Notre Dame -- a lesson on neglectedness for smart philanthropists

Notre Dame's recent fire has gripped the world for many reasons. Those interested in fundraising and  philanthropy have been interested because of the amount of money raised in such a short space of time:
- within the first 48 hours, €14 million was pledged from individual donors (source)
- in total, including major wealthy individuals, $1 billion has been pledged (source)

Why has it raised so much money so quickly?

Partly because it's a genuine tragedy. Notre Dame has been a hugely important element of Paris culture for centuries and had a cultural impact on the rest of the world too.

But this is not sufficient to explain it -- after all, there are plenty of other tragedies in the world, like the million people dying of malaria each year, or the hundreds of millions of people living in extreme poverty, or the risks from climate change.

So why has this been popular?

-- donors love to fund buildings and tangible things
-- donors hate situations where they might feel they are being taken for a ride, so natural disasters are more popular (even if it turns out the Notre Dame example was a man-made disaster, it still feels like a genuine catastrophe -- an arson attack as part of a bitter religious war would have a different response)
-- donors respond to immediacy -- on-going chronic problems that have been happening for ever can wait, but sudden issues are attractive
-- donors love recognition -- if it's on the news and everyone is talking about it then it's interesting

So what should I do?

If you are a donor or a potential donor (and if you're reading this, then you almost certainly are) then the lesson is to fund neglected things.

Of course, some things might have some of the above characteristics and still be worth funding.

However on balance you're more likely to have impact as a donor if you fund something neglected, because crowded funding opportunities run the risk that they have happened anyway without your funding.