I’m really interested in the current funding landscape, and how that would impact the marginal value of donations in vs outside of EA
So first of all, it’s good to tap the brakes here on my comments I’m making in this thread. It’s not clear I’m remotely informed or know anything about EA, much less informed about CEA.
For all we know, I got rejected from the recent EAG and there’s pictures of me on the security booth to make sure I didn’t sneak in.
Is there anything publicly accessible about this?
So, yes! I think this is a great question. I’m referring to this:
This post describes a CEA university program that was discontinued.
So below is my guess of the context or background of what happened:
This $50M program was one specific (and promising) instance of major effort on college campuses that would have brought on generations of new EA leaders, future donors, who would go to into altruism instead of say, Wall Street or corporate.
This is a larger program and in a natural way, requires a discrete commitment of money, up to $50M in one vision or phase. (Note that this money wasn’t necessarily transferred, but it seems that the dependencies of this or similar programs could change in reserve fund levels, which is why I mentioned it).
So what happened? The involved CEA team is really talented and working on a huge number of projects. At the same time, outside of CEA, at the moment, there happens to be talented EAs working on related projects. So at this particular time, for this particular program, the CEA staff decided that other people in EA could do this right now.
So they gave back the money for this program, voluntarily, instead of just using it to get more headcount, make themselves look bigger or something.
I think that, no matter what the actual need of funds that CEA has, this act of giving back the money and deciding others can do the program it is exactly what you want to see.
It’s unclear if this indicates anything about CEA’s funding or any funding situation in EA—but seems to suggest good governance and use of money at CEA.
I think that, no matter what the actual need of funds that CEA has, this act of giving back the money and deciding others can do the program it is exactly what you want to see.
Strongly agree!
It’s not clear I’m remotely informed or know anything about EA, much less informed about CEA.
You clearly know much more than I do. Even if things were more transparent it would still be hard to keep up with everything, so thank you for sharing your perspective and what you happen to know!
Retaining funds without charitable intent [for survival in the case of potential unknown reputational damage, for the potential loss of a donor] where those funds are beyond the reserves actually necessary is what I criticised about the UK charity CEA. That the related but separately run and separately managed USA CEA seems not to do that is something I too would applaud.
I don’t know what the correct level would be other than the current level feels very wrong. They themselves give summary reasons for the very high reserves which seem unacceptable.
(1) The possible but unknown reputational damage they can’t really expect, or if they do so expect they ought not to build a fighting fund from my (potential*) charitable donations. Or if they’re expecting reputational damage a better strategy would be to change their behaviour.
(2) The potential loss of a big donor. When they lose a big donor that is the time to cut back on their funding of projects and their staff costs. High paid workers (and they are, this organisation) should not be protecting from losing their jobs in a downturn more than some commercial enterprise workers would be. Instead they take my (potential*) donations and set them aside for this purpose.
You’ll all be aware of the matching funds concept in charitable giving. If I give £10 then someone else guarantees to match this. Effectively my altruism is DOUBLED. This is a great concept and has encouraged me to give in the past. Lets see what’s happening here. The UK CEA takes half of it’s donations and sits on it. If I gave £10 to the UK CEA in 2020 only £5 is used. We’re not even talking about the necessary admin and infrastructure costs here. Effectively my altruism is HALVED.
___ (*) Why am I here? Thru hard work and luck I find myself with surplus assets and I thought I would give some of it away now, and some later. I wanted to do so constructively and was so pleased to find the EA crowd! I had already typed the (UK) CEA’s name and charity number into my draft will before I decided to properly check the hype for myself. I think I might be better off donating to OXFAM, their failings are distressing but the failings are human, they are not policy, and they’re embarrassed by them.
I’m uncomfortable criticising so anonymously. I’ve tried to find out how properly to identify myself here. I cannot edit my psb777 id and there seems to be nowhere to type in my name. I’ll stick it in the bio notes. Meanwhile I’m Paul Beardsell if you’re looking for whom to avoid.
GiveWell’s Maximum Impact Fund https://www.givewell.org/maximum-impact-fund is probably what you were looking for in the first place, it distributes 100% of the money to projects with the highest direct impact, and its employees are funded by external funds.
As far as I understand, the CEA “mission is to build a community of students and professionals acting on the principles of effective altruism, by creating and sustaining high-quality discussion spaces”. So indeed they probably do “fancy” events (the Bahamas thing is completely unrelated, see other comment). Which is probably something you do not find as valuable as more direct work. (And I personally would agree with you, and donated to New Incentives last year).
Don’t worry about criticizing “anonymously”, your name is the first thing that shows up when you Google “psb777″ anyway. If you want an admin to edit your visible name you can ask for help by clicking in the bottom right.
But please try to be more polite, everyone here is doing their best, if you don’t like how the CEA is using their money you should donate to a recommended charity indeed. Keep in mind that Oxfam seems to have similar salaries and ~15M£ in assets so, if this is something important to you, charities like the Against Malaria Foundation could be a better choice.
So first of all, it’s good to tap the brakes here on my comments I’m making in this thread. It’s not clear I’m remotely informed or know anything about EA, much less informed about CEA.
