I do not feel qualified to judge the effectiveness of an advocacy org from the outside—there’s a lot of critical information like whether they’re offending people, if they’re having an impact, whether they’re sucking up oxygen from other orgs in the space, if their policy proposals are realistic, if they’re making good strategic decisions, etc, that I don’t really have the information to evaluate. So it’s hard to engage deeply with an org’s case for itself, and I default to this kind of high level prior. Like, the funders can also see this strong case and still aren’t funding it, so I think my argument stands
I think these are great criteria, Neel. If one or more of the funders had come to me and said, “Hey, here are some people who you’ve offended, or here are some people who say you’re sucking up their oxygen, or here’s why your policy proposals are unrealistic,” then I probably would have just accepted their judgment and trusted that the money is better spent elsewhere. Part of why I’m on the forum discussing these issues is that so far, nobody has offered me any details like that; essentially all I have is their bottom-line assessment that CAIP is less valuable than other funding opportunities.
I think we agree. Thinking out loud: Perhaps the community should consider a way to have a more transparent way of making these decisions. If we collectively decide to follow large funders, but are unable to understand their motives, it is impossible to have fund diversification.
I do not feel qualified to judge the effectiveness of an advocacy org from the outside—there’s a lot of critical information like whether they’re offending people, if they’re having an impact, whether they’re sucking up oxygen from other orgs in the space, if their policy proposals are realistic, if they’re making good strategic decisions, etc, that I don’t really have the information to evaluate. So it’s hard to engage deeply with an org’s case for itself, and I default to this kind of high level prior. Like, the funders can also see this strong case and still aren’t funding it, so I think my argument stands
I think these are great criteria, Neel. If one or more of the funders had come to me and said, “Hey, here are some people who you’ve offended, or here are some people who say you’re sucking up their oxygen, or here’s why your policy proposals are unrealistic,” then I probably would have just accepted their judgment and trusted that the money is better spent elsewhere. Part of why I’m on the forum discussing these issues is that so far, nobody has offered me any details like that; essentially all I have is their bottom-line assessment that CAIP is less valuable than other funding opportunities.
I think we agree. Thinking out loud: Perhaps the community should consider a way to have a more transparent way of making these decisions. If we collectively decide to follow large funders, but are unable to understand their motives, it is impossible to have fund diversification.