Oh dear im afraid this has turned out quite long, I've been trawling around the internet trying to get info on how effective fundraising is. Its easy to find information from the perspective of a charity but much harder to find out how much donations individual fundraisers are (partially) responsible for.

I'm gonna continue looking into it, but I found this stuff so far very interesting so I thought I'd post it here.


1.

"The average monthly donor gives between $18 and $20, and many of those who signed up in 2002 are still giving monthly today, said co-founder and president John Finlay."

"The pay is $13 an hour plus benefits, with no commissions: Imagine Canada, a charitable umbrella organization, and the Association of Fundraising Professionals both prohibit them. Still, many canvassers set personal goals of signing three or four monthly donors a day"

http://publicoutreachgroup.com/ca-fr/bl ... use-street

from what I've read so far 3 monthly donors a day seems like maybe a general figure I'll use until I've got more information.

if the average donor is giving $19 a month for 5 years thats = $19 x 12 x 5 = $1140

and if the average fundraiser is signing up 3 people per day = $1140 x 3 = $3420

and if the fundraiser works an 8 hour day they're total daily donation will be = $3420 - ($13 x 8) = $3420 - $104 = $3316/working day

thats canadian dollars so, $3316 (CAD) = 3,344.32 (USD)

"Founded in 2002, the company guarantees charities between a 2:1 and 3:1 return on investment over a five-year campaign, with the agency absorbing the risk."

huh? if the amount a fundraiser is getting people to donate per day is over $3000, and if the returns are 3:1, is that to say that a charity spends $1000 to get $3000? (or does the charity invest $1000 to get $4000 as I believe betting works??)

because to make that >$3000 the fundrasing organisation is spending much less than $1000! if the fundraisers daily wage is $104 and then maybe they have some administration costs but maybe they are making a lot of money?...


2.

Wikipedia cites similar returns (tho link is dead:/)

"The fundraisers may be employed directly by the charity as part of an 'in-house' team. They may also be employed by an agency working specifically in the area of fundraising. In this case, the company is usually paid a fixed fee per person signed up. This fee depends on a number of variables, such as the number of donors required and the average annual donation desired. Though charities can normally expect to generate a minimum return on their investment of 3:1 over the duration of a donor's giving relationship with them.[1]"

"On average, the supporter who signs up on the street will continue giving for 5 years. Regular giving is understood by those working in the charity sector as the most effective form of giving, allowing for long term planning. So, a supporter giving £10 a month will, over 5 years, give £600 to the charity, and also lead to the likelihood of the charity claiming Gift Aid, a further 25% tax relief from the government[citation needed]"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street_fundraising

does this mean the charity gets an extra 25% of £600 ? I thought a donation had to be one single donation over a certain amount to qualify for this?

1 supporter = £600 = $953.68

or 1 supporter = £600 + 25% of £600 = £600 + £150 = £750 = $1,191.69

which is comparable to the first figure.


3.

"Besides, look at the facts: in the financial year of 2009-2010 street fundraising brought in 177,665 brand new donors to various charities, giving, roughly, on average £8 per month.

That’s not including gift aid and let’s not get into the debate on how many people drop out – because with rising minimum ages and stricter quality controls, attrition’s not the issue that it may have been in the past. As for myself, I run two teams of fundraisers for the British Red Cross and, with the amount of new donors we’re on course to recruit this year, will raise £1,500,000 projected over a three-year period."

http://blogs.redcross.org.uk/fundraisin ... -chuggers/


4.

"Once a donor signs up, the standing order lasts six years on average"

"I started on £8 an hour and am now on £10. There are targets - we're supposed to sign up five people a day - but it doesn't affect your pay."

