Yeah I wasn’t really talking about EA donors per se: I think EA nonprofits should try to be funded by non EA donors (/expand the EA community) to the extent possible and that we also shouldn’t assume there’s a clear differentiation between EA and non-EA donors.
That said, I do think the tax effect I outlined would reasonably be of concern to EA donors or insofar as it’s not because the compensation mechanism will definitely create better results, it may make the argument a bit circular. I also think there’s a principle/agent problem with donors (maximize impact) and non-profit staff (motivated consciously or unconsciously in part by maximizing compensation/job security), and it would be a mistake to assume that shared EA values fully solve that problem.
‘I think EA nonprofits should try to be funded by non EA donors (/expand the EA community) to the extent possible’
The extent possible for ‘weird’ EA projects is often ‘no extent’. We have applied to various non-EA grants that sorta kinda cover the areas you could argue we’re in, and to my knowledge not received any of them. I believe that to date close to (perhaps literally) 100% of our funding has come from EAs or EA-adjacent sources, and I suspect that this will be true of the majority of EA nonprofits.
‘Assuming that shared EA values fully solve the problem’ is exactly what we’re trying to avoid here. Typical nonprofit salaries just work on the assumption that the person doing the job is willing to take a lower salary with no upside, which leads to burn out, lack of motivation and sometimes lack of competence at EA orgs. We’re trying to think of a way to recreate the incentive-driven structure of successful startups, both to give the staff a stronger self-interest-driven motivation and to make future such roles more appealing to stronger candidates.
Yeah I wasn’t really talking about EA donors per se: I think EA nonprofits should try to be funded by non EA donors (/expand the EA community) to the extent possible and that we also shouldn’t assume there’s a clear differentiation between EA and non-EA donors.
That said, I do think the tax effect I outlined would reasonably be of concern to EA donors or insofar as it’s not because the compensation mechanism will definitely create better results, it may make the argument a bit circular. I also think there’s a principle/agent problem with donors (maximize impact) and non-profit staff (motivated consciously or unconsciously in part by maximizing compensation/job security), and it would be a mistake to assume that shared EA values fully solve that problem.
‘I think EA nonprofits should try to be funded by non EA donors (/expand the EA community) to the extent possible’
The extent possible for ‘weird’ EA projects is often ‘no extent’. We have applied to various non-EA grants that sorta kinda cover the areas you could argue we’re in, and to my knowledge not received any of them. I believe that to date close to (perhaps literally) 100% of our funding has come from EAs or EA-adjacent sources, and I suspect that this will be true of the majority of EA nonprofits.
‘Assuming that shared EA values fully solve the problem’ is exactly what we’re trying to avoid here. Typical nonprofit salaries just work on the assumption that the person doing the job is willing to take a lower salary with no upside, which leads to burn out, lack of motivation and sometimes lack of competence at EA orgs. We’re trying to think of a way to recreate the incentive-driven structure of successful startups, both to give the staff a stronger self-interest-driven motivation and to make future such roles more appealing to stronger candidates.