There are presumably ways in which donating a material amount makes a difference to financial advice, at least in the sense that financial planning should take this into account, and perhaps there are tax implications as well. On this basis I think I’m tentatively favourable to this idea, but I’d be more confident about it if I had seen a bit more detail in your post.
(BTW I’m not criticising you for not having more detail in your post, it’s totally reasonable to jot down something on the forum and hear people’s opinions as a first step)
Pricing: It might be worth considering how much work you have per client. I don’t know about the US, but in the UK and EU the regulatory burden for IFAs has been increasing substantially over the last decade. I haven’t spoken to IFAs much recently, so I don’t know whether they would be able to cope with as many as 100 clients per advisor. If 100 is too many for one person, you may need to increase your price. Having said that, if you know that $2k fees are the norm in the rest of the market, you could simply infer from that the $2k pricing is ok.
Market sizing: you indicate that you would need c. 100 clients for this to work out from a profitability perspective. Sizing this is easier if we have a clearer understanding if your target market. Presumably the defining feature – from the perspective of why the client would want to choose you – is the fact that your clients will be significant donors (as opposed to being EAs? I can’t imagine that the choice of EA-aligned vs non-EA-aligned charity is going to matter from, e.g., a tax perspective). What are the characteristics of donation decisions where getting advice matters? (e.g. is it absolute amount, or something about the relationship with tax thresholds, or something else?) Once that’s more clearly defined, then it’s easier to size (a) the addressable market within EA (b) the addressable market more widely (non-EAs who also donate substantial amounts are presumably also of interest to you).
(Update: I’ve now seen you’ve written a comment where you consider allowing for differing views on x-risks in the next few years. I had assumed that people with short timelines wouldn’t bother getting long term financial advice in the first place, so I imagined that this would not be part of your offering)
Also, I’d certainly see this as a for-profit venture. I’d at least expect you to be donating yourself (presumably that’s linked to your motivations). However doing this as a non-profit means taking scarce donation dollars, when this project, if worth doing, really ought to be fundable without relying on donations.
Lastly, I believe I’ve seen another post on the forum with a very similar idea. I can’t remember much about the post, but you might want to track it down and reach out to the person.
Trying to work through what would be the unique needs of EAs.
Tax planning while anticipating large charitable donations
Maximum growth portfolios for the relatively risk-tolerant
How to invest to have more resources in some worlds that EAs think either resources are more useful in, or that they think are more likely than the market thinks.
I think many people are interested in financial planning, out of a mix of frugality and personal interest. But it isn’t clear to me that personalized financial advice is the way to address these unique needs, as opposed to a 1:many medium such as Youtube or blog posts, and I am generally skeptical of autarchy as a policy goal.
Could you elaborate on what you see as the advantages of this approach?
What would an EA financial advisor do differently to a non-EA financial advisor?
There are presumably ways in which donating a material amount makes a difference to financial advice, at least in the sense that financial planning should take this into account, and perhaps there are tax implications as well. On this basis I think I’m tentatively favourable to this idea, but I’d be more confident about it if I had seen a bit more detail in your post.
(BTW I’m not criticising you for not having more detail in your post, it’s totally reasonable to jot down something on the forum and hear people’s opinions as a first step)
Pricing: It might be worth considering how much work you have per client. I don’t know about the US, but in the UK and EU the regulatory burden for IFAs has been increasing substantially over the last decade. I haven’t spoken to IFAs much recently, so I don’t know whether they would be able to cope with as many as 100 clients per advisor. If 100 is too many for one person, you may need to increase your price. Having said that, if you know that $2k fees are the norm in the rest of the market, you could simply infer from that the $2k pricing is ok.
Market sizing: you indicate that you would need c. 100 clients for this to work out from a profitability perspective. Sizing this is easier if we have a clearer understanding if your target market. Presumably the defining feature – from the perspective of why the client would want to choose you – is the fact that your clients will be significant donors (as opposed to being EAs? I can’t imagine that the choice of EA-aligned vs non-EA-aligned charity is going to matter from, e.g., a tax perspective). What are the characteristics of donation decisions where getting advice matters? (e.g. is it absolute amount, or something about the relationship with tax thresholds, or something else?) Once that’s more clearly defined, then it’s easier to size (a) the addressable market within EA (b) the addressable market more widely (non-EAs who also donate substantial amounts are presumably also of interest to you).
(Update: I’ve now seen you’ve written a comment where you consider allowing for differing views on x-risks in the next few years. I had assumed that people with short timelines wouldn’t bother getting long term financial advice in the first place, so I imagined that this would not be part of your offering)
Also, I’d certainly see this as a for-profit venture. I’d at least expect you to be donating yourself (presumably that’s linked to your motivations). However doing this as a non-profit means taking scarce donation dollars, when this project, if worth doing, really ought to be fundable without relying on donations.
Lastly, I believe I’ve seen another post on the forum with a very similar idea. I can’t remember much about the post, but you might want to track it down and reach out to the person.
Trying to work through what would be the unique needs of EAs.
Tax planning while anticipating large charitable donations
Maximum growth portfolios for the relatively risk-tolerant
How to invest to have more resources in some worlds that EAs think either resources are more useful in, or that they think are more likely than the market thinks.
I think many people are interested in financial planning, out of a mix of frugality and personal interest. But it isn’t clear to me that personalized financial advice is the way to address these unique needs, as opposed to a 1:many medium such as Youtube or blog posts, and I am generally skeptical of autarchy as a policy goal.
Could you elaborate on what you see as the advantages of this approach?