"This is the most efficient and cost-effective way for a charity to raise money. It gives enough scope to plan for the future (the average donor gives for about 5-6 years) and not waste money. While there is still so much poverty, suffering and death I feel that being as understanding and as generous as possible is the least we can do.
Kim, England"


"I worked as a chugger but only lasted one week. My agency paid commission and the targets were tough. Seeing how automated and pushy some of my colleagues were made me quit ASAP. I was quite uneasy, especially as if you earned over a certain amount you got 40% - think how little the charity would get after the agency took its fee.
Gary O'Boy, UK"

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/2090680.stm

I dunno what the "This is the most efficient" bit is based on.


5.

"DialogueDirect, a professional fundraising business which reported recruiting 260,000 donors for its clients such as Children International and Plan USA, pays its street solicitors $9.14 an hour plus "performance related pay." DialogueDirect also reports on its web site that its "Dialoguers" or street solicitors "are averaging between $500 and $1000 per week." A full-time 40-hour week at $9.14 per hour is only $365. This means that the average solicitor earns 27% to 63% of their pay by meeting "performance and quality targets.""

"The web site of DialogueDirect states that they "charge [to the charity] a flat fee for donors acquired.""

"Children International pays DialogueDirect $210 for each new child sponsor who agrees to a minimum monthly donation of $22, according to the charity's current fundraising contract with DialogueDirect. This means that a donor will have to make regular $22 payments for ten months before any of their contribution can start to benefit children. The campaign goal, according to the fundraising contract, is 19,048 new Children International sponsors for a $4 million fee to DialogueDirect."

http://www.charitywatch.org/articles/st ... tions.html


6.

"Some large charitable groups pay up to £136 to outside companies for every direct debit secured on the street by professional fundraisers or ‘charity muggers’."

"On average, charities pay about £100 for everyone who they persuade to sign up. If someone donates £5 a month, it would take almost two years before the premium is covered.

The British Heart Foundation confirmed it pays the equivalent of £136 per signature, while Cancer Research UK said it paid an average of £112.

Charities have defended the use of the middlemen to find donors, saying they raised up to £4 for every £1 of costs."

http://www.southportvisiter.co.uk/south ... -27188218/

*only* £136 per donor doesnt really seem to add up, if thats the only charge to the charity, given some of the previous figures. maybe some/many of these articles are just wrong


7.


"They approach potential donors on the street every five seconds and ten out of every 100 people stop to listen to what they have to say. They use their in-depth knowledge about the Red Cross to encourage them to sign up as regular givers.

...

Liam said: “Every single person I talk to, I tell them about the Red Cross. Whether they sign up to become a supporter or not, they walk away knowing something about it. They might go home and decide to have a look at the website, decide to volunteer or make a donation some time in the future. It’s about raising awareness as well as money.

...

On average, every new donor that Liam signs up pledges to give £110 in their first year of support and they may continue to donate to the Red Cross for many years to come."

http://www.redcross.org.uk/Donate-Now/O ... eets-apart

"It’s about raising awareness as well as money." - awesome! maybe this type of fundraising is more suited to organisations who also want to raise awareness?


8.

"High attrition rates can be the main reason why charities drop out of street fundraising. Andrew Cook, director of communications and fundraising at WaterAid, says the charity trialled it for five years from 2001 but has now stopped. "We found with street that the attrition rate was high, and long-term supporter loyalty is critical to our fundraising," he says.

But many charities find that the method generates satisfactory returns. According to a spokeswoman for Save the Children, for every £1 invested in face-to-face, the charity raises another £2."

http://www.thirdsector.co.uk/news/10291 ... ngBulletin


9.

"The attrition rate (number of donors dropping out) in the first year is very high. Between 33% and 58 % of donors recruited in this way will cancel their direct debit within twelve months."

http://www.ecalpemos.org/2011/04/giving ... -face.html


10.

"In 2010, an investigation by Newsnight found that charities were paying an average of £100 to the agencies who provide chuggers, which meant that if you signed up to pay £5 a month, you had to wait well over a year for your money to go where you intended. The previous year, the PFRA revealed that around 55% of donors recruited in 2008 via street fundraisers cancelled their donation within 12 months, which effectively meant that charities saw almost no benefit from their temporary generosity at all."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... -charities


11.

