I am somewhat dissapointed that there are no recommendations for political candidates, which often benefit disproportionately from support from individual donors, and it also seems that there are no c(4)s which are highlighted in any of these cause areas, despite their usefulness in many policy areas.
Thank you for noting this, and I obviously missed it, and have retracted the comment due to you pointing this out and other replies that changed my view.
That said, I think that housing policy is the most obvious place for c(4) donations, given the local political nature of the work, but I’m frustrated that there’s currently so little similar direct work on the national level in the US, for example, in farm animal welfare, in biosecurity and global health, and in AI policy. I think that more political engagement in each area by individual donors small and medium size could be very useful. But as I said in another comment: “I think almost all of the hesitation of recommending [this type of donating] is the FTX fiasco and the impact on almost all of the political work that had been done in EA, which SBF was funding a large portion of—but I think that’s a really bad reason not to pursue this type of work, albeit obviously not doing so with dubious campaign finance ethics, much less stolen customer funds.”
I think there are valid reasons that Open Phil might not want to convey staff members’ suggestions about political candidates that third parties might consider funding. In particular, assuming that Open Phil is directing money toward getting candidate X elected, it might not want to take the next step and appear to be fundraising for candidate X. (I know these are not official Open Phil recommendations, but most third parties would view listing candidates here as close enough to fundraising for them.)
(Original comment retracted, however,) I would think that staff members could recommend funding political campaigns without endorsing specific candidates. I think almost all of the hesitation of recommending doing so is the FTX fiasco and the impact on almost all of the political work that had been done in EA, which SBF was funding a large portion of—but I think that’s a really bad reason not to pursue this type of work, albeit obviously not doing so with dubious campaign finance ethics, much less stolen customer funds.
Candidate advocacy is somewhat discouraged for legal and social reasons by the forum ‘norms’ (rules):
The following types of posts will be in the “Personal Blog” category (meaning that they will not appear on Frontpage for users who haven’t modified the default settings, but will appear in “All Posts,” in the author’s profile, and on any relevant tag pages):
Posts advocating for or against a specific political candidate or group of candidates (e.g. “Why effective altruists should vote for candidate Y”)
I am somewhat dissapointed that there are no recommendations for political candidates, which often benefit disproportionately from support from individual donors, and it also seems that there are no c(4)s which are highlighted in any of these cause areas, despite their usefulness in many policy areas.
Open New York is a c(4) (as noted in the writeup above).
Thank you for noting this, and I obviously missed it, and have retracted the comment due to you pointing this out and other replies that changed my view.
That said, I think that housing policy is the most obvious place for c(4) donations, given the local political nature of the work, but I’m frustrated that there’s currently so little similar direct work on the national level in the US, for example, in farm animal welfare, in biosecurity and global health, and in AI policy. I think that more political engagement in each area by individual donors small and medium size could be very useful. But as I said in another comment: “I think almost all of the hesitation of recommending [this type of donating] is the FTX fiasco and the impact on almost all of the political work that had been done in EA, which SBF was funding a large portion of—but I think that’s a really bad reason not to pursue this type of work, albeit obviously not doing so with dubious campaign finance ethics, much less stolen customer funds.”
I think there are valid reasons that Open Phil might not want to convey staff members’ suggestions about political candidates that third parties might consider funding. In particular, assuming that Open Phil is directing money toward getting candidate X elected, it might not want to take the next step and appear to be fundraising for candidate X. (I know these are not official Open Phil recommendations, but most third parties would view listing candidates here as close enough to fundraising for them.)
(Original comment retracted, however,) I would think that staff members could recommend funding political campaigns without endorsing specific candidates. I think almost all of the hesitation of recommending doing so is the FTX fiasco and the impact on almost all of the political work that had been done in EA, which SBF was funding a large portion of—but I think that’s a really bad reason not to pursue this type of work, albeit obviously not doing so with dubious campaign finance ethics, much less stolen customer funds.
Candidate advocacy is somewhat discouraged for legal and social reasons by the forum ‘norms’ (rules):