The Paradox of Unbundling

[Epiphyte]

On and off I've been a member of the Huntington. It sure isn't cheap. If I remember correctly it's around $100 dollars for one year. The entrance fee is around $20 dollars so it's worth becoming a member if you visit more than 5 times a year. Even though I live pretty close to the Huntington, and would like to visit more often, I rarely managed to visit more than 5 times a year.

I'm not exactly sure how the Huntington decides how to divide the membership money among the library, museum and gardens. What I definitely know is that members aren't given the opportunity to decide for themselves how to divide their membership money among the three main parts of the Huntington. Personally, given the opportunity, I'd earmark all my membership money to the garden. But what about all the other members? How would they divide their money between the three main parts? I don't know. So I don't know whether the garden would get more or less money than it currently does.

If members who prefer the garden knew for a fact that individual earmarking would result in more money for the garden, then they would want individual earmarking. But the only way to determine whether earmarking would result in more money for the garden would be to implement it. Except, members won't support this because they can't be certain that their preferred part will receive more money.

I'm not sure if the "paradox of unbundling" is the best term for this concept. It's certainly similar to a catch 22.

Unbundling the Huntington would have winners and losers. But nobody can know beforehand whether they would be a winner or loser so nobody pushes for unbundling despite the fact that some people would most certainly be winners.

It's interesting to note that big donors have the opportunity to earmark their donations. If you offer the Huntington a $10 million dollar check and specify that it can only be spent on the garden, I'm pretty sure that they aren't going to turn the money down. So it's really only the preferences of the "small" donors that aren't taken into account.

To help fully appreciate the concept of unbundling, try and imagine if the NRA and PETA were bundled. There would be some process of deciding how to divide the donations between the two different causes. This process would not involve small donors having the opportunity to earmark their donations to their preferred cause. It should be intuitive that, in this case, unbundling would be obviously beneficial. But why, exactly, would unbundling be beneficial? What's the problem with people supporting things that don't match their preferences?

In my opinion, here's the rule: supporting things you hate (or don't love) means a smaller supply of things you love

This has to be the rule otherwise it wouldn't really matter what you support.

Let's dig a little deeper. Say that the Huntington did give members the option to decide how to divide their membership money between the library, museum and garden. Would you be satisfied with this level of specificity? I wouldn't be. Just like I don't equally value the library, museum and garden... I don't equally value all the different parts of the garden. When I visit the Huntington I don't equally divide my time among the different parts of the garden. If I only have a little time then I'll visit the tropical conservatory. If I have more time I'll visit the jungle garden. If I have more time I'll visit the desert garden. I can't even remember the last time that I visited the Japanese garden or the rose garden.

If more specific earmarking was allowed, some parts of the garden would receive more funding than they currently do, while other parts would receive less. So the garden would have winners and losers. Pretend that the rose garden didn't receive any funding while the desert garden received the most funding. Should the roses be dug up and replaced with rare and unusual drought tolerant plants? Well yeah. If the social importance of some section of the garden didn't matter then there might as well be a huge section for poison oak, stinging nettle and similar plants.

Most plant people I know have pretty near complete control over their gardens. I only personally know of one plant couple. They gotta have some sort of collective decision making process over the composition of the garden space that they share.

So it's hard to imagine the composition of a garden being directly determined by a multitude of donors. In other words, it's hard to imagine the composition of a garden being determined by a market. Perhaps the closest comparison would be nurseries. The supply of plants is largely determined by demand. Except, I wouldn't want the composition of the Huntington's gardens to be determined by the market if the result was the equivalent of Armstrong's nursery. But would it be? I'd certainly prefer it if the Huntington's garden ended up being the equivalent of a combination of Rancho Soledad, Andy's Orchids and Rainforest Flora.

I certainly cherish my freedom to buy the plants that I love. This is the same thing as being free to spend my money on the plants that I love. So I believe it must be beneficial if this freedom was extended to the Huntington and other botanical gardens. I'd spend my donated dollars on the plants that I love and you'd spend your donated dollars on the plants that you love.

[KLC]

There are likely as many members who could care less about the gardens and would prefer to see the library and art collections expanded. With real estate creeping back up to 2006 levels, just be happy those 100 acres will not be turned into the San Marino Estates.

[Epiphyte]

There are likely as many members who could care less about the gardens and would prefer to see the library and art collections expanded. With real estate creeping back up to 2006 levels, just be happy those 100 acres will not be turned into the San Marino Estates.

Yeah, that's the paradox. Somebody would have to be a winner, but we can't be sure that it would be us, so we don't support unbundling.

But it's a funny thing not to know the demand for the Huntington gardens. We can't say that we know the demand for the LA Arboretum because it's partly paid for by taxpayers.

Can we say that we know the demand for Lotusland?

[toditd]

Generally membership fees go into an organization's general fund to run their daily operations, programs, maintenance, etc., or wherever else funds may be needed to support their goals and missions.

Since you mention The Huntington, if you make a donation to The Huntington you CAN specify or "earmark" where your donation will go. Their current online donation forn gives you several options to direct your donation to:

2017 Annual Fund: Use it where you need it most!
Support Conservation
Support the Botanical Gardens
Support the Art Collections
Support the Library
Support Library Acquisitions
Support the Chinese Garden Phase 2
Support the Bus Transportation Fund

[Epiphyte]

Toditd, thanks for that info. Do you think that the Huntington would be happy share how people direct their donations?

[Spination]

Link given in post 4 - "Designation" box - choose.

[Epiphyte]

In their 2016 annual report they share a list of restricted donations. For example, Suki Nax donated $15,000 for the continued support of orchids. Thanks Suki!

The report doesn't provide a breakdown by gardens, library and museum... but a very quick glance through the list gives me the feeling that the gardens received most of the directed donations.