Larger charities also tend to have more room for more funding, e.g. the big corporate campaign ones, and I think ACE (for Top Charities, at least) and Open Phil both leave room for more funding in them even after taking into account other funding the funders expect the charities to get. But I suppose there could still be funging; the funders may have specific total funding targets below filling their near term RFMF, and the closer to those targets, the less they give.
To be clear, I don’t think ACE does this except crudely between recommendation statuses, because they regrant evenly to their Top Charities, and evenly to their other Recommended Charities. You’d have to donate enough to reduce the recommendation status of an org, which seems unlikely for their Top Charities, at least, unless you’re donating (much?) more than $100K, and probably also unlikely for their Recommended Charities. So, it may be worth looking more into Open Phil in particular.
You’d have to donate enough to reduce the recommendation status of an org, which seems unlikely for their Top Charities, at least
It’s unlikely, but if it did happen, it would be a huge negative impact, so in expectation it could still be nontrivial funging? For example, if I think one of ACE’s four top charities is way better than the others, then if I donate a small amount to it, there’s a tiny chance this leads to it becoming unrecommended, but if so, that would result in a ton less future funding to the org.
I’d guess the funging or reduced funding this way would be small in expectation, like less than 5%? If you split your donations across multiple of these charities, you can reduce the total risk.
But again, I think these orgs systematically have extra RFMF (and you could check ACE’s reports to see how much), and they tend not to lose status because of reduced RFMF. Like THL and GFI have been Top Charities continuously (except GFI missing one year for culture issues). I think other orgs dropped in status usually because of culture/harassment issues or revisions to expectations of their cost-effectiveness or promisingness of their work.
Also, I suppose donating could even increase their RFMF in the longer run instead of dropping the recommendation status, by addressing bottlenecks for growth.
they tend not to lose status because of reduced RFMF
Great point! That makes them different from GiveWell charities, where, e.g., AMF was dropped at least once due to RFMF concerns.
I suppose donating could even increase their RFMF in the longer run
Yeah, it’s not obvious to me that it’s right to think about RFMF decreasing as a charity gets more money. It may well be the opposite: more money means faster growth, which means more ability to use money.
OTOH, if other donors believe that RFMF is limited, then there’s a possibility of them funging away any extra donations you might make. For example, if you donate $25K in an effort to help the charity grow faster and increase its long-term RFMF, if someone else sees that and immediately shrinks their grant size by $25K, then you don’t succeed in helping the charity grow any faster, its long-term RFMF remains unchanged, and you still get funged.
Also, Open Phil mostly seems to spend on corporate animal welfare campaigns, so I’d expect around or less than half of your donations to big corporate campaign charities to be funged towards things other than corporate campaigns.
That’s a useful post! It’s an interesting idea. There could be some funging between Open Phil and other EA animal donors—like, if Open Phil is handling the welfare reforms, then other donors don’t have to and can donate more to non-welfare stuff. OTOH, the fact that a high-status funder like Open Phil does welfare reforms makes it more likely that other EAs follow suit.
Another thing I’d worry about is that if Open Phil’s preferred animal charities have less RFMF, then maybe Open Phil would allocate less of its funds to animal welfare in general, leaving more available for other cause areas. Some of those cause areas, like biorisk reduction, plausibly increase expected suffering. From the perspective of this worry, it may be safest to give to small charities that Open Phil would be unlikely to consider or charities that Open Phil doesn’t find promising enough for some reason.
But I suppose there could still be funging; the funders may have specific total funding targets below filling their near term RFMF, and the closer to those targets, the less they give.
Yeah. Or it could work in reverse: if they commit to giving only, say, 50% of an org’s budget, then if individual donors give more, this “unlocks” the ability for the big donors to give more also. However, Karnofsky says it’s a myth that Open Phil has a hard rule like this. Also, as I noted in the post, I wouldn’t want them to have a hard rule like this, because it could leave really valuable orgs significantly underfunded, which seems bad.
Probably the answer of how it actually works varies depending on the specific case. For example, I imagine that an org that everything thinks is outstanding would be more likely to get fully topped up, while an org that seems average wouldn’t be. But as an outsider, I can only speculate about how these decisions are made, which is why I posted this question.
THL also regrants through the Open Wing Alliance to small orgs that the EA Animal Welfare Fund and ACE Movement Grants sometimes support, and is expanding internationally to neglected regions where it might (speculating here) crowd out other small charities, so there might be some funging there, too. But they’re still doing substantial corporate welfare work concentrated in specific countries, like the US and the UK. I would guess other large charities working on corporate animal welfare reform are more concentrated in a few regions, so would funge less this way.