For all we know, I got rejected from the recent EAG and there’s pictures of me on the security booth to make sure I didn’t sneak in.
So, yes! I think this is a great question. I’m referring to this:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/xTWhXX9HJfKmvpQZi/cea-is-discontinuing-its-focus-university-programming
This post describes a CEA university program that was discontinued.
So below is my guess of the context or background of what happened:
This $50M program was one specific (and promising) instance of major effort on college campuses that would have brought on generations of new EA leaders, future donors, who would go to into altruism instead of say, Wall Street or corporate.
This is a larger program and in a natural way, requires a discrete commitment of money, up to $50M in one vision or phase. (Note that this money wasn’t necessarily transferred, but it seems that the dependencies of this or similar programs could change in reserve fund levels, which is why I mentioned it).
So what happened? The involved CEA team is really talented and working on a huge number of projects. At the same time, outside of CEA, at the moment, there happens to be talented EAs working on related projects. So at this particular time, for this particular program, the CEA staff decided that other people in EA could do this right now.
So they gave back the money for this program, voluntarily, instead of just using it to get more headcount, make themselves look bigger or something.
I think that, no matter what the actual need of funds that CEA has, this act of giving back the money and deciding others can do the program it is exactly what you want to see.
It’s unclear if this indicates anything about CEA’s funding or any funding situation in EA—but seems to suggest good governance and use of money at CEA.
Thanks!
Strongly agree!
You clearly know much more than I do. Even if things were more transparent it would still be hard to keep up with everything, so thank you for sharing your perspective and what you happen to know!
Retaining funds without charitable intent [for survival in the case of potential unknown reputational damage, for the potential loss of a donor] where those funds are beyond the reserves actually necessary is what I criticised about the UK charity CEA. That the related but separately run and separately managed USA CEA seems not to do that is something I too would applaud.
What amount of runway would you agree is justifiable?
I assume one year would be ok, at that scale?
I don’t know what the correct level would be other than the current level feels very wrong. They themselves give summary reasons for the very high reserves which seem unacceptable.
(1) The possible but unknown reputational damage they can’t really expect, or if they do so expect they ought not to build a fighting fund from my (potential*) charitable donations. Or if they’re expecting reputational damage a better strategy would be to change their behaviour.
(2) The potential loss of a big donor. When they lose a big donor that is the time to cut back on their funding of projects and their staff costs. High paid workers (and they are, this organisation) should not be protecting from losing their jobs in a downturn more than some commercial enterprise workers would be. Instead they take my (potential*) donations and set them aside for this purpose.
You’ll all be aware of the matching funds concept in charitable giving. If I give £10 then someone else guarantees to match this. Effectively my altruism is DOUBLED. This is a great concept and has encouraged me to give in the past. Lets see what’s happening here. The UK CEA takes half of it’s donations and sits on it. If I gave £10 to the UK CEA in 2020 only £5 is used. We’re not even talking about the necessary admin and infrastructure costs here. Effectively my altruism is HALVED.
___
(*) Why am I here? Thru hard work and luck I find myself with surplus assets and I thought I would give some of it away now, and some later. I wanted to do so constructively and was so pleased to find the EA crowd! I had already typed the (UK) CEA’s name and charity number into my draft will before I decided to properly check the hype for myself. I think I might be better off donating to OXFAM, their failings are distressing but the failings are human, they are not policy, and they’re embarrassed by them.
I’m uncomfortable criticising so anonymously. I’ve tried to find out how properly to identify myself here. I cannot edit my psb777 id and there seems to be nowhere to type in my name. I’ll stick it in the bio notes. Meanwhile I’m Paul Beardsell if you’re looking for whom to avoid.
I agree that based on what you’re posting so far, there are definitely better choices for you than UK CEA. Here are two lists by EA related projects:
https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/best-charities-to-donate-to-2022/#donate-to-reputable-and-effective-charities
https://www.thelifeyoucansave.org/best-charities/ (this one includes Oxfam!)
There is a lot of diversity of opinions in the EA movement on what’s exactly best to donate to, depending on each individual’s unique values.
GiveWell’s Maximum Impact Fund https://www.givewell.org/maximum-impact-fund is probably what you were looking for in the first place, it distributes 100% of the money to projects with the highest direct impact, and its employees are funded by external funds.
As far as I understand, the CEA “mission is to build a community of students and professionals acting on the principles of effective altruism, by creating and sustaining high-quality discussion spaces”.
So indeed they probably do “fancy” events (the Bahamas thing is completely unrelated, see other comment).
Which is probably something you do not find as valuable as more direct work. (And I personally would agree with you, and donated to New Incentives last year).
Don’t worry about criticizing “anonymously”, your name is the first thing that shows up when you Google “psb777″ anyway. If you want an admin to edit your visible name you can ask for help by clicking in the bottom right.
But please try to be more polite, everyone here is doing their best, if you don’t like how the CEA is using their money you should donate to a recommended charity indeed. Keep in mind that Oxfam seems to have similar salaries and ~15M£ in assets so, if this is something important to you, charities like the Against Malaria Foundation could be a better choice.