Rebecca Herbst
Bio
Participation5
Passionate about effective giving and financial literacy. Early retiree (a la the FIRE movement). Member of Giving What We Can. Board Member for Effective Altruism Salt Lake City. Ex-commercial real estate cities researcher and economist. Outdoor enthusiast. Creator of Yield & Spread. We teach working adults how to manage and invest their money. All profits after operating costs go tot effective charities. Learn more at yieldandspread.org
Posts 11
Comments33
Very interesting and timely post for me as I have been exploring the idea of hiring a fractional CMO for my EA-adjacent org to address these very concepts.
You talk about conversions and growing a marketing list, but I find it difficult to define a framework for applying standard conversion metrics to what ultimately amounts to impact. For example, I run a coaching program that helps people align their financial plans with their giving goals. My aim isn’t to coach as many people as possible, but rather to coach the most impactful people. E.g. those who will donate regularly or make career changes that lead to greater impact.
It’s challenging to design a marketing strategy that optimizes for that kind of outcome, since traditional metrics like leads, clicks, or sign-ups don’t necessarily reflect meaningful impact. I’d be curious if you (or others here) have thoughts on adapting marketing frameworks to measure or predict impact-oriented conversions rather than purely volume-based ones?
P.S. I also made a huge attempt to run ads and found it to be a total failure for same reasons you listed above.
A vulnerable post like this was well worth sharing. I'm sure it wasn't easy to open up about this, but I bet many others can relate. I like the idea of re-committing vs. trying to make up for years of backfall - which may likely lead to more stress and an "all-or-nothing" mindset that may cause you to circle the drain.
I think your point about donating monthly and making your giving more of a consistent habit is important. When it comes to planning, have you considered any other resources to keep up the habit? Some simple ideas that could help:
- Set up your recurring donations in parallel with the timing of your paycheck. This way you can ensure you meet your donation goals before you spend all your income.
- Put a reminder on your calendar once a month to make the donation, or to check the donation has been made. You could pair this alongside anything else you already do once a month e.g. when review your monthly spend, when you pay your rent, when you change your bedsheets, or whatever it is that you do consistently. That way the habit is tied to a habit you already have.
- Take a deeper look at your finances to determine whether the 10% pledge is truly feasible for you. If it’s not, that’s perfectly fine, just adjust to a level that feels more reasonable. You may also find that simply getting a better handle on your finances makes donating feel easier and more natural. To help with this, I recommend tracking your spending regularly using a tool like Monarch Money or Lunch Money. This will not only give you a clear view of your overall spending but also help you see your donations each month.
A few thoughts here from someone who has thought a lot about retirement.
1. I'm not sure where you are located now or where you are planning to grow old, but some countries have better safety nets than others. In the US it's smart to plan for retirement. In Europe, less planning may be required (large blanket statement, I know)
2. I think it's reasonable to suspect that at some point you may age out: this could be do to physical limitations, mental limitations, a desire to slow down, or simply put, you may be less valuable in any field. Since it's hard to predict what the future holds and growing old isn't an option, at minimum, you should be planning for some level of financial security. And P.S. you shouldn't look at this negatively, it's just smart planning. It's similar to eating healthy or working out. Take care of yourself.
3. Consider backing into how much money you might need in your old age -- specifically what does your budget look like when you are old, and how much would you need in a retirement portfolio to fuel passive income to sustain yourself? Start out with a retirement calculator like this one.
4. Coming up with a sound financial plan will ease the burden of your initial question. In fact, if you are less financially reliant on EA-related jobs, you may actually be able to expand your options as to what you can do in the future and per chance, have a greater impact.
5. If you do end up in a position where you have more than enough later on in life, you can always give more away and continue to work.
Your thought process seems binary: e.g. do I keep working or do I save for retirement. There are a whole variety of options within these two paths!
I don't think the answer is binary whether this "works" for EA as a whole or not. I think it can be easy to get caught in our EA bubble where we only look to very select research organizations to decide what the best charities are (to their best knowledge). I think that there is a world where other charity aggregators can act as an entry point to exploring cause areas and charities -- especially those that are too small or that don't have the funds or resources to commit to extensive impact assessments.
Thanks for sharing this post. I think it deserves a lot more thought and discussion. When I've asked this question in the past I've been encouraged to not go down this rabbit hole because it's not effective, and I disagree.
I run a giving pledge and often encounter people who want to give with their heart. I never want to lead with the sentiment “The causes you care about aren’t an effective use of your resources” That's just polarizing. So I'd rather meet them in the middle.
It makes me wonder if there’s a “loss leader” effect here: If people are encouraged to explore effectiveness in a cause area they care about (maybe a "normie" area like social justice or supporting victims of abuse), they might discover that either there’s not enough evidence of impact or that real change requires substantial research. That, in turn, could help them understand why effective organizations matter. It seems like an important part of the mindset shift.
I also notice organizations like GiveDirectly sometimes fund very visible causes, like emergency relief for widely publicized disasters (e.g., the LA wildfires). Clearly, that goes against the EA focus on highly-neglected problems. But perhaps it works as a kind of entry point: people who care about these high-profile issues can encounter GiveDirectly and then learn about other, highly effective but less-known opportunities. At least in the emergency relief space, we know GiveDirectly is doing effective work, which might help bridge that gap?
Here's what else I'd want to know more about:
- A list of questions one can ask directly of a charity with examples of what quality effective answers look like -- it should quickly point to whether or not that charity has answers
- Effective organizations that have some sort of focus on more popular issues -- like climate change, emergency relief, women and children, etc -- that way we can at least introduce more organizations than the few listed on GiveWell, The Life You Can Save, etc.
Wow! I appreciate the vulnerability in this post. It gives me a lot of perspective on what motivates people to give back / do good. Ultimately is it the motivation that matters or the impact? Probably the latter. Recognizing that we can’t do everything, but we can always something. This is why the pledge exists in part.
Mom here - 2 year old and one on the way. My husband regularly takes on more parenting responsibilities so I can work on my EA aligned non-profit. He came to EAGx Austin and took full responsibility for our 3 month old so I could present and connect with others. I just came back from a weekend a EAG NYC, where he did the same. His support single-handedly allows me run Yield & Spread. Without him, I couldn't do it. Let's celebrate the dads.