sending a check and imagining the rest; you can tell them to “separate utilons and hedons” all you want, but if the actual result is that they’ll stop donating, it may be better to volunteer.
Visible volunteering work is much more effective at drawing others to charitable causes than hired workforce performing the same work.
Finally, your particular arguments are sometimes poor, as is typical for arguments chosen for a precommitted bottom line. For example:
But after a certain point, people aren’t willing to give more money to charity. By getting people to give to one nonprofit, you can make them reluctant to give to other nonprofits, reducing their funding.
An unconvincing zero-sum assumption (who said we’re anywhere near close the “certain point”?). Also, hello, by urging people to consider e.g. GiveWell’s recommendations, this is exactly what you’re doing!
training and supervising volunteers often costs a nonprofit a lot of money,
If it’s not net helpful to the nonprofit, they will not accept the volunteers.
Thanks for the thoughtful comment. As with all articles that I’ve posted from Cognito Mentoring, part of my purpose in posting is to solicit feedback, both on the content and on the presentation.
This article is disappointing: it gives a very strong impression that you wrote the bottom line first.
The article was written with an assumption that the reader would have been exposed to the basic arguments in favor of volunteering ahead of time, which accounts for the imbalance.
Since that is essentially what you’re doing, you should be more open about that, and then the article would be more effective as well. The way it looks now, I imagine reading it as a high school student and immediately thinking: “this guy isn’t really interested in finding out the value of volunteering. He has his own agenda to sell.”
Thanks, this is good information, I’ll think about rewriting it along the lines that you suggest.
You never try to see why volunteering may be more valuable than donating. There’s no attempt to understand, much less steelman, the opposing side. Here, off the top of my head:
To be clear, I don’t necessarily think that donating is more valuable than volunteering in a given instance, or maybe even generically. I expect volunteering to be more valuable than donating for many of our readers. Note that in the “what to do?” section I don’t suggest that the reader donate. I’ll try to make the article more clear.
Your points are strong, and I’ll add them.
An unconvincing zero-sum assumption (who said we’re anywhere near close the “certain point”?).
Charitable giving in the US has allegedly been fixed at 2% for the past 40 years despite an increase in fundraising. It could be that the rate would decrease if marginal fundraisers stopped fundraising, but there’s a genuine possibility that people’s willingness to give has been saturated in general.
Also, hello, by urging people to consider e.g. GiveWell’s recommendations, this is exactly what you’re doing!
There’s no contradiction here; if philanthropic opportunity A is better than philanthropic opportunity B, then convincing people to take opportunity A rather than B is net positive, even though there’s a negative effect.
If it’s not net helpful to the nonprofit, they will not accept the volunteers.
It’s helpful to the nonprofit on net, but the value that the volunteers add is less than the value of their labor – it can be arbitrarily close to zero as long as it’s positive.
The article was written with an assumption that the reader would have been exposed to the basic arguments in favor of volunteering ahead of time, which accounts for the imbalance.
Then you should definitely mention that, so the reader knows to expect the one-sidedness upfront.
There’s no contradiction here; if philanthropic opportunity A is better than philanthropic opportunity B, then convincing people to take opportunity A rather than B is net positive, even though there’s a negative effect.
Yes, but you advising people to donate to a nonprofit and someone “fundraising for a nonprofit” is essentially the same activity. You do it because it can be net positive, but then you criticize someone else doing it because “it can hurt other nonprofits”, without mentioning the net positive thing in that case.
P.S. Since I probably came off as curmudgeony, just wanted to mention that I think Cogito Mentoring is a promising endeavor and some of your articles have been great; don’t take my brisk criticism of this one as hostile or peeved.
Then you should definitely mention that, so the reader knows to expect the one-sidedness upfront.
Will do
Yes, but you advising people to donate to a nonprofit and someone “fundraising for a nonprofit” is essentially the same activity. You do it because it can be net positive, but then you criticize someone else doing it because “it can hurt other nonprofits”, without mentioning the net positive thing in that case.
I was mentioning it as an offsetting effect. Whether or not it’s net positive is highly contingent on the relative quality of the charity that’s fundraised for. If there were a fixed supply of charitable funds available then fundraising for the charities with below average marginal cost-effectiveness would be net negative.
P.S. Since I probably came off as curmudgeony, just wanted to mention that I think Cogito Mentoring is a promising endeavor and some of your articles have been great; don’t take my brisk criticism of this one as hostile or peeved.
