Context: I work with a small foundation that asks a lot of questions when we investigate charities. We sometimes worry that we’re annoying the charities we work with without providing much value for them or for ourselves, especially since we don’t make grants on the same scale as larger foundations. Even when they tell us our questions are helpful/reasonable, they obviously have a strong incentive to make us feel happy and valued.
Ideal version of this post: Someone goes to a lot of EA orgs, asks them questions related to the above dilemma, and reports the results.
Other general questions about “what donors should know” would also be neat: How should someone with no special preferences time their donations? How much more valuable is unrestricted than restricted funding? And so on.
This commented was pointed out to me by someone who thought I may be extremely well qualified to answer this.
I have been on the trustee boards of about half a dozen charities and performed short term consulting stints (about a month at a time) for another 10(ish) charities globally, and have seen how each of those engages with its donors.
I’m also know people people/organisations surveying charities about questions like how much more valuable is unrestricted than restricted funding.
I would be happy to put something together on this topic, however I’m snowed under with other things for the time being, but could add it to the list and tackle it later?
Though I wonder why you suggest that someone should ask these questions to a lot of EA orgs in particular? Did you also mean orgs that aren’t explicitly “EA orgs” but that many EAs see as high-value donation opportunities? And is it possible it’d also be valuable to ask non-EA foundations about their practices and thoughts on this matter, at least as an interesting quite different example?
If people want to ask other charities, that also seems fine! I suppose I was assuming that EA charities probably do more engagement with small donors (in the sense of “answering lots of questions about their work”) than most other charities, and that they might be easier to contact for someone who reads the Forum and sees my post. But I’d guess there would be more value in having a wider sample of organizations.
I want a post on how to be a good donor.
Context: I work with a small foundation that asks a lot of questions when we investigate charities. We sometimes worry that we’re annoying the charities we work with without providing much value for them or for ourselves, especially since we don’t make grants on the same scale as larger foundations. Even when they tell us our questions are helpful/reasonable, they obviously have a strong incentive to make us feel happy and valued.
Ideal version of this post: Someone goes to a lot of EA orgs, asks them questions related to the above dilemma, and reports the results.
Other general questions about “what donors should know” would also be neat: How should someone with no special preferences time their donations? How much more valuable is unrestricted than restricted funding? And so on.
This commented was pointed out to me by someone who thought I may be extremely well qualified to answer this.
I have been on the trustee boards of about half a dozen charities and performed short term consulting stints (about a month at a time) for another 10(ish) charities globally, and have seen how each of those engages with its donors.
I’m also know people people/organisations surveying charities about questions like how much more valuable is unrestricted than restricted funding.
I would be happy to put something together on this topic, however I’m snowed under with other things for the time being, but could add it to the list and tackle it later?
I also think this’d be useful.
Though I wonder why you suggest that someone should ask these questions to a lot of EA orgs in particular? Did you also mean orgs that aren’t explicitly “EA orgs” but that many EAs see as high-value donation opportunities? And is it possible it’d also be valuable to ask non-EA foundations about their practices and thoughts on this matter, at least as an interesting quite different example?
If people want to ask other charities, that also seems fine! I suppose I was assuming that EA charities probably do more engagement with small donors (in the sense of “answering lots of questions about their work”) than most other charities, and that they might be easier to contact for someone who reads the Forum and sees my post. But I’d guess there would be more value in having a wider sample of organizations.
That all seems to make sense.