"One former chugger from Gloucestershire said it was a lucrative job. “I got £7 an hour, plus £30 for every sign-up you got after the eighth, which meant that the better fund-raisers were on a stupendously good wage,” said the fund-raiser who wished to remain anonymous.

“I did door-to-door so we got driven to various locations and basically had to harass people in their own homes. We were meant to average two sign-ups a day to keep our job.”"

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstop ... ggers.html


12.

"One of the longest standing street fundraising companies in the UK, Gift Fundraising, has gone into voluntary administration with some 300 staff reportedly being made redundant.

...


Gift Fundraising says it has raised more than £100m for UK charities, both large and small, over the past 10 years.

...

Across Australia an estimated 200,000 charity givers are recruited every year with an annual value of $50m. The average ‘life’ of these recruited donors is five years."

http://www.probonoaustralia.com.au/news ... -its-doors


13.

"An average stay of five years or more on a monthly giving programme is not uncommon. A donor giving even $10 per month will often contribute $600 or more to the organization without costly re-solicitation. When handled properly, monthly donors will continue to donate for years to come, and many will increase the size of their gift when asked."

http://talentegg.com/employer/public-ou ... undraise-/


14.

"The days were long, hard and repetitive. With Amnesty the target was for each of us to get eight people a day to give £5 a month."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12525580


15.

"you agree to sign up, the canvasser takes a void cheque or a credit card number and your monthly promise to donate $10, $20, $30 or more in Sick Kids' case, or a $35 monthly sponsorship in World Vision's case. What you don't know is that the canvasser and his company get a commission of $180 or more to sign you up. Depending on the size of your donation, it could be six months to a year before your donation starts helping children."

"Acquiring monthly donors is expensive work up front that charities hope will pay off as each year goes by. For example, in 2005 new monthly donors brought in to Sick Kids earned the charity $4 million. But the cost of acquiring those doors was $3.5 million, leaving the charity just over $500,000 in actual contributions. What Sick Kids is banking on is that these donors will stay on, because the charity will keep all of the money they donate the next year."

Sick Kids Foundation could not tell the Star the average time its donors stay in the program, but it noted it currently has 56,800 monthly donors who contribute a total of $13.5 million annually.

http://www.thestar.com/news/investigati ... ising-mess

but if we presume the average donor stays with them for 5 years :O!...

I wonder if being a fundraiser could be better than a proffesional philanthropist?
Presuming you work directly for the charity and not through a fundraising organisation

sorry if I've made any stupid maths errors, I finished this a bit late at night

I suspect a great fundraiser can be very effective. Recently one such person shared his knowledge with Giving What We Can: Rutgers - he said he was able to average over $3,000 per week (fundraising for ? UN Health organization). Most of the fundraising occurs on weekdays in the evening for about 4 hours, visiting perhaps 100 doors. Knowing the skills, others can get similar or better results.

After hearing his lecture I am considering learning the skills to do this on the side of my full-time job or as a summer recreation (as a teacher I have summers off).

I think street fundraising can make even more, but even at $3000 a week that could certainly be more than 100k a year in donations, which i would imagine can rival some pro. phil.

100 doors seems small for 4 hours work, was he looking for direct debits or cash straight away?

Ruairi wrote:I'm gonna continue looking into it, but I found this stuff so far very interesting so I thought I'd post it here.

This is great stuff. Thanks!

Ruairi wrote:if the fundraisers daily wage is $104 and then maybe they have some administration costs but maybe they are making a lot of money?...

$104 per day is really cheap.

Yeah, there must be startup costs, admin costs, and days when fundraising doesn't go so well, but even so, these figures suggest that fundraising is wildly cost-effective. Why don't more organizations do it? I can't imagine the market for donors is so saturated that additional fundraising would hit low marginal returns.

