Upgrading the donor ecosystem
An overview of my current work
This long post outlines the various threads of my current work. If you’re not interested in the headline topic, stop reading and come back next time. :)
We’d all like to get money out of politics. But within the current system, I believe that protecting American democracy requires:
More donors
Bigger donors
Earlier donors
Happier donors
More informed and engaged donors
More donors in community with each other
More donors engaging their friends
How can we achieve these results at scale?
To answer that question we have four hypotheses, which we are exploring via lightweight experimental projects. We welcome partnership on all of them.
Hypothesis 1: Support Volunteer Donor Advisors (VDAs)
Hypothesis: There is already a base of people who mobilize their social circles around political giving. We call these people “volunteer donor advisors” (VDAs) and they receive scant support from the movement. By supporting VDAs in their work, we can make scaled progress towards our goals.
What we’re doing
Creating community for VDAs with events and other collaboration methods.
Creating a resource library for VDAs.
Spreading the message that being a VDA is not just for the ultra-wealthy. In fact it’s the highest-impact volunteer opportunity for anyone who can raise $250 per hour (i.e. can spend ten hours organizing an event that raises $2,500).
Building a ladder of engagement for VDAs.
Speaking with as many VDAs as possible (about 30 so far) and learning their needs.
Asks
If you’re a VDA, reach out to set up a conversation. If you know VDAs, please introduce us.
Hypothesis 2: Fix the Feedback Loop
Hypothesis: The political donor feedback loop is terrible; the typical reward for donating is spam via email and cellphone. Improving this feedback loop could drive scaled improvement.
Feedback Loop Project 1: Donor Dashboard
What we’re doing
Applying engagement techniques from the commercial world, in particular games and social platforms.
Sketching cool engagement loops with the help of a UX designer.
Asks
This is our only project that may soon be mostly bottlenecked on funding.
Introductions to people who have worked on commercial products with rapid engagement loops, and/or have worked to improve political donor feedback loops.
Ideas of how to apply commercial engagement techniques to political giving.
Feedback Loop Project 2: Thanking Donors
What we’re doing
Planning an RCT in which we thank political donors and observe results.
Asks
Ideas of messaging to test in thank-you notes to donors.
Mildly bottlenecked on funding; financial partnership would support a better outcome.
Intros to anyone who’s worked on matching donors to the voter file.
Hypothesis 3: Provide better analysis and frameworks
Hypothesis: With a quantitative toolbox mostly limited to single-cycle cost-per-vote (CPV), the movement has little to offer donors who want quantitative analysis of their past or future impact. This lack of robust analysis and frameworks may be a large obstacle to more giving.
Better Analysis Project 1: More Numbers on More Things
What we’re doing
Exploring what frameworks beyond CPV could be used to quantify impact. (This is the topic of my most-read post by far.)
Asks
Reach out if you’re interested in exploring this concept further with us.
Better Analysis Project 2: Why is Early Giving better?
What we’re doing
I was surprised that there isn’t a robust document on this topic, so we’re creating one.
Interviewing researchers, funders, and practitioners to better understand exactly what types of early giving and early spending are most useful - and which might be less so.
Asks
Introductions to anyone who has given deep thought to early giving, early spending, or early commitments.
Reach out if you’re interested in exploring this concept further with us.
Better Analysis Project 3: Politics in an Effective Altruism framework
What we’re doing
There isn’t yet a great analysis of how protecting democracy stacks up against other Effective Altruism priorities.1 So we’re exploring ways to create one.
Asks
We have a good lead, but welcome introductions to anyone who might be interested in taking this on as a paid project.
Reach out if you’re interested in exploring this concept further with us.
Hypothesis 4: Make more donor communities
I love this image:
Hypothesis: Existing political donor communities have mostly been audiences, i.e. they look like the left-side image above. A donor community modeled on the right-hand image might provide a model that could drive scaled progress. (Update: I wrote more about this.)
What we’re doing
Exploring this concept as an organizing principle for volunteer and professional donor advisors. (There’s tons more that could be done, we’re just not doing it right now.)
Asks
If you have a community of donors, create more right-side opportunities for them and let us know what happens.
If you read this far, then obviously you’re interested enough to reach out and partner with us on one of these projects. :)
Two of the best are here and here. But both leave much to be explored; the first explicitly doesn’t address the risks of e.g. a decline in political freedom, and the second is “a short (~3 calendar week) ‘starter project’ as part of our Rethink Priorities internship” (which makes its high quality all the more impressive).