(Simply giving this link was really valuable already. I will put my main takeaway points from this post here, but I do not expect a response in case you do not want to participate in this discussion again as it appears you already did so 3 years ago :’D.)
To me, it appears as if the authors mainly agree that diversification (within one cause area) is motivated by an attempt to maximize utility, though they disagree on the degree to which diminishing returns of investment (and therefore the role of diversification) actually matter in practice. I briefly want to point out that even though this idea is obvious from an EA perspective the literature on donor coordination problems does a very poor job in capturing this intent.
I agree that donation funds help reduce coordination problems. However, assuming there is more than one grantmaker, this just shifts the “burden of aggregating different opinions” from the general public into the organization since grantmakers still need some mechanism to reconcile their differing beliefs. That said, I don’t know enough about typical grantmaking processes to judge whether grantmakers differ significantly enough in their individual assessments for this to matter in practice.
Relevant reading: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/x2iT45T5ci3ea9yKW/dialogue-on-donation-splitting
Thank you for sharing!
(Simply giving this link was really valuable already. I will put my main takeaway points from this post here, but I do not expect a response in case you do not want to participate in this discussion again as it appears you already did so 3 years ago :’D.)
To me, it appears as if the authors mainly agree that diversification (within one cause area) is motivated by an attempt to maximize utility, though they disagree on the degree to which diminishing returns of investment (and therefore the role of diversification) actually matter in practice. I briefly want to point out that even though this idea is obvious from an EA perspective the literature on donor coordination problems does a very poor job in capturing this intent.
I agree that donation funds help reduce coordination problems. However, assuming there is more than one grantmaker, this just shifts the “burden of aggregating different opinions” from the general public into the organization since grantmakers still need some mechanism to reconcile their differing beliefs. That said, I don’t know enough about typical grantmaking processes to judge whether grantmakers differ significantly enough in their individual assessments for this to matter in practice.