Re: reluctance. Can you say more about the concern about donor perceptions? E.g. maybe grantmakers like me should be more often nudging grantees with questions like “How could you get more done / move faster by outsourcing some work to consultants/contractors?” I’ve done that in a few cases but haven’t made a consistent effort to signal willingness to fund subcontracts.
Contractors are known to be pricey and have a bit of a bad reputation in some circles. Research hires have traditionally been dirt cheap (though that is changing). I think if an org spends 10-30% of its budget on contractors, it would be treated with suspicion. It feels like a similar situation to how a lot of charities tried to have insanely low overheads (and many outside EA still do).
I think that grantmakers / influential figureheads making posts like yours above, and applying some pressure, could go a long way here. It should be obvious to the management of the nonprofit that the funders won’t view them poorly if they spend a fair bit on contractors, even if sometimes this results in failures. (Contract work can be risky for clients, though perhaps less risky than hiring.)
What do you mean about approval from a few parties? Is it different than other expenditures?
At many orgs, regular expenditures can be fairly annoying. Contracting engagements can be more expensive and more unusual, so new arrangements have to sometimes be figured out. I’ve had some issues around hiring contractors myself in previous startups for a similar reason. The founders would occasionally get cold-feet, sometimes after I agreed to an arrangement with a contractor.
doesn’t seem too problematic so long as Open Phil isn’t institutionally opposed to subgranting/subcontracting
I agree. The main thing for contractors is the risk of loss of opportunities. So if there were multiple possible clients funded by one group, but each makes separate decisions, and that one group is unlikely to stop funding all of those subgroups at once, things should be fine.
Re: prices. Seems like an education issue.
Agreed
I’m struggling to parse “Many contractors that organizations themselves come from those organizations.” Could you rephrase?
Sorry, this was vague. I meant cases where: 1) Person A is employed at Organization B. 2) Person A leaves employment. 3) Person A later (or immediately) joins Organization B as a contractor.
I’ve done this before. The big benefit is that person A has established a relationship with Organization B, so this relationship continues to do a lot of work (similar to what you describe).
One person I spoke to recently suggested that programs like RSP could be a good complement to consultancy work because it allows more people to hang out and gain context on how potential future clients
Yep, this is what I was thinking about above in point (3) on the bottom. Having more methods to encourage interaction seem good. There’s been a bit of discussion of having more coworking between longtermists in the Bay Area for example; the more we have things like that, the better I’d expect things to be. (Both because of the direct connections, and the fact that it could make it much easier to integrate more people, particularly generalists)
Contractors are known to be pricey and have a bit of a bad reputation in some circles. Research hires have traditionally been dirt cheap (though that is changing). I think if an org spends 10-30% of its budget on contractors, it would be treated with suspicion. It feels like a similar situation to how a lot of charities tried to have insanely low overheads (and many outside EA still do).
I think that grantmakers / influential figureheads making posts like yours above, and applying some pressure, could go a long way here. It should be obvious to the management of the nonprofit that the funders won’t view them poorly if they spend a fair bit on contractors, even if sometimes this results in failures. (Contract work can be risky for clients, though perhaps less risky than hiring.)
At many orgs, regular expenditures can be fairly annoying. Contracting engagements can be more expensive and more unusual, so new arrangements have to sometimes be figured out. I’ve had some issues around hiring contractors myself in previous startups for a similar reason. The founders would occasionally get cold-feet, sometimes after I agreed to an arrangement with a contractor.
I agree. The main thing for contractors is the risk of loss of opportunities. So if there were multiple possible clients funded by one group, but each makes separate decisions, and that one group is unlikely to stop funding all of those subgroups at once, things should be fine.
Agreed
Sorry, this was vague. I meant cases where:
1) Person A is employed at Organization B.
2) Person A leaves employment.
3) Person A later (or immediately) joins Organization B as a contractor.
I’ve done this before. The big benefit is that person A has established a relationship with Organization B, so this relationship continues to do a lot of work (similar to what you describe).
Yep, this is what I was thinking about above in point (3) on the bottom. Having more methods to encourage interaction seem good. There’s been a bit of discussion of having more coworking between longtermists in the Bay Area for example; the more we have things like that, the better I’d expect things to be. (Both because of the direct connections, and the fact that it could make it much easier to integrate more people, particularly generalists)