Today, there’s almost enough money going into far future causes, so that vetting and talent constraints have become at least as important as funding.
This seems to rely on the assumption that existing prestigious orgs are asking for all the funding they can effectively use. My best guess is that these orgs tend to not ask for a lot more funding than what they predict they can get. One potential reason for this is that orgs/grant-seekers regard such requests as a reputational risk.
Here’s some supporting evidence for this, from this Open Phil blog post by Michael Levine (August 2019):
After conversations with many funders and many nonprofits, some of whom are our grantees and some of whom are not, our best model is that many grantees are constantly trying to guess what they can get funded, won’t ask for as much money as they should ask for, and, in some cases, will not even consider what they would do with some large amount because they haven’t seriously considered the possibility that they might be able to raise it.
Interesting post!
This seems to rely on the assumption that existing prestigious orgs are asking for all the funding they can effectively use. My best guess is that these orgs tend to not ask for a lot more funding than what they predict they can get. One potential reason for this is that orgs/grant-seekers regard such requests as a reputational risk.
Here’s some supporting evidence for this, from this Open Phil blog post by Michael Levine (August 2019):