Fundraising probably has higher returns for more widely supported and conventional causes (e.g., pets, malaria relief) than unconventional ones (e.g., veg ads). Still, if you frame the cause in the right way, some people will support it. And some people will do anything if you're good at asking.

Ruairi wrote:"This means that a donor will have to make regular $22 payments for ten months before any of their contribution can start to benefit children."

That's an interesting way for the article to phrase it. If people don't like this state of affairs, then if they get solicited by someone asking for a donation, they should remember the name of the organization and donate later on their own. However, the notion that payments to fundraisers don't benefit children is actually untrue, because if paying fundraisers is a highly cost-effective way to get donations, then giving money to fundraisers is an excellent use of the charity's income.

Ruairi wrote:"Charities have defended the use of the middlemen to find donors, saying they raised up to £4 for every £1 of costs."

Exactly. Counterintuitive but true.

Ruairi wrote:"It’s about raising awareness as well as money." - awesome! maybe this type of fundraising is more suited to organisations who also want to raise awareness?

Yep. As long as the fundraiser doesn't make the organization sound greedy, it should be a net win publicity-wise.

Ruairi wrote:"The average ‘life’ of these recruited donors is five years."
http://www.probonoaustralia.com.au/news ... -its-doors

Interesting to compare that with the figure from source #10 that 55% of donors drop out within 12 months. Does that mean that the other 45% stay on for an average of ~10 years? Or maybe the average is weighted by length of donation?

Ruairi wrote:"For example, in 2005 new monthly donors brought in to Sick Kids earned the charity $4 million. But the cost of acquiring those doors was $3.5 million, leaving the charity just over $500,000 in actual contributions. What Sick Kids is banking on is that these donors will stay on, because the charity will keep all of the money they donate the next year."

It sounds like this source is opposed to paid fundraising, but as Ruairi says, the Sick Kids argument seems sound without more context.

yboris wrote:he said he was able to average over $3,000 per week (fundraising for ? UN Health organization). Most of the fundraising occurs on weekdays in the evening for about 4 hours, visiting perhaps 100 doors.

Wow!

yboris wrote:After hearing his lecture I am considering learning the skills to do this on the side of my full-time job or as a summer recreation (as a teacher I have summers off).

Go for it! Let us know how you fare.

Benjamin Todd of 80k asked if i'd be interested in making a google doc about fundraising, i totally would! if anyone wants me to add them to it just send me a pm/email/fb/whatever

Might be worth making it an entry on the Wiki rather than a Google doc. That makes it easier for everyone to see/contribute to.

oh thanks! its a bit messy as Im just getting information atm but maybe I could in a while?

Alan Dawrst wrote:

Ruairi wrote:"The average ‘life’ of these recruited donors is five years."
http://www.probonoaustralia.com.au/news ... -its-doors

Interesting to compare that with the figure from source #10 that 55% of donors drop out within 12 months. Does that mean that the other 45% stay on for an average of ~10 years? Or maybe the average is weighted by length of donation?

seems perhaps yes:) F2F means face2face fundraising

"The reason F2F is so cost-effective is because charities are looking to recruit long-term supporters who will give to them each month for three, four or five years, or even longer. Although about half of the people who sign up through F2F will stop giving in the first year, those that stay beyond 12 months tend to stay for quite a long term and form the bedrock of a charity's supporter base."

http://www.pfra.org.uk/face-to-face_fun ... r_charity/

Hey:)

All this should be cautioned by the fact that I’ve seen other figures higher and lower! Should be taken with a whole handful of salt! Maybe I’ve made mistakes cause I’m using different sources from different countries, written at somewhat different times? Also most of the sources are people I’ve talked to or articles on the net.

