Currently, charities listed at https://manifold.markets/charity are mostly at least tangentially aligned with common EA/rationalist cause areas and goals. Some may be judged by many rationalists to be less effective (e.g. I don't know many people who argue that the WWF is the best way to reduce animal suffering). This may be because these were the charities most desired by current users and adding a charity to the list takes time and effort. But, equally, there's surely some part of the manifold devs and community managers that feels resistant to adding charities they either find profoundly ineffective or actively harmful.
Depending on your viewpoints, you probably find at least one of the following 501(c) organizations to be net negative (please don't read too much into the distribution here, just tried to grab enough variety so there's something for everybody):
-The National Rifle Association
-Planned Parenthood Federation of America
-Shen Yun Performing Arts
-Emergency Committee for Israel
-Catholics United
-Brady: United Against Gun Violence
Should Manifold actively choose not to list some charities? I will resolve this market to the market % at close. If it appears someone has swooped in to move the market at the last moment, I reserve the right to re-open the market to allow people to correct it. No bright-line test because those are gameable.
Related: https://manifold.markets/MartinRandall/will-manifold-support-donating-mana
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Resolving now to avoid closing day shenanigans. Reviewing my market description, I guess this is technically a violation of my statement "Should Manifold actively choose not to list some charities? I will resolve this market to the market % at close. If it appears someone has swooped in to move the market at the last moment, I reserve the right to re-open the market to allow people to correct it. No bright-line test because those are gameable.". If someone feels gravely offended by this, let me know.
Another possibility is that Manifold could allow donations to any 501c3 charity upon request, without necessarily listing them. This means the list is sort of a curated list of suggested charities, but you are not limited to the list. There are some potential downsides (e.g. potentially more paperwork for Manifold), but it could be a way to balance the desire to allow traders to donate to causes of their choice while reducing the potential negative perceptions associated with controversial charities. 1) Is this a good idea for Manifold? and 2) How would this resolve in this market?
I believe the text of the market clearly indicates that this would resolve NO, but the assumption was presumably that listed charities == charities you are allowed to donate to. (Btw, Manifold could maybe list donations to these in a "Other" bucket on the charity page or something like that that shows how much is donated but not to which 501c3s)
@jack I don't think charity curation is Manifold's competitive advantage. Better to focus on markets.
@MartinRandall So, binary market on each candidate charity to determine if it should be listed? :) Perhaps a conditional: if this charity [is/is not] listed ...
@jack A bit like this: list many charities but do so in order of how much people have donated to them, thus Manifold itself doesn't have to do charity curation, or make claims about which charities are ok, but if people are giving by looking at the list then they see charities that are more plausibly good first, according to the community here.
@KatjaGrace I think that still has bad optics if controversial charities are listed anywhere regardless of the ordering. And people can easily manipulate the list - not necessarily the worst thing because they do have to donate to manipulate the list, but it means the ordering doesn't reflect that much about what the community believes is good.
@LivInTheLookingGlass I would definitely like to withdraw to my DAF. They are all 501c3 restricted, yes. This would allow me to donate mana alongside other money to avoid the charity overhead of receiving small donations and the manifold overhead of adding lots of charities, some of which are controversial.
@arae "Universal Practical Knowledge" is the tip-off; nobody offering anything remotely close to "Universal Practical Knowledge" would ever call it that.
Fyi if u message me with a charity you want to donate to I'll add it pretty quickly and easily.
I know there has been some brief thoughts on whether we should choose to not list certain charities, but we havent rly discussed it much internally. No one has really requested a questionable charity yet.
@DavidChee Has the current scope of what organizations Manifold will support donations to been settled? I know we currently have many US-registered 501(c)(3)s. Does manifold plan to support non-profits not registered in the US (for any number of reasons)? does manifold plan to support donations to for-profit companies? political campaigns? nation-states? DAOs?
We don't have specific plans at the moment other than "we'll list any 501c3 that is requested". I'd personally be excited about supporting the breadth of projects eg listed on ACX Grants or the Clearer Thinking Regrants, even if they are for-profit or not yet incorporated yet -- but we might have to think harder about those from a regulatory perspective.
Also, of the examples you listed, it appears that Planned Parenthood, Catholics United, Shen Yun, and Brady are also 501c3s.
I think it's quite reasonable to allow donations to any 501c3, or alternatively to have a curated list of charities e.g. charities that are assessed to be highly effective. Some of the pros and cons:
How much does a wider range of places to donate increase motivation for traders?
How much does adding controversial charities to the list increase the risk of negative perceptions about Manifold? E.g. if users see that a bunch of mana is going to a cause they hate maybe they might quit Manifold.
How much do the donations do good (or bad) in the world? I think this point is perhaps the least important, because people could have donated $ to them directly, it doesn't seem like a big deal if Manifold lets them donate via mana.
@Austin I don't think
we'll list any 501c3 that is requested
is compatible with
Manifold is not affiliated with non-Featured charities; we're just fans of their work.
@Yev Using "we" very loosely, as in "Manifold community", as in "at least one member of the Manifold community is enough of a fan such that they wanted to sacrifice mana to send USD to that charity"