As a community manager, I care a lot about maximizing the potential of any community member who is already deep enough on the EA engagement funnel to even be applying for a grant. In addition to the (very good) reasons in OP’s post, I want to see the grantmaking ecosystem become less centralized because:
1. Founders, scalers, and new projects are a bottleneck for EA and it is surprisingly hard to prompt people to take such a route. It seems to be a personality thing, so we should look twice before dismissing people who want to try.
2. Even if a project ends up underperforming, the opportunity to try scaling or starting up a project does give a dedicated and self-starting EA valuable experience. That innovator-EA may get more potential benefit from being funded than a lot of other ways that one might slowly gain experience. And funding the project should come with some potential positive impact, even if it isn’t the most impactful and exciting project to many grantmakers. Similar tactics exist in the movement already: EA/80K recommends people enter the for-profit world to gain experience, which comes with near-zero positive impact potential during that time. EA also subsidizes career trainings, workshops, and even advanced degrees toward filling bottlenecks of all types. Therefore, I’d also advocate for being a bit more lax in funding/subsidizing relatively cheap new projects or scale-ups which can help dedicated innovator/self-starter EAs gain career experience and yield some altruistic wins. (I admit that some funders may already be thinking this way, I don’t know!)
3. It is sad to me that dedicated EAs can essentially be blackballed in what I’d still like to think of as an egalitarian movement. I don’t think it is anyone’s fault (mad props to grantmakers and funders), but if the funding ecosystem evolves to be a bit more diverse, I think it would be good for the movement’s impact and reputation, at least via the mental health and value drift levels of EAs themselves. I’m not saying “fund everything that isn’t risky”, but that being gatekept/blackballed is a uniquely frustrating experience that can sour one’s involvement with the movement. Despite good intentions and a mature personality, it seems natural to stick more to the sidelines after being rejected the first time you stick your neck out and not given any recommendations for where else to apply for funding. The more avenues the movement has and the more obvious these avenues are, the less a rejection will feel like a blackball and prompt people to stop trying.
FWIW I really like the vetted kickstarter idea posted by Peter Slattery below. A bonus with an idea like that is that it will also keep E2Gers engaged. It is a lot more interesting than, say, donating to EAIF every year, and maybe they can get their warm fuzzies there too.
As a community manager, I care a lot about maximizing the potential of any community member who is already deep enough on the EA engagement funnel to even be applying for a grant. In addition to the (very good) reasons in OP’s post, I want to see the grantmaking ecosystem become less centralized because:
1. Founders, scalers, and new projects are a bottleneck for EA and it is surprisingly hard to prompt people to take such a route. It seems to be a personality thing, so we should look twice before dismissing people who want to try.
2. Even if a project ends up underperforming, the opportunity to try scaling or starting up a project does give a dedicated and self-starting EA valuable experience. That innovator-EA may get more potential benefit from being funded than a lot of other ways that one might slowly gain experience. And funding the project should come with some potential positive impact, even if it isn’t the most impactful and exciting project to many grantmakers.
Similar tactics exist in the movement already: EA/80K recommends people enter the for-profit world to gain experience, which comes with near-zero positive impact potential during that time. EA also subsidizes career trainings, workshops, and even advanced degrees toward filling bottlenecks of all types.
Therefore, I’d also advocate for being a bit more lax in funding/subsidizing relatively cheap new projects or scale-ups which can help dedicated innovator/self-starter EAs gain career experience and yield some altruistic wins. (I admit that some funders may already be thinking this way, I don’t know!)
3. It is sad to me that dedicated EAs can essentially be blackballed in what I’d still like to think of as an egalitarian movement. I don’t think it is anyone’s fault (mad props to grantmakers and funders), but if the funding ecosystem evolves to be a bit more diverse, I think it would be good for the movement’s impact and reputation, at least via the mental health and value drift levels of EAs themselves. I’m not saying “fund everything that isn’t risky”, but that being gatekept/blackballed is a uniquely frustrating experience that can sour one’s involvement with the movement. Despite good intentions and a mature personality, it seems natural to stick more to the sidelines after being rejected the first time you stick your neck out and not given any recommendations for where else to apply for funding. The more avenues the movement has and the more obvious these avenues are, the less a rejection will feel like a blackball and prompt people to stop trying.
FWIW I really like the vetted kickstarter idea posted by Peter Slattery below. A bonus with an idea like that is that it will also keep E2Gers engaged. It is a lot more interesting than, say, donating to EAIF every year, and maybe they can get their warm fuzzies there too.