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comment by Dagon · 2018-05-14T04:52:28.601Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

We have a term for the reverse job: it's called "hiring someone". Rather than being paid to bring some non-monetary value (a job), you pay them to receive a non-monetary value (an employee or vendor). I'd be _VERY_ cautious about turning donations into sales. For most donors, you really do NOT want to give an accounting of the direct value you've provided, and instead want to focus on the indirect/long-term/global values that you're providing.

Listing them on team and contributor pages is a no-brainer: donations are valuable input, just like effort and creativity. Inviting them to working sessions, though, is confusing. Either they contribute value in these sessions, and you'd want them there even without the donation, or they detract and you're wasting your time and their money by having them there.

An anecdote, showing both working and non-working aspects of this: my wife worked (paid professional position) for a statewide food-bank-logistics charity, to which we also donated money to and volunteered for events at. It worked well for quite a while, but the three interactions were kept extremely separate. Even so, when there were some difficulties at work (it was a fast-growing organization and suffered the normal pains for that), and she left the job, it became quite uncomfortable to volunteer and our motivations for donations shifted as well.

I'd also avoid measuring the contribution as percentage of income - your needs and expenses (and normal-job salaries) are in absolute dollars, and people's contributions are not relative to their other interests/income/time.

Replies from: None
comment by [deleted] · 2018-05-14T12:15:55.694Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
For most donors, you really do NOT want to give an accounting of the direct value you've provided, and instead want to focus on the indirect/long-term/global values that you're providing.

You're afraid that this will lead to perverse incentives, correct? Signaling instead of focusing on real impact?

Inviting them to working sessions, though, is confusing. Either they contribute value in these sessions, and you'd want them there even without the donation, or they detract and you're wasting your time and their money by having them there.

This looks like one of those cases where ignoring desiderata that are hard to measure leads to a skewed decision. The downsides are salient, the upsides are something fuzzy tribal romantic something. I wouldn't be surprised if the latter is sufficiently motivating for the counterfactual to be no donor rather than an uninvolved donor. Some people want inclusion. I want to include all these excellent people, but resources/logistics don't allow it. Their donating fixes that problem.

Probably the source of our disagreement is what an organisation is supposed to be. Here's a helpful distinction: the tribe and the hunting party. The hunting party is lean, maximizing, exclusive and goal-oriented. The tribe is broad, satisficing, inclusive and process-oriented.

It's easy to find a hunting party, but hard to find a tribe. It strikes me that I'm leveraging this need for a tribe to bolster my hunting party. You may have a point that this is a bad idea. On the other hand, there is evidence that hunting parties with tribal characteristics are more effective. This distinction might not be as useful as our culture might suggest.

So I still think it's worth a try, though I appreciate your warning, and I'll keep it it mind.

Replies from: Dagon
comment by Dagon · 2018-05-14T16:43:24.962Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
You're afraid that this will lead to perverse incentives, correct? Signaling instead of focusing on real impact?

Honestly, I was warning against LOSING the signaling (and self-signaling) value that donors get from their donations. There's a lot of people who donate to various causes (even yours) based on fairly vague and optimistic beliefs about the actual activities that they're funding and the relationship between their money and the final outcomes. Disillusioning them by making them more involved in day-to-day operations could well hurt their feelings and your revenue.

ETA: Despite my warnings, I do think that experimenting and trying different types and mixtures of employee/volunteer/customer/vendor/donor/grant-recipient relationships is awesome, and I look forward to hearing how it works.

comment by RedMan · 2018-05-14T07:54:33.751Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Students of mafias (and taxation) find that 20-30% of income is the point where negative effects on the business' viability begin to show. I don't have citations handy.

Former Pakistani president Zardari was known as Mr. 10%. Christian churchs have a tradition of 10% tithes, and some successful churches use 'status as one who tithes' as a necessary criteria for (unpaid) positions of trust and responsibility within the organization of the church.

According to the film 'American Pimp', pimps in general demand 100% from their workers, rationalized with (paraphrasing to remove colorful language) 'I post 100% of bail, and provide 100% of a roof, so they need to be out earning 100%'.

I react negatively to the 50% ask, and upon reflection, suspect that this emotional reaction may be due to a feeling that this obligation resembles the one inflicted by an ex-wife in the American system.

Good luck!

Replies from: None
comment by [deleted] · 2018-05-14T11:52:08.971Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

This is great data. Thanks!

comment by Raemon · 2018-05-13T19:12:05.890Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

On one hand, this doesn't sound completely novel (i.e. paid board seats and sponsors exist). But, it does seem noteworthy that this wasn't something I felt an affordance to look out for as a possibility, as a middle class person.

comment by Peter Wildeford (peter_hurford) · 2018-07-10T05:42:38.432Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

This sounds fairly similar to being on a board of a non-profit.

comment by Xkcd · 2019-03-10T09:35:30.817Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Did you find anyone to try this out? If so, how has it worked out so far?

Replies from: None
comment by [deleted] · 2019-03-11T21:11:50.685Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Did not, despite this offer which offers a quite large social reward. Seems like people aren't interested.

comment by Chris_Leong · 2018-05-13T22:42:22.674Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Would love to see this attempted, although it seems that in order to be worthwhile the person would most likely have to be co-located with the team. Also, if the organisation later receives funding, the amount of prestige/influence of those taking this role will seem to drop or they might even become completely obsolete.

Replies from: Linda Linsefors
comment by Linda Linsefors · 2018-05-13T23:12:38.330Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

>it seems that in order to be worthwhile the person would most likely have to be co-located with the team

My conclusion was the opposite. For this to work well the bread winner should be in a high earning location (which typically high cost living) and the rest of the team should be in a low cost location (which typically have low earning potential).

Being the only one in the team that is i a separate lotion, is not optimal for inclusion. But many teams are spread out anyway. I am pretty sure RAISE is not all in one location. As an other example, the organizers of AI Safety Camp is spread out all over Europe.

>Also, if the organisation later receives funding, the amount of prestige/influence of those taking this role will seem to drop or they might even become completely obsolete.

This might actually be feature, not a bug. When the new organisation has grown up and are receiving all the grants they need, then it is time for the funder to move on, to the next project, brining with them knowledge and experience from the first project.

comment by Elizabeth (pktechgirl) · 2018-05-13T18:39:25.375Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

I think this is a cool idea and look forward to seeing it attempted.