Option 1 is that a grant was approved pending due diligence, then pulled during the due diligence process. That would be mildly embarrassing, and would probably imply a grant evaluator somewhere didn’t do their job
I think this would be a lot more than “mildly embarassing”. It’s an effective altruismorganisation. They should not have had to wait for the “due diligence” phase to understand why donating a hundred grand to a far-right newspaper is not an effective cause.
Either someone is approving grants (and telling the grantees they have funding) without so much as doing a cursory google search on the grantees, or someone knew it was a nazi newspaper and still thought it was a worthy effective cause. It really doesn’t help the case that Tegmarcks brother apparently wrote stories for the newspaper in question, so he at least could be expected to know what it is.
If the letter is genuine (and they have never denied that it is), then someone at FLI is either grossly incompetent or malicious. They need to address this ASAP.
I think this would be a lot more than “mildly embarassing”. It’s an effective altruism organisation. They should not have had to wait for the “due diligence” phase to understand why donating a hundred grand to a far-right newspaper is not an effective cause.
Either someone is approving grants (and telling the grantees they have funding) without so much as doing a cursory google search on the grantees, or someone knew it was a nazi newspaper and still thought it was a worthy effective cause. It really doesn’t help the case that Tegmarcks brother apparently wrote stories for the newspaper in question, so he at least could be expected to know what it is.
If the letter is genuine (and they have never denied that it is), then someone at FLI is either grossly incompetent or malicious. They need to address this ASAP.