Hi Milan – thanks for the question. You’re right that this was an intentional separation. While the vast majority of Good Ventures grants are also Open Phil grants and appear in both databases, there are a couple of causes – these grants are one, and Alzheimer’s research is another – where Good Ventures has made grants that aren’t in Open Phil focus areas. These grants didn’t go through the cause selection process that we think of as the special sauce that makes something an Open Phil grant.
Hope this is clarifying.
I followed up with:
Thanks for the speedy reply!
Could you say a little more about the conditions under which Good Ventures decides to make grants outside of the Open Phil branding?
I’m particularly curious about the psychedelic & Alzheimer’s research grants, because it seems like those both could be neatly housed under Open Phil’s “Other Scientific Research” portfolio.
Hi Milan – there’s not much more to say here. The grants in question aren’t housed under our Other Scientific Research portfolio because we didn’t recommended them, because they didn’t go through our standard prioritization and investigation process. Most of Good Ventures’ giving is based on recommendations from Open Phil and GiveWell, but Good Ventures has made and will continue to make occasional other grants as they see fit. We think that’s perfectly normal and expect that the same thing would occur if and when we partner closely with other funders.
To which I replied:
Thanks, Michael. I feel like we’re somewhat talking past each other – I’m curious for more detail about why the psychedelic grants & the Alzheimer’s grants didn’t go through Open Phil’s standard processes. Can you say more about that?
a) GV asked Open Phil if they had the capacity to look into psychedelics/Alzheimer’s, and Open Phil said “no”
b) GV asked Open Phil for shallow investigations of those areas, and the results weren’t promising enough for Open Phil to want to continue, but weren’t so un-promising that GV gave up
c) GV has some research capacity independent of Open Phil, and decided to use it on these causes (maybe because Dustin/Cari see them as personally motivating/”warm fuzzies”, even if they are potentially high-impact)
...there are plenty of other possibilities I haven’t had time to think of, but some combination of (a) and (c) feels pretty likely to me. (This is entirely speculative; I have no special insight into the relationship between GV and Open Phil.)
Hi Milan. Nope, not much more to say here. I feel like my last couple of answers have exhausted what there is to say on this. Sorry to not be more helpful.
I asked about this on the most recent Open Phil open thread. Michael Levine replied:
I followed up with:
Michael Levine replied:
To which I replied:
I can imagine a couple of scenarios:
a) GV asked Open Phil if they had the capacity to look into psychedelics/Alzheimer’s, and Open Phil said “no”
b) GV asked Open Phil for shallow investigations of those areas, and the results weren’t promising enough for Open Phil to want to continue, but weren’t so un-promising that GV gave up
c) GV has some research capacity independent of Open Phil, and decided to use it on these causes (maybe because Dustin/Cari see them as personally motivating/”warm fuzzies”, even if they are potentially high-impact)
...there are plenty of other possibilities I haven’t had time to think of, but some combination of (a) and (c) feels pretty likely to me. (This is entirely speculative; I have no special insight into the relationship between GV and Open Phil.)
And Michael replied:
It’s Dustin and Cari’s money, so it’s their decision what to do with it.