CFAR fundraiser far from filled; 4 days remaining

Donated $180.

I was planning on donating this money, my yearly 'charity donation' budget (it's meager - I'm an undergraduate), to a typical EA charity such as the Against Malaria Foundation; a cash transaction for the utlilons, warm fuzzies and general EA cred. However the above has forced me to reconsider this course of action in light of the following:

• The possibility CFAR may not receive sufficient future funding. CFAR expenditure last year was $510k (ignoring non-staff workshop costs that are offset by workshop revenue) and their current balance is something around $130k. Without knowing the details, a similarly sized operation this year might therefore require something like $380k in donations (a ballpark guesstimate, don't quote me on that). The winter matching fundraiser has the potential to fund $240k of that, so a significant undershoot would put the organization in precarious position.

• A world that has access to a well written rationality curriculum over the next decade has significant advantage over one that doesn't. I already accept that 80,000 hours is a high impact organization and they also work by acting as an impact multiplier for individuals. Given that rationality is an exceptionally good impact multiplier I must accept that CFAR existing is much better than it not existing.

• While donations to a sufficiently-funded CFAR are most likely much lower utility than donations to AMF, donations to ensure CFAR's continued existence are exceptionally high utility. For comparison (as great as AMF is) diverting all donations from Wikipedia to AMF would be a terrible idea, as would over funding Wikipedia itself. The world gets a large amount of utility out of the existence of at least one Wikipedia, but not a great deal of marginal utility by an over funded Wikipedia. By my judgement the same applies to CFAR.

• CFAR isn't a typical EA cause. This means that while if I don't donate to keep AMF going, another EA will. However if I don't donate to keep CFAR going there's a reasonable chance that someone else won't. In other words my donations to CFAR aren't replaceable.

• To put my utilons where my mouth is, it looks like the funding gap for CFAR is something like ~400k a year. GiveWell reckons that you can save a life for $5k by donating to the right charity. So CFAR costs 80 dead people a year to run, so there's the question: do I think CFAR will save more than 80 lives in the next year? The answer to that might be no, even though CFAR seems to be instigating high-impact good, but if I ask myself do I think CFAR's work over the next decade will save more than 800 lives? the answer becomes a definite yes.

Re: CFAR's impact: Max Tegmark of the Future of Life Institute emails (and offers for us to publicly quote him):

"CFAR was instrumental in the birth of the Future of Life Institute: 4 of our 5 co-founders are CFAR alumni, and seeing so many talented idealistic people motivated to make the world more rational gave me confidence that we could succeed with our audacious goals."

(FLI is the group that recently organized the Puerto Rico conference, and seems in general to be doing loads of high-impact good.)

Donated $200

Donated $100.

Donated $100.

Donated $100.

Donated £400.

Donated $400.

Donated $400.

Donated £100.

Donated $100 second time. Let's raise that sanity waterline!

ETA: I like the random bonus idea. Suspecting one of the techniques is variable reinforcement? :)

Donated $800. Good luck, CFAR!

Donated $125.

Donated.

I would recommend making the donate link large, currently it is the smaller link on the page and is harder to notice. "Donate" or "Donate here" in the link text would also make it more noticeable.* Putting a donate link at the top of the fundraising page, http://lesswrong.com/lw/lfg/cfar_in_2014_continuing_to_climb_out_of_the/ would also make it more noticable and more likely to capture vistors and therefore donations.

• These things are so common I look for them by default. Some might argue that putting the link at the top or making it larger might be untasteful or communicates a spammy signal, I would argue that at least these techniques and more are so standard as to be expected and missed when not present to many.

Donated $300.

Donated $50.

Donated. Go CFAR!

Donated $1000

Donated $200!

Closed for the year at $119,269, which is basically awesome. Thanks, everyone!

Donated $100.

Is there an explanation or argument for why a CFAR donation is at least in the same ballpark of effectiveness as, say, a donation to MIRI or GiveWell?

On CFAR's front page:

In the process, we’re breaking new ground in studying the long-term effects of rationality training on life outcomes using randomized controlled trials.

Despite CFAR's 2-3 year existence (probably longer informally, as well) they have yet to publish a single paper on these "randomized controlled trials". I would advise not donating until they make good on their claims.

edit: I've also made some notes on CFAR and their use of science as an applause light in previous comments.

Fundraiser is at $100.8k (~19k of matching and of target remaining); three hours and 39 minutes left in the matching window. A couple people emailed asking if monthly pledges counted, and then told me I should mention it on here: if you pledge $n/month, and send me a message/email/etc. noting that you intend to keep the pledge up across 2015, your full $12n can be counted toward the matching drive. (Corporate matching can also be counted, if you've donated and have an employer who will match your donation; that, too, should be emailed to anna@rationality.org.)

What percentage of alumni make donations and what is their average donation?

Looks like CFAR met the 150k target last year. Currently treating apparent (quite large) decrease in donations as evidence of decreasing perceived effectiveness. Any reason why this conclusion is likely to be incorrect? I am not sure whether there are some monthly pledge matches that are not counted until the very end, etc.

ETA: Donated.

18 minutes remaining; $16k of matching funds left unfilled (out of $120k).

I'll throw out that I strongly dislike CFAR having a priveldged spot as one of the nonprofits that it's ok to advertise for on LW. Just because it's in-tribe doesn't mean it's not spammy. I'd much rather have a blanket ban on advertising than allow anyone to prosthelytize for their favorite charity.