There’s more information in the google doc but basically it seems there’s a lot of money to be made for charities from fundraising. "Face to face" fundraisers who try to get "sign ups" (to a direct debit monthly donation) on the street or door to door may average around 2 or 3 sign ups a day (1,2,3,4), each of these donors apparently donates around £8 per month (which maybe actually be over £9 with gift aid) (5,6) and apparently stay with their charity for 5 or 6 years on average. (7,8,9,10,11)

So the average total “lifetime value” of one days face to face fundraising seems to be around = 2 sign ups X £8/month X 60 months = £960

Apparently charities pay an average of £100 per sign up (12), which seemed very high at first considering fundraisers apparently get paid around £8-12 an hour (13).

But I spoke to a guy from the PFRA ( http://www.pfra.org.uk/ ) who said, anecdotally, that the cost isn’t much lower "in house", as you have to pay salaries, insurance (maybe there’s some way around this? signing a waiver?) and salaries of people overseeing the whole operation, etc.

Still, that means that although it will take a few years for the donors to "mature" a fundraiser is raising around £760 for their charity per working day, and that might be low.

What really puzzles me is the marginal benefit issue, I don’t see why it would be hard to recruit fundraisers, especially given the economic situation, a friend of mine went for an interview with "totalfundraising", she said it was a group interview and as far as I know she didn’t get the job so it doesn’t seem like they're short on people.

This also seems to suggest that marginal benefit may be an issue:

“Even in the current financial climate, the pattern of regular turnover of fundraising staff continues with fundraisers moving in order to meet their next challenge. Although there are currently more jobs available, competition is still fierce and with pressure on recruiters to make the right appointment, candidates are being put under increasing scrutiny. That said, there are still shortages of job seekers in certain areas such as Direct Marketing and Major Donor fundraising.” (14)

But if one can make more money for a charity this way rather than as a pro. phil. it seems like a much better course of action, but then there’s the marginal benefit effect, and a charity can only employ a certain number of fundraisers so maybe it’s better to be a pro. phil. unless your marginal difference is better than your donations as a pro. phil.

However, if instead of looking for direct debits a charity is looking for cash or some other kind of immediate donation like cheques; then fundraising could be done, the fundraisers paid (and also insurance, admin costs, etc), and the result is immediate money for the charity. The charity doesn’t have to wait for the donors to “mature”.

Fundraising in this way it seems like a charity could have an infinite number of fundraisers (so no marginal benefit), as long as they are spread over a large enough geographical area. Or perhaps altruists could form branches of a charity in new areas and fundraise and/or hire fundraisers there. I think this seems like a fantastic idea. I wonder whether or not it would be possible for one person to run a very large fundraising operation in several countries or if more employees are needed, could these employees be "outside" hired individuals or would people with an interest and knowledge of the charity be needed (Is this a possible career for altruists? Seems like it could definitely rival pro. phil.)

It seems possible that even if the total amount gained per £ invested in “immediate” forms of fundraising is lower, the overall gain may be higher. Due to the fact that the money can be immediately re-invested in more fundraising and then again and again. Funnily enough 80k just posted a blog post on a similar subject http://80000hours.org/blog/43-the-haste-consideration

Want an altruistic career? Become an NGO worker lol
----------------------

So it all looks promising, I’m gonna try find info on immediate forms of fundraising, if anyone has any please let me know! Or any information related to any of this please. Was that guy you spoke of doing immediate fundraising Boris?

---------------------

(1). "We were meant to average two sign-ups a day to keep our job" – (why does he say meant? Did they actually keep their jobs anyway? Also that’s door to door! Seems to be less gains!) - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstop ... ggers.html

(2). "With Amnesty the target was for each of us to get eight people a day" -http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12525580

(3). A guy I talked to one the street who works for "total fundraising" said they have to get 3 sign ups a day. When I rang total fundraising they said 3 a day also.

(4). A guy I spoke with in the PFRA ( http://www.pfra.org.uk/ ) said, in what seemed like an anecdotal way, that 0 sign ups a day is doing poorly, 1 sign up is average, 3 a day is doing well.

