This is the fta Donation Matching Fund (DMF). The setup is very easy. In principle, you can either
- donate to an Effective Altruist charity you like and have your donations matched by an amount you can choose between 1% and 125% (I.e., if you donate 1 Euro, the fund will give between 1 Cent and 1.25 Euros on top of that).
- donate to the DMF in order to help match future donations.
- or take a bet.
Everything that is donated to the DMF will eventually be given to effective charities (even if donations cannot be matched). The fund started on December 25, 2019 with an initial endowment of €1500.
Report: 16.10.2021
| Current endowment | €680 |
| Money given to charity by external donors | €924 |
| Money given to charity by the DMF | €897 |
| Number of donations to charity | 10 |
| Money donated to the DMF | €1500 |
| Number of donations to the DMF | 2 |
Details
general
- If you want to donate, please contact me
- If you need a donation certificate, we can probably arrange that, although it might be a bit more complicated if you donate to the fund. However, I think we should be able to find a solution in the majority of cases.
- If you want to stay anonymous we can arrange that and I will also update the reports in a way that makes sure your anonymity is respected.
If you want to donate to a charity and have your donations matched
- You can propose a charity you like. I have a strong preference for charities that are affiliated with the Effective Altruism Community, but you may persuade me otherwise.
- You can choose a matching percentage between 1% and 125%. (I guess you can also choose 0% and I’ll still count you as a donor if you like 🙂 )
- for the procedure, you can either show me the donation you made and I will match that donation and show you the certificate I have received. Or you can transfer or paypal the money to me and I will do the entire donation in your name.
If you want to donate to the DMF
- If you trust me, you can simply transfer or paypal the money to me and I will take care it is used to match donations. This is probably easiest.
- If you don’t trust me, you can still commit to matching incoming donations. I will note that down (and count your money as endowment of the DMF) and then contact you whenever a suitable donation is offered. You then donate the matching amount to the same effective charity as the original donor from your own bank account and exchange the receipts to verify the transaction took place.
Further issues
- To make sure the money in the fund eventually ends up in the hands of charity, I will donate a certain percentage of the endowment at the end of the year directly to charity. I am currently thinking of 30%, but I might update that according to how the project works. I guarantee that everything that is donated to the DMF will end up getting donated to charity. Currently I think a reasonable time frame for that to happen is 1-2 years.
- I am considering to upload all donation certificates that I get to a public Dropbox folder to make the donation process more transparent. But I am not yet sure whether that is feasible (or necessary).
- I am also considering to use hash sums for the reports so you can verify that I didn’t change any numbers. Also not quite sure whether that is feasible or necessary. Please feel free to comment on these points!
- For my rationale behind starting the fund and also for links criticism of the idea, see here.