I’m keen for more people to try this. It does seem like there’s a real gap here—there’s funders who will fund if you meet clear criteria but few people (it seems) explicitly trying to make them. GiveWell has said as much before.
GiveWell sometimes provides startup grants for new charities tackling one of these interventions.
If I were going to try to do this, I’d start by trying to talk to GiveWell and whether them funding me would ever be possible, and if so, what I’d need to do.
I think there’s two main options: (i) Choose an area where there’s several RCTs already but no specialist charity—the ideal (ii) Choose one were the evidence is more speculative and work with academics to do an RCT on it. This is what Development Media International is doing. It’s far slower and more expensive though.
More comments:
It’s harder than it looks because when interventions are clearly proven, they’re often implemented by government’s instead. Small charities like SCI need to “get in” when the evidence is emerging but not settled, hoping to accelerate the time when the intervention is fully tested then scaled by governments. This means it’s a difficult judgement call about which interventions to focus on. I think this is why usually GiveWell charities have been founded by experts in their areas (with the exception of AMF) - these were the people able to see the gaps and execute them ahead of others. If this is true, then the first step might be to go and get a Masters in development economics.
It also seems like it’s very hard to run these types of charities and convince others to give you money. The leaders of all the GiveWell recommended charities usually strike me as extremely able. GiveDirectly were Economics PhDs at MIT and Harvard; Alan Fenwick is an Professor; Rob Mather was a successful consultant, and so on. With the aid of the EA community, it may be easier to succeed than in the past, but I’m not sure.
I’m really interested in any progress you make on this project, so please keep me in the loop. In particular, if you prepare a list of interventions or form a group of people interested in doing this, I’d happily add it to our career profile.
thanks for your comment. As it looks like, we’ll talk to GiveWell tomorrow (mostly to decide which kind of format the project should have), before we decide how to proceed. We’ll update everyone on this thread then.
We’ll keep your other concerns in mind and will bring up some of them with GiveWell, especially whether RCTs are worth it. The details should be left for the intern to investigate, though.
We think it’s very likely to be valuable to at least talk to experts from the prospective areas as well.
We aren’t necessarily intending to start a new charity then ourselves, since as you said, we might not be the people best suited to it (though of course it might be better than noone doing it, but then again we have to look at opportunity costs.)
Right now we’re mostly keen on closing the gap between where the EA movement at large is now and a situation where EAs could just look quickly at the data and start a charity.
It would also be possible that I fund someone who’s willing to do this and/or they could apply to EA Ventures.
Hi Denise,
I’m keen for more people to try this. It does seem like there’s a real gap here—there’s funders who will fund if you meet clear criteria but few people (it seems) explicitly trying to make them. GiveWell has said as much before.
http://blog.givewell.org/2013/03/21/trying-and-failing-to-find-more-funding-gaps-for-delivering-proven-cost-effective-interventions/
We wrote about it on 80,000 Hours here:
https://80000hours.org/career-guide/top-careers/profiles/founding-effective-global-poverty-non-profits/
A few notes:
GiveWell also maintains a list of interventions they’re interested in funding people within: http://www.givewell.org/international/technical/programs/2012-version
GiveWell sometimes provides startup grants for new charities tackling one of these interventions.
If I were going to try to do this, I’d start by trying to talk to GiveWell and whether them funding me would ever be possible, and if so, what I’d need to do.
I think there’s two main options: (i) Choose an area where there’s several RCTs already but no specialist charity—the ideal (ii) Choose one were the evidence is more speculative and work with academics to do an RCT on it. This is what Development Media International is doing. It’s far slower and more expensive though.
More comments:
It’s harder than it looks because when interventions are clearly proven, they’re often implemented by government’s instead. Small charities like SCI need to “get in” when the evidence is emerging but not settled, hoping to accelerate the time when the intervention is fully tested then scaled by governments. This means it’s a difficult judgement call about which interventions to focus on. I think this is why usually GiveWell charities have been founded by experts in their areas (with the exception of AMF) - these were the people able to see the gaps and execute them ahead of others. If this is true, then the first step might be to go and get a Masters in development economics.
It also seems like it’s very hard to run these types of charities and convince others to give you money. The leaders of all the GiveWell recommended charities usually strike me as extremely able. GiveDirectly were Economics PhDs at MIT and Harvard; Alan Fenwick is an Professor; Rob Mather was a successful consultant, and so on. With the aid of the EA community, it may be easier to succeed than in the past, but I’m not sure.
I’m really interested in any progress you make on this project, so please keep me in the loop. In particular, if you prepare a list of interventions or form a group of people interested in doing this, I’d happily add it to our career profile.
Best,
Ben
Hi Ben,
thanks for your comment. As it looks like, we’ll talk to GiveWell tomorrow (mostly to decide which kind of format the project should have), before we decide how to proceed. We’ll update everyone on this thread then.
We’ll keep your other concerns in mind and will bring up some of them with GiveWell, especially whether RCTs are worth it. The details should be left for the intern to investigate, though. We think it’s very likely to be valuable to at least talk to experts from the prospective areas as well.
We aren’t necessarily intending to start a new charity then ourselves, since as you said, we might not be the people best suited to it (though of course it might be better than noone doing it, but then again we have to look at opportunity costs.) Right now we’re mostly keen on closing the gap between where the EA movement at large is now and a situation where EAs could just look quickly at the data and start a charity. It would also be possible that I fund someone who’s willing to do this and/or they could apply to EA Ventures.
Best, Denise