One concern I’ve got about this model for funding EA groups is about the incentive structure this creates. While member donations could provide useful feedback, this might lead community builders to optimise for member satisfaction rather than impact. A group running popular social events might receive more donations than one doing the harder work of developing people’s capabilities to tackle pressing challenges.
The ultimate measure of an EA group’s success should be its ability to develop capable individuals who can contribute meaningfully to improving the world. This might require not running popular programs that increase immediate member satisfaction.
Hm, this strikes me as worrying about drought during a flood (is that a saying? It should be).
Currently, I’m pretty worried about funding diversity. A large number of EA groups rely on funding from a very small number of donors and, as covered in the post, it’s hard for those funders to allocate funds efficiently. This pot also doesn’t seem to be growing.
Moving a bit more in the direction of my post will help with this situation, but I’m not yet worried about a scenario where EA groups have costs (incl. several full-time staff and large events in many cases) covered by membership fees.[1] So, I still expect funders tracking impact to retain strong influence over the group’s impact.
Also, as mentioned in my reply to Angelina, I don’t think we should assume that members/​alumni/​smaller donors won’t also care a lot about outcomes.
I had a related concern that (if this funding model became more widespread) it could lead to overinvestment in more legible/​obvious contributions relative to more behind-the-scenes ones. E.g. 80k gets lots of donations but Effective Ventures doesn’t; a local group gets donations but the orgs who created the resources they reused and adapted (BlueDot, CEA, etc) doesn’t.
(I still think on net I agree that it’d be cool to shift somewhat in this direction though. And I think more community building services should consider charging or making donations an opt-out rather than opt-in default.)
One concern I’ve got about this model for funding EA groups is about the incentive structure this creates. While member donations could provide useful feedback, this might lead community builders to optimise for member satisfaction rather than impact. A group running popular social events might receive more donations than one doing the harder work of developing people’s capabilities to tackle pressing challenges.
The ultimate measure of an EA group’s success should be its ability to develop capable individuals who can contribute meaningfully to improving the world. This might require not running popular programs that increase immediate member satisfaction.
Hm, this strikes me as worrying about drought during a flood (is that a saying? It should be).
Currently, I’m pretty worried about funding diversity. A large number of EA groups rely on funding from a very small number of donors and, as covered in the post, it’s hard for those funders to allocate funds efficiently. This pot also doesn’t seem to be growing.
Moving a bit more in the direction of my post will help with this situation, but I’m not yet worried about a scenario where EA groups have costs (incl. several full-time staff and large events in many cases) covered by membership fees.[1] So, I still expect funders tracking impact to retain strong influence over the group’s impact.
Also, as mentioned in my reply to Angelina, I don’t think we should assume that members/​alumni/​smaller donors won’t also care a lot about outcomes.
Unless my post is so wildly persuasive that it changes the culture of the entire ecosystem overnight and brings in millions of dollars. Disastrous.
I had a related concern that (if this funding model became more widespread) it could lead to overinvestment in more legible/​obvious contributions relative to more behind-the-scenes ones. E.g. 80k gets lots of donations but Effective Ventures doesn’t; a local group gets donations but the orgs who created the resources they reused and adapted (BlueDot, CEA, etc) doesn’t.
(I still think on net I agree that it’d be cool to shift somewhat in this direction though. And I think more community building services should consider charging or making donations an opt-out rather than opt-in default.)