Kudos for writing this up! It sounds like a lot of good global opportunities are coming up.
> Further, there are no other natural funders for animal-focused community building work in Asia, as the Centre for Effective Altruism will no longer support EA chapters outside of the UK, US, and a limited number of key locations in the EU.
I forgot about this. I could understand why they might have done it, but it is pretty disappointing, and puts more burden on groups like the Animal Welfare Fund.
I think if I’m imagining, “What is the main mistake that could be being made here”, the obvious thing is that these items are just very small. Similar to other EA Funds, it seems like the mean payout is fairly low, barely a 1-year salary. I’m not sure if this was done very intentionally, or that’s more a representation of who applied, but overall, I’m more net-optimistic about investments in larger projects.
Now, especially with the recent changes at OP, it seems like some significant animal cause areas (invertebrate welfare) will likely be overlooked by other funders. I’d expect that going forward, there should be significant opportunities for other funders to be active here, and I’d expect much of the gain would come from funding larger projects.
> “I’m not sure if this was done very intentionally, or that’s more a representation of who applied, but overall, I’m more net-optimistic about investments in larger projects. [...] Now, especially with the recent changes at OP, it seems like some significant animal cause areas (invertebrate welfare) will likely be overlooked by other funders. I’d expect that going forward, there should be significant opportunities for other funders to be active here, and I’d expect much of the gain would come from funding larger projects. “
This represents who applied at the time, how developed some of the projects are, and how uncertain their outcomes are. We would often fund “an experimental, new project” for 6 months for a pilot, then for 1 year, and if it is proven, we would provide a larger-scale grant. Sometimes a project of this type also “graduates” to a larger funder like Open Phil and that’s why you do not see them here. EA AWF’s comparative advantage is often in funding small and medium-scale projects and I think it makes sense to serve this role in the project development pipeline. That being said, there are some grantees that have a strong track record in areas where EA AWF has a comparative advantage and we provide larger grants ($150-$400k). Those typically include projects in wild animals, invertebrate-related work and research on neglected species, although not exclusively. We plan to continue and hopefully scale our grantmaking in those areas given the Good Ventiured update.
Additionally, there were also instances where we would like to provide a larger amount to top applicants, but thought that the value of the marginal grant was higher than more funding for top applicants. If we had more funding, we would have provided both and in the past, have communicated that EA AWF has significant RFMF. This is still the case.
> EA AWF’s comparative advantage is often in funding small and medium-scale projects and I think it makes sense to serve this role in the project development pipeline.
Yea, I’m curious how true that is. This assumes that OP does a job that’s hard-to-beat for the larger projects, among all sub-causes of animal welfare. Also, it seems unhealthy to me for OP to be such an overwhelming donor to some of these groups (I assume it is for Animals, similar to other some of longtermism/EA).
Again, I don’t place a huge amount of confidence here, but I think among the worlds where a big mistake is being made, this seems like a more likely case to me.
Kudos for writing this up! It sounds like a lot of good global opportunities are coming up.
> Further, there are no other natural funders for animal-focused community building work in Asia, as the Centre for Effective Altruism will no longer support EA chapters outside of the UK, US, and a limited number of key locations in the EU.
I forgot about this. I could understand why they might have done it, but it is pretty disappointing, and puts more burden on groups like the Animal Welfare Fund.
I think if I’m imagining, “What is the main mistake that could be being made here”, the obvious thing is that these items are just very small. Similar to other EA Funds, it seems like the mean payout is fairly low, barely a 1-year salary. I’m not sure if this was done very intentionally, or that’s more a representation of who applied, but overall, I’m more net-optimistic about investments in larger projects.
Now, especially with the recent changes at OP, it seems like some significant animal cause areas (invertebrate welfare) will likely be overlooked by other funders. I’d expect that going forward, there should be significant opportunities for other funders to be active here, and I’d expect much of the gain would come from funding larger projects.
Thanks Ozzie!
> “I’m not sure if this was done very intentionally, or that’s more a representation of who applied, but overall, I’m more net-optimistic about investments in larger projects.
[...]
Now, especially with the recent changes at OP, it seems like some significant animal cause areas (invertebrate welfare) will likely be overlooked by other funders. I’d expect that going forward, there should be significant opportunities for other funders to be active here, and I’d expect much of the gain would come from funding larger projects. “
This represents who applied at the time, how developed some of the projects are, and how uncertain their outcomes are. We would often fund “an experimental, new project” for 6 months for a pilot, then for 1 year, and if it is proven, we would provide a larger-scale grant. Sometimes a project of this type also “graduates” to a larger funder like Open Phil and that’s why you do not see them here. EA AWF’s comparative advantage is often in funding small and medium-scale projects and I think it makes sense to serve this role in the project development pipeline.
That being said, there are some grantees that have a strong track record in areas where EA AWF has a comparative advantage and we provide larger grants ($150-$400k). Those typically include projects in wild animals, invertebrate-related work and research on neglected species, although not exclusively. We plan to continue and hopefully scale our grantmaking in those areas given the Good Ventiured update.
Additionally, there were also instances where we would like to provide a larger amount to top applicants, but thought that the value of the marginal grant was higher than more funding for top applicants. If we had more funding, we would have provided both and in the past, have communicated that EA AWF has significant RFMF. This is still the case.
Thanks!
> EA AWF’s comparative advantage is often in funding small and medium-scale projects and I think it makes sense to serve this role in the project development pipeline.
Yea, I’m curious how true that is. This assumes that OP does a job that’s hard-to-beat for the larger projects, among all sub-causes of animal welfare. Also, it seems unhealthy to me for OP to be such an overwhelming donor to some of these groups (I assume it is for Animals, similar to other some of longtermism/EA).
Again, I don’t place a huge amount of confidence here, but I think among the worlds where a big mistake is being made, this seems like a more likely case to me.