Just sent a letter. This post was what pushed me to do it-- I am a CA voter and have never written a letter urging the governor to take action on legislation before, and I believe I wouldn't have done so without 1. reading this post and 2. reading Will MacAskill's comment on this post. So that's counterfactual impact on your part, nice one!
Very interesting write-up, thank you for it.
As pointed out in an earlier comment, raising the compensation for challenge trials and/or seeking out participants with lower 'willing participation price' seems promising as a way to get enough participants.
I would be interested to see an analysis on the "donation equivalent" of participation.
E.G. if it would cost 10k to pay a willing participant, and an EA were willing to do it for free for social good, is this the "equivalent" of a 10k donation to an effective health cause? If not, approximately how much would it be worth? Putting a number on this would be interesting, and could help individuals decide whether to participate (comparing to their opportunity costs, etc).
Heck, maybe if we had a number, individuals who track donations could even log challenge participation as a number amount towards their donation goal (e.g. for those who donate 10% of their incomes), though that's probably a whole different conversation.
It only asked me for my name (not citizenship, residency, or address), so not sure if they cross check with a citizens directory or something, but the UK didn't require citizenship to answer a public consultation on the kinds of causes their international aid should go towards so it seems like they just allow anyone to give input.