Meta's donation match starts at 9:00 AM EST today

The $7 million Meta Giving Season donation match starts at 9:00am EST today, November 15th, 2022, according to an email I just got in response to a help form request from a Meta Payments Support Specialist.

Meta didn't publish the start time of their match anywhere as far as I'm aware, so I'm sharing this information as a post so EA participants know to wait until 9:00am EST to setup their recurring donations.

For other information about the match, see:

• Meta's About Giving Season at Meta page.
• EA Giving Tuesday's website (they're officially organizing this on behalf of EAs this year; I'm only posting this because I think the 9:00am EST start date is new information others don't have yet and wanted to broadcast it so others don't set up their new recurring donations early and not get matched as a result).
• The EA Giving Tuesday team's post Major update to EA Giving Tuesday.
• My comment on that post about why I don't think anyone can be >90% confident their donation will definitely get matched even if they donate right at 9:00am (only if you're curious).
• The comment section of this post if anyone adds more information.

Some quick, highly-uncertain forecasts, in case they're useful to inform your decision-making:

• If you donate precisely at 9:00am EST (Nov 15), I'd guess an ~80% you get matched. (Only ~80% not because the match may run out extremely quickly, but because by chance, first-donations made hours after yours may have their corresponding second-donation go through before your second-donation, thus getting matched (and potentially exhausting the match) before your second-donation goes through December 15th.)
• If you donate at 3:00pm EST (Nov 15), I'd guess a ~60% chance you get matched.
• If you donate at 9:00pm EST (Nov 15), I'd guess a ~45% chance you get matched.
• If you donate on Nov 16th at 9:00am EST (i.e. 24 hours after the start), I'd guess a ~25% chance of getting matched. This could be way off; it might not run out for a days.

Background on EA's Participation in Meta's Donation Matches

For those who don't know, several hundred EAs have previously directed over a million dollars in matching funds from Meta/Facebook to effective charities on past Giving Tuesdays from 2017-2021 (see the EA Giving Tuesday topic on the Forum).

This year they're doing a whole Giving Season match instead of a one day match, and you have to set up a monthly donation to get matched, which is annoying because you need to set a reminder to cancel your monthly donation (for December 16th or later) after your second donation goes through if you don't want to continue donating monthly on Facebook.

But if you're looking to donate anyways it's a good opportunity to direct another $100 (or more, if you donate to multiple charities, or if you "donation trade" with other EAs to donate to each other's preferred nonprofits in addition to your own) for only a modest amount of time. I'd guess it probably works out to a couple hundred dollars directed to your nonprofit of choice per hour in expectation for most people reading this, which is a lot more than the rate most of us earn the money we're donating.