Of course, you could enter a donor lottery and, if you win, just give it all to an EA fund without doing any research yourself. I don’t know if this would be better or worse than just donating directly to the EA funds.
It seems to me like this is unlikely to be worse. Is there some mechanism you have in mind? Risk-aversion for the EA fund? (Quantitatively that seems like it should matter very little at the scale of $100,000.)
At a minimum, it seems like the EA funds are healthier if their accountability is to a smaller number of larger donors who are better able to think about what they are doing.
In terms of upside from getting to think longer, I don’t think it’s at all obvious that most donors would decide on EA funds (or on whichever particular EA fund they initially lean towards). And as a norm, I think it’s easy for EAs to argue that donor lotteries are an improvement over what most non-EA donors do, while the argument for EA funds comes down a lot to personal trust.
I don’t think the argument for economies of scale really applies here, since the grantmakers are already working full-time on research in the areas they’re making grants for.
I don’t think all of the funds have grantmakers working fulltime on having better views about grantmaking. That said, you can’t work fulltime if you win a $100,000 lottery either. I agree you are likely to come down to deciding whose advice to trust and doing meta-level reasoning.
I don’t really see how this could be worse. Is there some mechanism you have in mind?
I think it might be, in one way, better for the grantmakers if the total of donations they receive each year has lower variance, for decisions about bringing in more grantmakers or allocating more time to thinking about grants. I think many of the grantmakers already work more than full-time, so they may not be so flexible in choosing how much extra time they can spend on research for the grants. I suppose they could just save most of the “extra” donations for future disbursements, though.
At a minimum, it seems like the EA funds are healthier if their accountability is to a smaller number of larger donors who are better able to think about what they are doing.
Makes sense.
In terms of upside from getting to think longer, I don’t think it’s at all obvious that most donors would decide on EA funds (or on whichever particular EA fund they initially lean towards). And as a norm, I think it’s easy for EAs to argue that donor lotteries are an improvement over what most non-EA donors do, while the argument for EA funds comes down a lot to personal trust.
Besides more talent (as Stefan added) and expertise (including awareness of a much larger number of opportunities) on average, I think grantmakers also have better processes in place for their research, e.g. more feedback. I think at least one of the following four will apply to almost all EAs:
1. They have different priors or ethical views from the grantmakers and these have a large impact on how good the different charities would look as opportunities, if they had the same information. I think this could apply to a significant proportion.
2. They would be roughly as good at research for grantmaking for one of the EA funds, considering also the time they’ll have to think about it. This seems unlikely to apply to a significant proportion. I’d guess < 1% of EAs, and < 1% of EAs to which 1 doesn’t apply.
3. They have (or will have) important information about specific opportunities the grantmakers wouldn’t have that would be good enough to change the grants made by the grantmakers. I’d guess this would be much less than half of EAs, including much less than half of EAs to which 1 doesn’t apply.
4. They should actually defer to the grantmakers.
So, for most EAs, if 1 doesn’t apply to them, i.e. they don’t differ too much in their priors and ethical views from the grantmakers of one fund, then they should be giving to that fund.
I don’t think all of the funds have grantmakers working fulltime on having better views about grantmaking.
Global Health and Development has Elie Hassenfield from GiveWell, and each of the others at least has a Program Officer from the OPP, either Lewis Bollard or Nick Beckstead. 3 others in Animal Welfare work at a charity fund (Kieran Greg, Farmed Animal Funders), an org that gives donation advice (Natalie Cargill, Effective Giving), and a charity that does prioritization and charity foundation research (Karolina Sarek, Charity Entrepreneurship) in charity research or donor advice roles, and the last one leads another grant program (Alexandria Beck, Open Wing Alliance).
It seems to me like this is unlikely to be worse. Is there some mechanism you have in mind? Risk-aversion for the EA fund? (Quantitatively that seems like it should matter very little at the scale of $100,000.)
At a minimum, it seems like the EA funds are healthier if their accountability is to a smaller number of larger donors who are better able to think about what they are doing.
In terms of upside from getting to think longer, I don’t think it’s at all obvious that most donors would decide on EA funds (or on whichever particular EA fund they initially lean towards). And as a norm, I think it’s easy for EAs to argue that donor lotteries are an improvement over what most non-EA donors do, while the argument for EA funds comes down a lot to personal trust.
I don’t think all of the funds have grantmakers working fulltime on having better views about grantmaking. That said, you can’t work fulltime if you win a $100,000 lottery either. I agree you are likely to come down to deciding whose advice to trust and doing meta-level reasoning.
I think it might be, in one way, better for the grantmakers if the total of donations they receive each year has lower variance, for decisions about bringing in more grantmakers or allocating more time to thinking about grants. I think many of the grantmakers already work more than full-time, so they may not be so flexible in choosing how much extra time they can spend on research for the grants. I suppose they could just save most of the “extra” donations for future disbursements, though.
Makes sense.
Besides more talent (as Stefan added) and expertise (including awareness of a much larger number of opportunities) on average, I think grantmakers also have better processes in place for their research, e.g. more feedback. I think at least one of the following four will apply to almost all EAs:
1. They have different priors or ethical views from the grantmakers and these have a large impact on how good the different charities would look as opportunities, if they had the same information. I think this could apply to a significant proportion.
2. They would be roughly as good at research for grantmaking for one of the EA funds, considering also the time they’ll have to think about it. This seems unlikely to apply to a significant proportion. I’d guess < 1% of EAs, and < 1% of EAs to which 1 doesn’t apply.
3. They have (or will have) important information about specific opportunities the grantmakers wouldn’t have that would be good enough to change the grants made by the grantmakers. I’d guess this would be much less than half of EAs, including much less than half of EAs to which 1 doesn’t apply.
4. They should actually defer to the grantmakers.
So, for most EAs, if 1 doesn’t apply to them, i.e. they don’t differ too much in their priors and ethical views from the grantmakers of one fund, then they should be giving to that fund.
Global Health and Development has Elie Hassenfield from GiveWell, and each of the others at least has a Program Officer from the OPP, either Lewis Bollard or Nick Beckstead. 3 others in Animal Welfare work at a charity fund (Kieran Greg, Farmed Animal Funders), an org that gives donation advice (Natalie Cargill, Effective Giving), and a charity that does prioritization and charity foundation research (Karolina Sarek, Charity Entrepreneurship) in charity research or donor advice roles, and the last one leads another grant program (Alexandria Beck, Open Wing Alliance).