Certificates of impact

Abstract

In this post I describe a simple institution for altruistic funding and decision-making, characterized by the creation and exchange of “certificates of impact.” I’m interested in your thoughts and criticisms.

Typically an effectiveness-minded altruist would try to do as much good as possible. Instead, users of the certificates system try to collect certificates for as much good as possible.

Whenever anyone does anything, they can declare themselves to own an associated certificate of impact. Users of the system treat owning a certificate for X as equivalent to doing X themselves. In the case where certificates never change hands, this reduces precisely to the status quo.

The primary difference is that certificates can also be bought, sold, or bartered; an altruist can acquire certificates through any combination of doing good themselves, and purchasing certificates from others.

For example, a project to develop a malaria vaccine might be financed by investors. If the project succeeds the developers can declare themselves owners of an associated certificate, and distribute it to investors in the same way they might distribute profits. These investors could then resell this certificate to a philanthropist who is interested in funding malaria prevention and who honors certificates. The philanthropist would recognize the certificate as valuable to the extent that they believed that the original project was causally responsible for the development of the vaccine, and their willingness to pay would be the same as their willingness to develop the vaccine themselves (evaluated with the benefit of hindsight).

Note that judging the value of a certificate is just as subjective as judging the value of the underlying activity, and is done separately by any philanthropist considering acquiring that certificate.