(5). "in the financial year of 2009-2010 street fundraising brought in 177,665 brand new donors to various charities, giving, roughly, on average £8 per month." http://blogs.redcross.org.uk/fundraisin ... -chuggers/

(6). The same person from (4) from the PFRA said roughly £8 and over £9 with gift aid, also this seems consistent with what other articles on the internet say. Maybe even low.

(7). "On average, the supporter who signs up on the street will continue giving for 5 years" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street_fundraising (although without a citation!...)

(8). "Once a donor signs up, the standing order lasts six years on average" - http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/2090680.stm

(9). "The average ‘life’ of these recruited donors is five years." - http://www.probonoaustralia.com.au/news ... -its-doors

(10.) The guy who I talked to on the street who worked for "total fundraising" said donors stay for 5 years on average.

(11). Funnily enough when I called total fundraising the person I spoke to said the average time a donor stays with a charity is 3 years!

(12). "In 2010, an investigation by Newsnight found that charities were paying an average of £100" - http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... -charities . This seems roughly in line with what the net says in other places, maybe a bit low, but maybe this can be brought down by fundraising in house.

(13). The guy I spoke to from the PFRA

(14). http://www.kagep.com/ - click recruiters, click current recruitment trends.

Thanks for compiling this, Ruairi. It's starting to look like an academic paper, and it's very readable.

Ruairi wrote:So the average total “lifetime value” of one days face to face fundraising seems to be around = 2 sign ups X £8/month X 60 months = £960

Present-value adjustments make a little bit of difference here, but not much. For example, assuming the real rate of return is 0.5% per month compounded monthly, 60 months of payment is equivalent to 51.7 months' worth of income received now. That's 2 * 8 * 51.7 = £828 per day, which is £4140 per week, or about £200,000 per year!

Ruairi wrote:Apparently charities pay an average of £100 per sign up (12), which seemed very high at first considering fundraisers apparently get paid around £8-12 an hour (13).

Yeah, for 2 signups per day, that would mean they work 20 hours per day. So maybe the per-sign-up amount is a bonus on top of the hourly wage?

Of course, if you personally are the fundraiser, it's not a bad thing for you to be paid a lot, because you can just donate the excess.

Ruairi wrote:so maybe it’s better to be a pro. phil. unless your marginal difference is better than your donations as a pro. phil.

Could be. Do you think you would be better than average? You could always apply and find out if the hire you.

Also, it might be extremely valuable if you were in a position to identify charities that could benefit from this kind of fundraising that don't currently do it. Lots of charities probably don't know about it, don't think it could work, or don't have the time to set it up. That said, I would guess these fundraising agencies do outreach to charities that haven't signed up yet, so finding new charities to try it out probably isn't a completely neglected undertaking.

Ruairi wrote:Fundraising in this way it seems like a charity could have an infinite number of fundraisers (so no marginal benefit), as long as they are spread over a large enough geographical area.

Yeah, because the fundraising you're discussing is geographically localized, it is clear that there's room for it to expand without hitting saturation. For example, there are no door-to-door fundraisers where I live AFAICT.

Alan Dawrst wrote:Thanks for compiling this, Ruairi. It's starting to look like an academic paper, and it's very readable.

thanks!:D!

Alan Dawrst wrote:

Ruairi wrote:So the average total “lifetime value” of one days face to face fundraising seems to be around = 2 sign ups X £8/month X 60 months = £960

Present-value adjustments make a little bit of difference here, but not much. For example, assuming the real rate of return is 0.5% per month compounded monthly, 60 months of payment is equivalent to 51.7 months' worth of income received now. That's 2 * 8 * 51.7 = £828 per day, which is £4140 per week, or about £200,000 per year!

oh wow! Is this due to the money being re-invested as its recieved? I presume this applies to pro. phil too yea?

Alan Dawrst wrote:

Ruairi wrote:Apparently charities pay an average of £100 per sign up (12), which seemed very high at first considering fundraisers apparently get paid around £8-12 an hour (13).

