[Cross-posted from my Substack here] If you spend time with people trying to change the world, you’ll come to an interesting conundrum: Various advocacy groups reference previous successful social movements as to why their chosen strategy is the most important one. Yet, these groups often follow wildly different strategies from each other to achieve social change. So, which one of them is right? The answer is all of them and none of them. This is because many people use research and historical movements to justify their pre-existing beliefs about how social change happens. Simply, you can find a case study to fit most plausible theories of how social change happens. For example, the groups might say: * Repeated nonviolent disruption is the key to social change, citing the Freedom Riders from the civil rights Movement or Act Up! from the gay rights movement. * Technological progress is what drives improvements in the human condition if you consider the development of the contraceptive pill funded by Katharine McCormick. * Organising and base-building is how change happens, as inspired by Ella Baker, the NAACP or Cesar Chavez from the United Workers Movement. * Insider advocacy is the real secret of social movements – look no further than how influential the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights was in passing the Civil Rights Acts of 1960 & 1964. * Democratic participation is the backbone of social change – just look at how Ireland lifted a ban on abortion via a Citizen’s Assembly. * And so on… To paint this picture, we can see this in action below: Source: Just Stop Oil which focuses on…civil resistance and disruption Source: The Civic Power Fund which focuses on… local organising What do we take away from all this? In my mind, a few key things: 1. Many different approaches have worked in changing the world so we should be humble and not assume we are doing The Most Important Thing 2. The case studies we focus on are likely confirmation bias, where

[Note: I (the primary author) am writing this entirely in a personal capacity. Funding for the bounty and donations mentioned in this post comes entirely from personal savings and the generosity of friends and family. Colleagues at Open Philanthropy (my employer) reviewed this post at my request, but this project is completely unaffiliated with Open Philanthropy.]   In 2023, GiveWell reported that it received over $250M from more than 30,000 donors, excluding Open Philanthropy. I expect (though haven’t confirmed) that at least $50M of this came from unmatched retail donations, meaning from individuals who don’t work at a company that offers a donation match. I can’t help but hope that there may be some way to offer these donors a source of matching funds that wouldn’t otherwise go toward charitable causes. Over the last couple of years, friends and I have spent >100 hours looking into potential legal, collaborative corporate donation matching opportunities. I think there may be promising ways to partner with corporate donors, but I haven’t found a way forward that I am comfortable with, and I don’t think I’m the best person to continue work on this project. Some donors may be choosing to give through surrogates (friends who work at companies that match donations) without understanding the risks involved. My understanding is that there can be several (particularly if donors send surrogates money conditionally, e.g., by asking them to sign an agreement to give through their company’s match): * The surrogate might inadvertently violate their company’s terms for donation matching. * The surrogate, donor, or company might fail an IRS audit if they don’t correctly report the donations + match. * The surrogate or donor might be sued by the company. * The company might discontinue its matching program and/or claw back funds from recipient nonprofits. “Getting to yes” with a corporate partner in a completely legal, transparent, and good faith way could direct signi