3 ms·

> Basically you are saying that, because of a quirk in human psychology, the only way to get people to donate, over the long term, a portion of their income, de

> Basically you are saying that, because of a quirk in human psychology, the only way to get people to donate, over the long term, a portion of their income, derived from them doing jobs they are much more productive at than building houses, to building houses, is to engage them by having them build a house themselves first. Having people engage in a process isn't just for personal fulfillment of "morally incompetent" people: it also serves as due diligence. Trust is a big factor of deciding where you want to donate your money. Having walked through the process as a volunteer, you have a much clearer picture of how your donations are spent, and yes you are more likely to donate. Trust has to be earned one way or another. Piggybacking on this home building example with an extreme example: how would you feel if you donated for years to some non profit which builds houses, but later learned that child labor is used to build those as well as cheap, structurally unsound materials, with the non profit CEO pocketing millions?

yters 6y ago
I used to donate a lot, but have lost trust when I've seen reports on how much money is wasted by groups. Now I tend to donate directly to someone or group that I personally know and/or have worked with.
pdonis 6y ago
> it also serves as due diligence Yes, this is a good point. But note that it's a different point from the one that I was responding to. If the purpose of having volunteers build the houses before becoming lifetime donors is due diligence--them gaining trust in the process--then it doesn't matter how efficient they are at building the houses, because the tradeoff is not them building houses vs. whatever more productive work they could have been doing with that time and energy. Nor is it about having to overcome any irrational quirks of human psychology, giving the donors "personal connection", etc. The tradeoff is the donors having trust in the process vs. not--i.e., them gaining the information they need to rationally believe that their donations will accomplish the end goal, vs. not. In short, it's a perfectly rational investment of time and energy for the donors, even if they are terrible house builders.

yters 6y ago

I used to donate a lot, but have lost trust when I've seen reports on how much money is wasted by groups. Now I tend to donate directly to someone or group that I personally know and/or have worked with.

pdonis 6y ago

> it also serves as due diligence Yes, this is a good point. But note that it's a different point from the one that I was responding to. If the purpose of having volunteers build the houses before becoming lifetime donors is due diligence--them gaining trust in the process--then it doesn't matter how efficient they are at building the houses, because the tradeoff is not them building houses vs. whatever more productive work they could have been doing with that time and energy. Nor is it about having to overcome any irrational quirks of human psychology, giving the donors "personal connection", etc. The tradeoff is the donors having trust in the process vs. not--i.e., them gaining the information they need to rationally believe that their donations will accomplish the end goal, vs. not. In short, it's a perfectly rational investment of time and energy for the donors, even if they are terrible house builders.