Yeah, for 2 signups per day, that would mean they work 20 hours per day. So maybe the per-sign-up amount is a bonus on top of the hourly wage?

oh sorry this wasn't very clear, this is if fundraising is being done through a fundraising agency. The £100 would be paid to the agency and cover salary, insurance, etc. bonuses and stuff seem to happen but some groups wont do them because they're worried about fundraisers being too pushy (Theres already been lots of bad publicity about this)

Alan Dawrst wrote:

Ruairi wrote:so maybe it’s better to be a pro. phil. unless your marginal difference is better than your donations as a pro. phil.

Could be. Do you think you would be better than average? You could always apply and find out if the hire you.

Also, it might be extremely valuable if you were in a position to identify charities that could benefit from this kind of fundraising that don't currently do it. Lots of charities probably don't know about it, don't think it could work, or don't have the time to set it up. That said, I would guess these fundraising agencies do outreach to charities that haven't signed up yet, so finding new charities to try it out probably isn't a completely neglected undertaking.

I think maybe even better than this might to find the best charity and set up branches of them all over the place which fundraise:)! And advise and expand them

Alan Dawrst wrote:

Ruairi wrote:Fundraising in this way it seems like a charity could have an infinite number of fundraisers (so no marginal benefit), as long as they are spread over a large enough geographical area.

Yeah, because the fundraising you're discussing is geographically localized, it is clear that there's room for it to expand without hitting saturation. For example, there are no door-to-door fundraisers where I live AFAICT.

But also because if you're waiting for money to come in every month in theory you have overheads, but maybe this (immediate) way they're tiny:)!

Apparently face to face fundraising is very popular in Britain (and presumably Ireland 'cause theres lots here) , apparently writing a cheque is the done thing in the U.S, rather than a monthly donation. And in some countries donations by mobile phone are whats popular. So it might be that you havn't seen any because it doesnt work as well where you live, or maybe no ones doing it!

Ruairi wrote:oh wow! Is this due to the money being re-invested as its recieved? I presume this applies to pro. phil too yea?

Yerp.

Ruairi wrote:So it might be that you havn't seen any because it doesnt work as well where you live, or maybe no ones doing it!

Ah, interesting.

Hey Ruairi, I keep meaning to ask if you'd mind if I put the OP on the 80K blog in some form? (possibly an updated version if you've had reason to revise anything since writing it, and probably edited slightly for a more bloggy tone)

Arepo wrote:Hey Ruairi, I keep meaning to ask if you'd mind if I put the OP on the 80K blog in some form? (possibly an updated version if you've had reason to revise anything since writing it, and probably edited slightly for a more bloggy tone)

! absolutely! First you'll have to tell me what an OP is though haha:) Original Post? Opinion Piece? Op-ed? Optimus Prime!:D!?

Stuff in school was starting to pile up and then I had exams, which I finished yesterday. One of my priorities was to finish this piece once they were over I've found out a few new things,

a rediculously cool thing called fundratios ( http://www.institute-of-fundraising.org ... undratios/ ),

I got "change of heart" ( http://www.amazon.com/Change-Heart-Psyc ... 159056233X )
and "strategic action for animals" ( http://www.amazon.com/Strategic-Action- ... 446&sr=1-1 )
Although these are more about movement building as far as I know, although I imagine the two are linked.

The fundratios thing is very important, before I found it the piece was basically just some interesting anecdotal evidence but the fundratios data is very interesting (did you know apparently a huge amount of funds comes from legacies! although perhaps this is more to do with religious organizations).

So basically will I write it or would you/someone else write it?
I think I can probably have it done myself within a few days, although the longer hopefully the more answers I could get to various things; as at the moment its really a lot of questions and few answers, but maybe there are people in the 80k community who work in charities or the like who could tell us but wont know unless its posted? A follow up could be done if we get more info?
I dunno if it's worth reading the two books right now just for this, as they dont seem that related to this particular thing, so without reading them I could do it even quicker.
There might be a few loose ends I wanted to email people about but they might be the kind of thing people in the 80k community could answer.
Alternatively if you or someone else will write it I can put all the notes I have on it into a readable format and send it to you sometime in the next hours.
Ill take a look at the whole thing tonight and let you know how much work is needed on it, how soon do you need something?

