I wonder what the cost/benefit math is on grant writers writing up their general principles and bar, without writing detailed analyses of applicants. The benefit would be calibrating people on what a grant might mean, so it doesn’t look like a stronger endorsement than it should. The obvious costs are the time to write it up and inevitably argue about it, and pain to rejected grantees. Rejection feels easier if you can assume they have a high bar, and EA Grants definitely had a problem with alternating between “sorry, you’re great, we just have so many great things and not enough money” and “we cannot find enough projects to take our money, please apply”, and then the same problem again with EAGlobal admissions.
I wonder what the cost/benefit math is on grant writers writing up their general principles and bar, without writing detailed analyses of applicants. The benefit would be calibrating people on what a grant might mean, so it doesn’t look like a stronger endorsement than it should. The obvious costs are the time to write it up and inevitably argue about it, and pain to rejected grantees. Rejection feels easier if you can assume they have a high bar, and EA Grants definitely had a problem with alternating between “sorry, you’re great, we just have so many great things and not enough money” and “we cannot find enough projects to take our money, please apply”, and then the same problem again with EAGlobal admissions.
I tried for a while to find where I think Oliver Habryka talked about this, but didn’t find it. If someone else finds it, let me know!