I suppose there could also be some funging on the corporate animal welfare work, because the next targets could be relatively less important and orgs would shift to other work, now or in the future. But this seems much less important as a concern.
Larger charities also tend to have more room for more funding, e.g. the big corporate campaign ones, and I think ACE (for Top Charities, at least) and Open Phil both leave room for more funding in them even after taking into account other funding the funders expect the charities to get. But I suppose there could still be funging; the funders may have specific total funding targets below filling their near term RFMF, and the closer to those targets, the less they give.
To be clear, I don’t think ACE does this except crudely between recommendation statuses, because they regrant evenly to their Top Charities, and evenly to their other Recommended Charities. You’d have to donate enough to reduce the recommendation status of an org, which seems unlikely for their Top Charities, at least, unless you’re donating (much?) more than $100K, and probably also unlikely for their Recommended Charities. So, it may be worth looking more into Open Phil in particular.
It’s unlikely, but if it did happen, it would be a huge negative impact, so in expectation it could still be nontrivial funging? For example, if I think one of ACE’s four top charities is way better than the others, then if I donate a small amount to it, there’s a tiny chance this leads to it becoming unrecommended, but if so, that would result in a ton less future funding to the org.
I’d guess the funging or reduced funding this way would be small in expectation, like less than 5%? If you split your donations across multiple of these charities, you can reduce the total risk.
But again, I think these orgs systematically have extra RFMF (and you could check ACE’s reports to see how much), and they tend not to lose status because of reduced RFMF. Like THL and GFI have been Top Charities continuously (except GFI missing one year for culture issues). I think other orgs dropped in status usually because of culture/harassment issues or revisions to expectations of their cost-effectiveness or promisingness of their work.
Also, I suppose donating could even increase their RFMF in the longer run instead of dropping the recommendation status, by addressing bottlenecks for growth.
Great point! That makes them different from GiveWell charities, where, e.g., AMF was dropped at least once due to RFMF concerns.
Yeah, it’s not obvious to me that it’s right to think about RFMF decreasing as a charity gets more money. It may well be the opposite: more money means faster growth, which means more ability to use money.
OTOH, if other donors believe that RFMF is limited, then there’s a possibility of them funging away any extra donations you might make. For example, if you donate $25K in an effort to help the charity grow faster and increase its long-term RFMF, if someone else sees that and immediately shrinks their grant size by $25K, then you don’t succeed in helping the charity grow any faster, its long-term RFMF remains unchanged, and you still get funged.
Also, Open Phil mostly seems to spend on corporate animal welfare campaigns, so I’d expect around or less than half of your donations to big corporate campaign charities to be funged towards things other than corporate campaigns.
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/6H9QGZkdMzDEdKNCX/analysis-of-ea-funding-within-animal-welfare-from-2019-2021-1
That’s a useful post! It’s an interesting idea. There could be some funging between Open Phil and other EA animal donors—like, if Open Phil is handling the welfare reforms, then other donors don’t have to and can donate more to non-welfare stuff. OTOH, the fact that a high-status funder like Open Phil does welfare reforms makes it more likely that other EAs follow suit.
Another thing I’d worry about is that if Open Phil’s preferred animal charities have less RFMF, then maybe Open Phil would allocate less of its funds to animal welfare in general, leaving more available for other cause areas. Some of those cause areas, like biorisk reduction, plausibly increase expected suffering. From the perspective of this worry, it may be safest to give to small charities that Open Phil would be unlikely to consider or charities that Open Phil doesn’t find promising enough for some reason.
Yeah. Or it could work in reverse: if they commit to giving only, say, 50% of an org’s budget, then if individual donors give more, this “unlocks” the ability for the big donors to give more also. However, Karnofsky says it’s a myth that Open Phil has a hard rule like this. Also, as I noted in the post, I wouldn’t want them to have a hard rule like this, because it could leave really valuable orgs significantly underfunded, which seems bad.
Probably the answer of how it actually works varies depending on the specific case. For example, I imagine that an org that everything thinks is outstanding would be more likely to get fully topped up, while an org that seems average wouldn’t be. But as an outsider, I can only speculate about how these decisions are made, which is why I posted this question.
THL also regrants through the Open Wing Alliance to small orgs that the EA Animal Welfare Fund and ACE Movement Grants sometimes support, and is expanding internationally to neglected regions where it might (speculating here) crowd out other small charities, so there might be some funging there, too. But they’re still doing substantial corporate welfare work concentrated in specific countries, like the US and the UK. I would guess other large charities working on corporate animal welfare reform are more concentrated in a few regions, so would funge less this way.
I suppose there could also be some funging on the corporate animal welfare work, because the next targets could be relatively less important and orgs would shift to other work, now or in the future. But this seems much less important as a concern.