Some have argued that earning to give can contribute to funding diversification. Having a few dozen mid-sized donors, rather than one or two very large donors, would make the financial position of an organization more secure. It allows them to plan for the future and not worry about fundraising all the time.
As earn to giver, I can be one of those mid-sized donors. I have tried. However, it is challenging.
First of all, I donāt have expertise, and donāt have much time to build the expertise. I spend most of my time on my day job, which has nothing to do with any cause I care about. Any research must be done in my free time. This is fine, but it has some cost. This is time I could have spent on career development, talking to others about effective giving, or living more frugally.
Motivation is not the issue, at least for me. Iāve found the research extremely rewarding and intellectually stimulating to do. Yet, fun doesnāt necessarily translate to effectiveness.
Iāve seen peer earn to givers just defer to GiveWell or other charity evaluators without putting much thought into it. This is great, but isnāt there more? Others said that they talked to an individual organization, thought āsounds reasonableā, and transferred the money. I fell for that trap too!
There is a lot at stake. Itās about hard-earned money that has the potential to help large numbers of people and animals in dire need. Unfortunately, I donāt trust my own non-expert judgment to do this.
So I find myself donating to funds, and then the funding is centralized again. If others do the same, charities will have to rely on one grantmaker again, rather than a diverse pool of donors.
Ideas
What would help to address this issue? Here are a few ideas, some of them are already happening.
funding circles. Note that most funding circles I know require a large budget and are therefore inaccessible for most earn to givers.
Related: a small group of like-minded donors evaluating a specific organization.
Give each other recommendations. If you have expertise of specific cause area and you can recommend organizations (especially when you donāt have a conflict of interest with them), do talk about it to potential donors during networking events. Or, if you are a donor, do ask.
EA funds can publish a more detailed public write-up of their grants, so that interested donors can follow up. Especially interesting when they canāt give as much as they want due to funding constraints.
funding circles. Note that most funding circles I know require a large budget and are therefore inaccessible for most earn to givers.
Related: a small group of like-minded donors evaluating a specific organization.
Give each other recommendations. If you have expertise of specific cause area and you can recommend organizations (especially when you donāt have a conflict of interest with them), do talk about it to potential donors during networking events. Or, if you are a donor, do ask.
Thanks for posting this! I tend to agree, itās not my comparative advantage to make grants as a mid-size donor; and itās unlikely that Iāll beat the impact/ārigor of a fund.
Iām not sure that these particular examples will necessarily solve the issue of groupthink/ācentralized decision-making as they still rely heavily on a few knowledgeable decision makers. For instance, I found that a lot of decisions in funding circles are deferred to the experts in the room. However, Iām hopeful that they can help. :)
As earn to giver, I found contributing to funding diversification challenging
Jeff Kaufmann posted a different version of the same argument earlier than me.
Some have argued that earning to give can contribute to funding diversification. Having a few dozen mid-sized donors, rather than one or two very large donors, would make the financial position of an organization more secure. It allows them to plan for the future and not worry about fundraising all the time.
As earn to giver, I can be one of those mid-sized donors. I have tried. However, it is challenging.
First of all, I donāt have expertise, and donāt have much time to build the expertise. I spend most of my time on my day job, which has nothing to do with any cause I care about. Any research must be done in my free time. This is fine, but it has some cost. This is time I could have spent on career development, talking to others about effective giving, or living more frugally.
Motivation is not the issue, at least for me. Iāve found the research extremely rewarding and intellectually stimulating to do. Yet, fun doesnāt necessarily translate to effectiveness.
Iāve seen peer earn to givers just defer to GiveWell or other charity evaluators without putting much thought into it. This is great, but isnāt there more? Others said that they talked to an individual organization, thought āsounds reasonableā, and transferred the money. I fell for that trap too!
There is a lot at stake. Itās about hard-earned money that has the potential to help large numbers of people and animals in dire need. Unfortunately, I donāt trust my own non-expert judgment to do this.
So I find myself donating to funds, and then the funding is centralized again. If others do the same, charities will have to rely on one grantmaker again, rather than a diverse pool of donors.
Ideas
What would help to address this issue? Here are a few ideas, some of them are already happening.
funding circles. Note that most funding circles I know require a large budget and are therefore inaccessible for most earn to givers.
Related: a small group of like-minded donors evaluating a specific organization.
Give each other recommendations. If you have expertise of specific cause area and you can recommend organizations (especially when you donāt have a conflict of interest with them), do talk about it to potential donors during networking events. Or, if you are a donor, do ask.
EA funds can publish a more detailed public write-up of their grants, so that interested donors can follow up. Especially interesting when they canāt give as much as they want due to funding constraints.
Donor lotteries
Impact markets, if implemented well.
Thanks for posting this! I tend to agree, itās not my comparative advantage to make grants as a mid-size donor; and itās unlikely that Iāll beat the impact/ārigor of a fund.
Iām not sure that these particular examples will necessarily solve the issue of groupthink/ācentralized decision-making as they still rely heavily on a few knowledgeable decision makers. For instance, I found that a lot of decisions in funding circles are deferred to the experts in the room. However, Iām hopeful that they can help. :)