I sort of agree with this, but I want to add some things.
I agree that money is not the best motivator. If I was trying to solve [people are not motivated enough] I would probably suggest some community measure rather than a new funding structure.
Money is for buying people the time (i.e. not having do some day-job just to earn a living), or funding other things they need for whatever awesome project they are doing.
However money can defiantly influence motivation. 80k mentions list “Pay you feel is unfair.” as one of four “major negatives” which “tend to be linked to job dissatisfaction.”
Imagine I promise to give £10 to every small impact project, £100 to every medium impact, and £1000 to every large impact. You complete a project. It took you 400 hours of work and you’re very proud of it—you think it’s had a very significant impact. I pay you £10.
How do you think it would feel? How would it affect your future motivation? Are you sure it’s not better to a) get nothing and not have the system of judgement at all, or b) get a surprise thank you note from me with £10 inside that you weren’t expecting?
I think a lot of people spend a lot of time and effort on things that aren’t immediately useful, but I want them to keep their motivation because I believe that one day they may have a hit! If they keep getting £10 cheques for every 10 week cycle of work I’m afraid they’re going to be demotivated.
In this situation I would think you evaluated my project as “small impact” which is possibly useful information, depending on how reliable I think you evaluation is. If I trust your judgement, this would obviously be discouraging, since I though it was much more impressive. But in the end I rather be right then proud, so that I can make sure to do better things in the future.
How I react would also depend on if your £10 is all I get, or if I get £10 each from lots of people, becasue that could potentially add up, maybe?
What it mainly comes down to in the end is: Do I get paid enough to sustainably afford to do this work. Or do I need to focus my effort on getting a paid job instead.
If you are a funder, and you think what I’m doing is good, but not good enough to pay me a liveable wages, then I’d much prefer that you don’t try to encourage me, but instead just be upfront about this. Encouraging people to keep up an unsustainable work situation is exploitative and will backfire in the long run.
I definitely agree with that. But on the other hand, refusing to pay someone who’s good idea didn’t work out and ‘have impact’ for no fault of their own also seems exploitative!
I think people who are using this type of work as a living should get paid a salary with benefits and severance. A project to project lifestyle doesn’t seem conducive to focusing on impact.
But on the other hand, refusing to pay someone who’s good idea didn’t work out and ‘have impact’ for no fault of their own also seems exploitative!
Letting the person running the project take all the risk, might not be optimal, but I would also say it is not exploitative as long as they know this from the start.
I’m not yet sure if I think the amount of money should be 100% based on actual impact, or if we also want to reward people for project that had high expected impact but low actual impact. The main argument for focusing on actual impact is that it is less objective.
I think people who are using this type of work as a living should get paid a salary with benefits and severance. A project to project lifestyle doesn’t seem conducive to focusing on impact.
Um, I was going to argue with this. But actually I think you are right.
Something like: “We like what you have done so far, so we will hire you to keep doing good things based on your own best judgment.”
I think people who are using this type of work as a living should get paid a salary with benefits and severance. A project to project lifestyle doesn’t seem conducive to focusing on impact.
Agreed. In my brief experience with academic consulting one thing I’ve realised is that it is really quite reasonable for contracted consultants to charge a 50-100% premium (on top of their utilisation ratio—usually 50%, so another x2 markup) to account for their lack of benefits.
So if somebody is expecting to earn a ‘fair’ salary from impact purchases compared to employment (or from any other type of short-term contract work really) they should expect a funder to pay premium for this compared to employing them (or funding another organisation to do so) - this doesn’t seem like a good use of funds in the long-term if it is possible to employee that person.
I sort of agree with this, but I want to add some things.
I agree that money is not the best motivator. If I was trying to solve [people are not motivated enough] I would probably suggest some community measure rather than a new funding structure.
Money is for buying people the time (i.e. not having do some day-job just to earn a living), or funding other things they need for whatever awesome project they are doing.
However money can defiantly influence motivation. 80k mentions list “Pay you feel is unfair.” as one of four “major negatives” which “tend to be linked to job dissatisfaction.”
https://80000hours.org/2014/09/update-dont-follow-your-passion/
Yes, that’s actually what I’m talking about.
Imagine I promise to give £10 to every small impact project, £100 to every medium impact, and £1000 to every large impact. You complete a project. It took you 400 hours of work and you’re very proud of it—you think it’s had a very significant impact. I pay you £10.
How do you think it would feel? How would it affect your future motivation? Are you sure it’s not better to a) get nothing and not have the system of judgement at all, or b) get a surprise thank you note from me with £10 inside that you weren’t expecting?
I think a lot of people spend a lot of time and effort on things that aren’t immediately useful, but I want them to keep their motivation because I believe that one day they may have a hit! If they keep getting £10 cheques for every 10 week cycle of work I’m afraid they’re going to be demotivated.
In this situation I would think you evaluated my project as “small impact” which is possibly useful information, depending on how reliable I think you evaluation is. If I trust your judgement, this would obviously be discouraging, since I though it was much more impressive. But in the end I rather be right then proud, so that I can make sure to do better things in the future.
How I react would also depend on if your £10 is all I get, or if I get £10 each from lots of people, becasue that could potentially add up, maybe?
What it mainly comes down to in the end is: Do I get paid enough to sustainably afford to do this work. Or do I need to focus my effort on getting a paid job instead.
If you are a funder, and you think what I’m doing is good, but not good enough to pay me a liveable wages, then I’d much prefer that you don’t try to encourage me, but instead just be upfront about this. Encouraging people to keep up an unsustainable work situation is exploitative and will backfire in the long run.
I definitely agree with that. But on the other hand, refusing to pay someone who’s good idea didn’t work out and ‘have impact’ for no fault of their own also seems exploitative!
I think people who are using this type of work as a living should get paid a salary with benefits and severance. A project to project lifestyle doesn’t seem conducive to focusing on impact.
Letting the person running the project take all the risk, might not be optimal, but I would also say it is not exploitative as long as they know this from the start.
I’m not yet sure if I think the amount of money should be 100% based on actual impact, or if we also want to reward people for project that had high expected impact but low actual impact. The main argument for focusing on actual impact is that it is less objective.
Um, I was going to argue with this. But actually I think you are right.
Something like: “We like what you have done so far, so we will hire you to keep doing good things based on your own best judgment.”
Agreed. In my brief experience with academic consulting one thing I’ve realised is that it is really quite reasonable for contracted consultants to charge a 50-100% premium (on top of their utilisation ratio—usually 50%, so another x2 markup) to account for their lack of benefits.
So if somebody is expecting to earn a ‘fair’ salary from impact purchases compared to employment (or from any other type of short-term contract work really) they should expect a funder to pay premium for this compared to employing them (or funding another organisation to do so) - this doesn’t seem like a good use of funds in the long-term if it is possible to employee that person.