Thanks for the post. I think the below statement is inaccurate
A single funder (Open Philanthropy, “OP”) allocates the large majority (around 70%[2]) of funding that goes to EA movement-building. If you want to do an EA movement-building project with a large budget ($1m/yr or more), you probably need funding from OP, for the time being at least. Vaidehi Agarwalla’s outstandingly helpful recent post gives more information.
Whilst I agree OP is the large majority as you mention and the concentration of decision making within that could be a problem, you could have movement building project with budget over $1m a year not having funding from OP—Longview is an example.
On Vaidehi’s post, I went back to my record and my donation alone is more than 3x the total in other donors category in her post. If other donors are included it could be out by more than 15x. I am working with Vaidehi to get a more accurate total.
I do agree that it is important to diversify the donor base and the many effective giving initiatives are important in that regard.
I think the below statement is inaccurate...Whilst I agree OP is the large majority as you mention and the concentration of decision making within that could be a problem, you could have movement building project with budget over $1m a year not having funding from OP
Hence Will saying “probably”?
Or do you think that despite OP providing the large majority, EA just has so much money at the moment (once you add in your donations and perhaps others’) that a new $1m/yr+ movement-building project can probably get funding from a non-OP source?
Given the shortage of funding for existing EA organisations, there is clearly not a lot of money at the moment. But I think if there is a new $1m/yr+ movement building project with exceptional risk adjusted expected impact it could probably get funding from non-op sources, but that will be at least partially at the expense of existing projects.
Hi Will,
Thanks for the post. I think the below statement is inaccurate
A single funder (Open Philanthropy, “OP”) allocates the large majority (around 70%[2]) of funding that goes to EA movement-building. If you want to do an EA movement-building project with a large budget ($1m/yr or more), you probably need funding from OP, for the time being at least. Vaidehi Agarwalla’s outstandingly helpful recent post gives more information.
Whilst I agree OP is the large majority as you mention and the concentration of decision making within that could be a problem, you could have movement building project with budget over $1m a year not having funding from OP—Longview is an example.
On Vaidehi’s post, I went back to my record and my donation alone is more than 3x the total in other donors category in her post. If other donors are included it could be out by more than 15x. I am working with Vaidehi to get a more accurate total.
I do agree that it is important to diversify the donor base and the many effective giving initiatives are important in that regard.
Hence Will saying “probably”?
Or do you think that despite OP providing the large majority, EA just has so much money at the moment (once you add in your donations and perhaps others’) that a new $1m/yr+ movement-building project can probably get funding from a non-OP source?
Given the shortage of funding for existing EA organisations, there is clearly not a lot of money at the moment. But I think if there is a new $1m/yr+ movement building project with exceptional risk adjusted expected impact it could probably get funding from non-op sources, but that will be at least partially at the expense of existing projects.
“If a proposed $1m/yr+ project has exceptional expected impact, non-OP sources will probably stop funding existing projects and fund you”
sounds like a high enough bar to me that
“A proposed $1m/yr+ project probably needs funding from OP”
is not inaccurate?