This article is disappointing: it gives a very strong impression that you wrote the bottom line first. As a result, this looks not so much as an article about “How valuable is volunteering?”, but rather a collection of arguments designed to steer a reader from volunteering towards effective altruism.
Since that is essentially what you’re doing, you should be more open about that, and then the article would be more effective as well. The way it looks now, I imagine reading it as a high school student and immediately thinking: “this guy isn’t really interested in finding out the value of volunteering. He has his own agenda to sell.”
The logical structure of the article makes it clear that you’re eliminating options one by one:
Want to volunteer to help people who can pay? Bad idea.
Still want to do that? Another reason it’s a bad idea.
What’s left, helping people in need? No, cash is better
Still want to help? Don’t, you’ll be hurting others!
Want to spend your time volunteering? Don’t, your time is too valuable, donate cash instead.
Want to volunteer? It’s costly for the nonprofit to train you, don’t be so selfish.
Bummer, what should I do then? Glad you asked! There’s this thing called effective altruism...
You never try to see why volunteering may be more valuable than donating. There’s no attempt to understand, much less steelman, the opposing side. Here, off the top of my head:
When volunteering, a person sees the fruits of their labor immediately; when donating money, there’s uncertainty about whether it really goes to the stated goal, or is squandered due to incompetence, inefficiency, fraud. Organizations that track and rank charities solve this only partially, since you need to trust them, too, and their ability to understand the charities may be limited. Depending on how people estimate the degree of uncertainty, they may rationally prefer volunteering.
Volunteering may be a way to train oneself effectively to help others, by using social pleasure and cohesiveness. Some people are just not motivated enough by sending a check and imagining the rest; you can tell them to “separate utilons and hedons” all you want, but if the actual result is that they’ll stop donating, it may be better to volunteer.
Visible volunteering work is much more effective at drawing others to charitable causes than hired workforce performing the same work.
Finally, your particular arguments are sometimes poor, as is typical for arguments chosen for a precommitted bottom line. For example:
An unconvincing zero-sum assumption (who said we’re anywhere near close the “certain point”?). Also, hello, by urging people to consider e.g. GiveWell’s recommendations, this is exactly what you’re doing!
If it’s not net helpful to the nonprofit, they will not accept the volunteers.
Thanks for the thoughtful comment. As with all articles that I’ve posted from Cognito Mentoring, part of my purpose in posting is to solicit feedback, both on the content and on the presentation.
The article was written with an assumption that the reader would have been exposed to the basic arguments in favor of volunteering ahead of time, which accounts for the imbalance.
Thanks, this is good information, I’ll think about rewriting it along the lines that you suggest.
To be clear, I don’t necessarily think that donating is more valuable than volunteering in a given instance, or maybe even generically. I expect volunteering to be more valuable than donating for many of our readers. Note that in the “what to do?” section I don’t suggest that the reader donate. I’ll try to make the article more clear.
Your points are strong, and I’ll add them.
Charitable giving in the US has allegedly been fixed at 2% for the past 40 years despite an increase in fundraising. It could be that the rate would decrease if marginal fundraisers stopped fundraising, but there’s a genuine possibility that people’s willingness to give has been saturated in general.
There’s no contradiction here; if philanthropic opportunity A is better than philanthropic opportunity B, then convincing people to take opportunity A rather than B is net positive, even though there’s a negative effect.
It’s helpful to the nonprofit on net, but the value that the volunteers add is less than the value of their labor – it can be arbitrarily close to zero as long as it’s positive.
Then you should definitely mention that, so the reader knows to expect the one-sidedness upfront.
Yes, but you advising people to donate to a nonprofit and someone “fundraising for a nonprofit” is essentially the same activity. You do it because it can be net positive, but then you criticize someone else doing it because “it can hurt other nonprofits”, without mentioning the net positive thing in that case.
P.S. Since I probably came off as curmudgeony, just wanted to mention that I think Cogito Mentoring is a promising endeavor and some of your articles have been great; don’t take my brisk criticism of this one as hostile or peeved.
Will do
I was mentioning it as an offsetting effect. Whether or not it’s net positive is highly contingent on the relative quality of the charity that’s fundraised for. If there were a fixed supply of charitable funds available then fundraising for the charities with below average marginal cost-effectiveness would be net negative.
Thanks :-)