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It's hard to trust a community who claims to focus on effectiveness but then it turns out puts great effort into looking good. That kind of deception is more damaging than a bit of bad press.

There's plenty of charities with great marketing. EA doesn't need to be another one.

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But the point is, you're just asserting that. I think the parent poster was observing that, as effective altruists, they might attempt to quantify the pros and cons of such reputational factors (some game theoretic calculation, perhaps?) and include it in their determinations.

Prove it with the maths. I'd be willing to bet that the maths comes out on the favour of those who put effort into looking good.

Not when you factor in how this strategy affects those who employ it. Sure, compromising your ethics and lying to people in order to secure more donations will bring in more money for the good cause - short-term. Longer term, how long until you start thinking, since you're already lying to the donors anyway, why not also lie about the whole charity thing and start pocketing the donations for yourself?

"Ends don't justify the means" isn't true on paper, for perfectly rational actors - but is true for actual humans.

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