Some simple but possible consideration against patient philanthropy that comes to my mind are:
Monetary investments are not necessarily value neutral but might actively cause harm, potentially over long time horizons (e.g., investments contributing to climate change). How do you account for this possible “mortage” of letting things run without taking action?
Climate change is a good example for a problem that could have been solved most effectively with early but heavy investment. How do you guard against missing those opportunities if your general strategy is to “wait things out”? If there is no pressure to “show results” overall results in general are going to depend very much on the estimates of the fund managers which is a crucial failure mode.
What is the actual value of having loads of money in the bank? There seem to be severe limits on how much money can effectively been used in a short time frame (without resorting to things like large indiscriminate payouts which are most likely not the most effective use of money). It already doesn’t seem to make sense to spend too much even if your goal is to get rid of money (see OpenPhil). Thus, it seems like we actually have to invest in capacity building to be able to effectively absorb more funding in the future—this is somewhat contradictory to an explicitly patient perspective. I think this even holds somewhat for catastrophes which have been mentioned elsewhere. Good preparation is likely to be cheaper than getting out the checkbook at the last minute (e.g., see Taiwans response to Covid, climate change).
That’s not to say that it seems not worthwhile to explore ways that one can profit from patience but I would personally prefer a term like “wise philanthropy” as a more appropriate goal that respects a more holistic perspective.
Some simple but possible consideration against patient philanthropy that comes to my mind are:
Monetary investments are not necessarily value neutral but might actively cause harm, potentially over long time horizons (e.g., investments contributing to climate change). How do you account for this possible “mortage” of letting things run without taking action?
Climate change is a good example for a problem that could have been solved most effectively with early but heavy investment. How do you guard against missing those opportunities if your general strategy is to “wait things out”? If there is no pressure to “show results” overall results in general are going to depend very much on the estimates of the fund managers which is a crucial failure mode.
What is the actual value of having loads of money in the bank? There seem to be severe limits on how much money can effectively been used in a short time frame (without resorting to things like large indiscriminate payouts which are most likely not the most effective use of money). It already doesn’t seem to make sense to spend too much even if your goal is to get rid of money (see OpenPhil). Thus, it seems like we actually have to invest in capacity building to be able to effectively absorb more funding in the future—this is somewhat contradictory to an explicitly patient perspective. I think this even holds somewhat for catastrophes which have been mentioned elsewhere. Good preparation is likely to be cheaper than getting out the checkbook at the last minute (e.g., see Taiwans response to Covid, climate change).
That’s not to say that it seems not worthwhile to explore ways that one can profit from patience but I would personally prefer a term like “wise philanthropy” as a more appropriate goal that respects a more holistic perspective.