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.
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.