Alexander Berger’s 2026 CoeffG annual letter describes their shift from marginalism to “inframarginal” funding, emphasis mine:
Our mission is to help others as much as we can with the resources available to us, and historically, that’s meant operating in a “marginalist” mode, thinking hard about how to equalize marginal returns within and sometimes across cause areas. (The idea is that each additional dollar we spend should produce roughly the same amount of good if allocated to any of our funds, because if it doesn’t we should be shifting resources toward the higher-return area until it does.)
The trade-offs that drive a focus on equalizing marginal returns remain. Funding still falls well short of the opportunity set across our focus areas, and we still face some zero-sum budget decisions across worldviews and funds.
But with nearly every fund working with a higher budget in 2026, and more growth expected in the future, we need to shift more of our attention away from marginal trade-offs, and toward more ambitious goals. Many of our best grants have been deeply inframarginal: we had to recruit a founder or — effectively — incubate an organization, but once we had and there was finally something fundable, the eventual grant was far above our bar. The kind of dedicated and proactive ownership from program staff required to enable these grants can pay off in a big way, especially over time, but it trades off with a focus on optimizing the marginal dollar in the near term.
I thought the importance of taking full responsibility for a problem was captured well by Nan Ransohoff ’s piece “There should be ‘general managers’ for more of the world’s important problems.” Lewis [Bollard], who Nan also points to in her post, exemplifies this in his work on farm animal welfare. Another colleague who really embodies this spirit is Andrew Snyder-Beattie, who runs our biosecurity and pandemic preparedness work. Andrew joined Coefficient in 2019 and has taken it upon himself to reduce risks from worst-case pandemics with unusual and impressive dedication and purpose. Recently, this has included work on reducing risks from mirror bacteria and a four-pillared plan to avoid engineered biological catastrophes.⁹
I’m inspired by these examples and want Coefficient to continue being a place where outstanding people’s responsibilities and ambitions can grow to match the scale of the world’s most important problems. However, I also want us to avoid the common “strategic funder” trap of thinking we have all the answers and just need to slot grantees into our vision, almost like subcontractors. An important virtue of the marginalist approach to funding is that it’s relatively strategy-agnostic: if an opportunity clears the cost-effectiveness bar, you should fund it. That tends to facilitate a healthy openness to grantees’ stronger local context and knowledge.
I want us to navigate this tension as thoughtfully as possible, bringing the ambition and ownership of general managers without losing the curiosity and humility of marginal funders. The right balance will vary across focus areas and individuals, but we should be intentional about trying to strike it.
(I do wish Berger gave a bit more detail than just “we should be intentional about trying to strike the right balance between GM and marginalist approaches”, but I suppose the annual letter isn’t the right place for this.)
Nan Ransohoff’s piece on how there should be more GMs owning delivery of specific outcomes is a great read too (emphasis mine):
There’s a surprisingly big category of problems that are ‘orphaned.’ By ‘orphaned’ I mean: you can’t point to a specific person or organization who thinks it’s their responsibility to deliver the outcome in its entirety. Lots of people talk about the problem, and often many work on slices of it. But if you asked: ‘is there a hyper-competent person waking up every day feeling accountable for making sure this gets solved?’—the answer is very often, ‘no.’ …
In my opinion, there should be ‘general managers’—GMs—for problems like these. These are founder-types who feel personally responsible for delivering a specific outcome (vs field-building generally); hyper-competent leaders who will pull whatever levers necessary to achieve the defined outcome. Most companies wouldn’t let an important initiative go unmanned or without a ‘directly responsible individual’ (DRI) — why are we OK not having GMs for even more wide-reaching problems? …
[These GMs are] flexible on the details, constantly zooming in and out to readjust strategy and tactics as the problem evolves. They’re fast learners and quick to develop (or hire for) whatever skills are needed at the time. They feel deep personal responsibility to solve the problem, which means they’re likely to stick with it for years if not decades (the smallpox eradication effort took 11 years, marriage equality took 30). Great GMs have to carry the torch even when (especially when) political winds inevitably shift, public interest wanes, and funding environments worsen. They possess the conviction and stamina to lead through conditions both good and bad.
As I’ve gotten more work experience (year 10 now, jeez) I’ve become increasingly a fan of the DRI approach, and by extension the GM (“super-senior-DRI”) approach. You could think of incubators like AIM and SMA as “GM factories for orphaned problems”.
I upvoted this, then considered changing to a downvote because CoeffG may be my least favourite acronym yet?
I think the There should be ‘general managers’ for more of the world’s important problems.” is a great sentiment, but I don’t really think this is a job people can apply for, or that this situation can be planned an executed in 1-3 years. The example of Lewis Bollard is a guy who has been plugging away at the issue for basically his entire adult life, and become a leader in the field. This level of leadership is built through passion, trust and a track record, not through strategic hiring. Its good that he recognises this often takes decades and struggle to a certain degree that’s recognised through
Alexander Berger’s 2026 CoeffG annual letter describes their shift from marginalism to “inframarginal” funding, emphasis mine:
(I do wish Berger gave a bit more detail than just “we should be intentional about trying to strike the right balance between GM and marginalist approaches”, but I suppose the annual letter isn’t the right place for this.)
Nan Ransohoff’s piece on how there should be more GMs owning delivery of specific outcomes is a great read too (emphasis mine):
As I’ve gotten more work experience (year 10 now, jeez) I’ve become increasingly a fan of the DRI approach, and by extension the GM (“super-senior-DRI”) approach. You could think of incubators like AIM and SMA as “GM factories for orphaned problems”.
I upvoted this, then considered changing to a downvote because CoeffG may be my least favourite acronym yet?
I think the There should be ‘general managers’ for more of the world’s important problems.” is a great sentiment, but I don’t really think this is a job people can apply for, or that this situation can be planned an executed in 1-3 years. The example of Lewis Bollard is a guy who has been plugging away at the issue for basically his entire adult life, and become a leader in the field. This level of leadership is built through passion, trust and a track record, not through strategic hiring. Its good that he recognises this often takes decades and struggle to a certain degree that’s recognised through