Ps. any chance someone will write something on wild animal suffering or is it too out there? im sure an example like saving dolphins that wash up on a beach would be fine? maybe tied in with a post about anti-speciesism or something?

Ruairi wrote:! absolutely! First you'll have to tell me what an OP is though haha:) Original Post? Opinion Piece? Op-ed? Optimus Prime!:D!?

Any of the above (but primarily the first one).

So basically will I write it or would you/someone else write it?

I was basically planning to use the post more or less as it appears above, with some edits just to put it in context. If you want to properly update it with the blog in mind though, that would be great.

I think I can probably have it done myself within a few days, although the longer hopefully the more answers I could get to various things; as at the moment its really a lot of questions and few answers, but maybe there are people in the 80k community who work in charities or the like who could tell us but wont know unless its posted? A follow up could be done if we get more info?

Yeah. I would definitely stress getting something decent done quickly over getting something perfect done at some unspecified point. If we demanded perfection on the 80K blog it would still only have the first post...

I dunno if it's worth reading the two books right now just for this, as they dont seem that related to this particular thing, so without reading them I could do it even quicker.

... therefore do it without reading them unless you're feeling *ultra*-motivated. You can always write a follow-up post or modify the original one (in which case we can put up a new one notifying people that it's changed).

Ill take a look at the whole thing tonight and let you know how much work is needed on it, how soon do you need something?

ASAP really - the blog's been dead for about a week since I was writing an internal piece about 80K salaries. I'm hoping to extract something from my piece (against the haste consideration) to put something up, but not sure how long it'll take to turn it into a coherent post.

Ps. any chance someone will write something on wild animal suffering or is it too out there? im sure an example like saving dolphins that wash up on a beach would be fine? maybe tied in with a post about anti-speciesism or something?

I was planning to write something on it soon. I hadn't been planning to write an intro per se (though maybe I should?) so much as my own relatively modest idea for an approach we can take to it (basically a shortish-term semi-solution of eliminating the most unpleasant predators evolution has produced so that quicker/less painful killers replace them).

Ok thats all great thanks ill send you something asap:)!

EDIT: robert wiblin has some posts about what constitutes a life thats worth living, I think thats a really interesting subject and it ties into whether farm animal lives are above or below 0 and likewise for wild animals maybe some of his posts could be reposted to the 80k blog?

Arepo wrote:

Ruairi wrote:! absolutely! First you'll have to tell me what an OP is though haha:) Original Post? Opinion Piece? Op-ed? Optimus Prime!:D!?

Any of the above (but primarily the first one).

You two are hilarious. This is the funniest thing I've read all week.

I agree with Arepo that you can review the two animal books later. But please do so, because they look good! Actually, Pat summarized the first one last year, but I haven't even heard of the second one.

Glad people are interested in writing about wild animals on 80K Hours.

P.S., Ruairi, you seem to have had a 'change of heart' with your Felicifia avatar?

hahaha

I'm currently learning about fundraising, spreading social change as a high impact activity/career, and 0 utility and whether we should resuce x risks. So I'll probably post lists of questions about each here and I'll say about the books in the spreading social change one:)

haha absolutely

Arepo, just PM'd you the piece

Is there any new research on this topic to report or write up for the Centre for Effective Altruism? It seems an important finding if true. This thread has become a popular link on the topic and could/should be written up better.

Hey Rob!

I'm pretty busy and said pretty much everything I had to say in the 80k post, if anyone else wants to write something please go ahead !

Come summer (18th June to be precise) my exams will be done and I'll be working for Animal Ethics. Fundraising is one thing I'm very interested to look into then

Brian has a recent relevant thread