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BEHAVIORAL INSIGHTS TO END GLOBAL POVERTY
Executive Summary The world of charitable giving is a world of redistribution: surplus aid and money from one place being directed to another place in need. Motives for charitable donations are plentiful; whether donors are motivated by a feeling of duty, recognition, or altruism, global aid totaled upwards of $600 billion dollars in 2019.1 Our client, The Life You Can Save, is a foundation whose mission is to end global poverty. Ending global poverty comes through effective giving, and, in particular, through a group of nonprofits that The Life You Can Save has selected for their efficiency in saving “the most lives per dollar.” The Life You Can Save believes that extreme global poverty can be eradicated if each person that could donate a small amount actually does so. At present, the foundation finds that there is still considerable work to be done and that more people stand to benefit and contribute to ending global poverty. Our report, Behavioral Insights to End Global Poverty, is a step in this direction. Our client is interested in using the tools of behavioral economics and decisionmaking sciences to ground their work going forward. We aim to better assess opportunities for our client to spread its message, attract new donors, and raise funds to end global poverty. The Life You Can Save is an extension of the effective altruism community – an informal group of people connected by a shared desire to improve the world by
giving money to just and impactful causes. Our analyses found that the demographics of the effective altruism community and the visitors to the The Life You Can Save’s website are very similar; the group skews male, young (ages 25-34), educated, Western, white, and technology-oriented. Further, the demographics of the website visitors are almost entirely represented by the Anglophone countries of the United States, Australia, the UK, Canada, and Ireland. Our analyses show that The Life You Can Save’s donations are not driven by major world events, such as natural disasters. Rather, the bulk of their donations are received near the end of the tax year, particularly in the U.S. and Australia. Thus, The Life You Can Save’s donors indeed appear to be forward-looking: they are focused on long-term needs rather than emotionally salient events. One of our main analytic findings relate website usage, donation likelihood, and point-of origin. Our analyses show that while the number of website visitors coming from social media channels is smaller than the client’s robust email base, those who do come from social media are more likely to donate. The share of donations resulting from email origin is nearly double that of social media and yet yields a lower likelihood of donation. We suggest that The Life You Can Save continue to view social media as an important growth opportunity.
