Our goals for crowdmatching success and what to model

[wolftune]

[EDITED and moved from Proposal: decision process for new mechanism ]

What are the goals we want crowdmatching to have?

One possible framing: given limited resources in the world, our goal is to capture all we can for FLO public goods. Perhaps qualified: …up to the point that public goods have all the funding they need.

Perhaps a good constrained game to model:

• Set a fixed available crowd with fixed available real budget
  • e.g. 100 patrons who have $10 each
  • could set crowds that have some wealthier and some poorer patrons
  • this is like those people in the audience at a specific presentation
• focus on the project and the snowdrift.coop platform goals: how do we maximize both the participation and the total dollars?

So, we set this prototype up. We have players act as the project, setting the goals. Other players are the patrons choosing their pledges.

Questions include: what setup maximizes patrons choosing to pledge at all? What setup encourages patrons to pledge higher amounts?

The iterative part: Given multiple crowdmatch payout rounds, what leads patrons to stay vs leave or to increase vs decrease their pledges?

[Salt]

@wolftune

wealthier and some poorer patrons

It is not about their wealth, it is about the amount they are willing to allocate as donations.

@wolftune

encourages patrons to pledge higher amounts

Is this really one of our goals? It may be a project goal, but I don’t think that this aligns with us.

@wolftune

Main point: given limited resources in the world, our goal is to capture the most of it that we can for FLO public goods.

I’m not sure if I personally consider this to be the Snowdrift.coop goal.

[wolftune]

@Salt

@wolftune

wealthier and some poorer patrons

It is not about their wealth, it is about the amount they are willing to allocate as donations.

I just mean that when we think about patron behavior, the amount they are willing to allocate is influenced by several factors, and their wealth is one of them. We can add enthusiasm and also social norms around what a typical pledge level is etc.

[Salt]

Perhaps, but drawing this particular distinction is troubling. Many people end up the wealthy category because they minimize their giving unless there are clear returns. Whereas many folks who are “poorer” are willing to give because they know what it is like to be in need.