Ethan was once at a meeting where he was briefed on the ways in which data analytics can improve universities' operations. The example the presenter was most excited about was from a data analytics team in a major research university's development (which is jargon for fundraising) department. The data analytics team had discovered the following correlation by analyzing years of data: alumni who donate to the university six years in a row are way more likely to be lifelong givers than are alumni who only donate five years in a row.
The presenter was excited because, in their view, this finding from the analytics team suggested a clear strategy to improve fundraising and alumni engagement. In particular, on the basis of this analysis, they had decided to make a major push to encourage alumni who had already given for five years in a row to give a sixth —the idea being that the evidence of a correlation between giving for six years and giving in the future suggested that giving in that sixth year had a big causal effect on future giving, so resources spent encouraging five-year givers to become six-year givers were being put to the best possible use.
Provide two arguments, using the clear thinking skills you acquired in this chapter, to explain why this might not be a good plan.