Has there been much thought or discussion put into the idea of making existing charities more effective? Sure there are lots of organizations out there that focus on making marketing more effective or getting more donors; but there seems to be a big whole in the market for people or organizations that work to turn current charities into ones we would consider effective. I’ve thought about this myself quite frequently and would be stoked to see something like this. Has this already been discussed elsewhere?
I haven’t seen this discussed online. When I met Holden Karnofsky, co-executive director of Givewell, I asked him if making existing charities more effective is work Givewell would consider getting into. He told me Givewell is not considering that, and they intend to stick to their work of charity evaluation. He believes making existing charities more effective would be a more difficult job than evaluating them.
I agree that making charities more effective is a difficult uphill battle. It is definitely easier and more beneficial in the short term to evaluate existing charities. It would be really great to see some sort of cost/benefit break down comparing the time and energy it would take to create a new charity vs retrofitting an existing one.
This seems like a very complex question but I think it may be valuable as a long-term strategy for EAs to look at. Ultimately the goal is to divert enough energy and attention to highly effective charities, which would ultimately mean that other charities notice what donors want. To my mind it would be really fantastic if at that moment there was an EA organization or group that could step in and help organizations look at how to become more effective. Again this seems to be a long way off, but something worth doing an analysis of.
On the face of it, the Carter Centre, Fred Hollows Foundation, and several other charities look like they are already doing fantastically cost effective projects, but that on the whole they don’t fair as well. On the face of it, it appears like large donors can request that certain things are done with their money (from having worked at WaterAid) and concerns about intra-organisation arbitrage might be over-stoked. I think you’re on the right lines there Syd! Perhaps this could be an article on its own?
Has there been much thought or discussion put into the idea of making existing charities more effective? Sure there are lots of organizations out there that focus on making marketing more effective or getting more donors; but there seems to be a big whole in the market for people or organizations that work to turn current charities into ones we would consider effective. I’ve thought about this myself quite frequently and would be stoked to see something like this. Has this already been discussed elsewhere?
I haven’t seen this discussed online. When I met Holden Karnofsky, co-executive director of Givewell, I asked him if making existing charities more effective is work Givewell would consider getting into. He told me Givewell is not considering that, and they intend to stick to their work of charity evaluation. He believes making existing charities more effective would be a more difficult job than evaluating them.
I agree that making charities more effective is a difficult uphill battle. It is definitely easier and more beneficial in the short term to evaluate existing charities. It would be really great to see some sort of cost/benefit break down comparing the time and energy it would take to create a new charity vs retrofitting an existing one.
This seems like a very complex question but I think it may be valuable as a long-term strategy for EAs to look at. Ultimately the goal is to divert enough energy and attention to highly effective charities, which would ultimately mean that other charities notice what donors want. To my mind it would be really fantastic if at that moment there was an EA organization or group that could step in and help organizations look at how to become more effective. Again this seems to be a long way off, but something worth doing an analysis of.
On the face of it, the Carter Centre, Fred Hollows Foundation, and several other charities look like they are already doing fantastically cost effective projects, but that on the whole they don’t fair as well. On the face of it, it appears like large donors can request that certain things are done with their money (from having worked at WaterAid) and concerns about intra-organisation arbitrage might be over-stoked. I think you’re on the right lines there Syd! Perhaps this could be an article on its own?
Thanks Tom. I think I will pose this question in it’s own article, but wanted to get some initial feedback from people beforehand. So thanks :)