I believe that in time EA research/analysis orgs both could and should spend > $100m pa.
There are many non-EA orgs whose staff largely sit at a desk, and who spend >$100m, and I believe an EA org could too.
Let’s consider one example. Standard & Poors (S&P) spent c.$3.8bn in 2020 (source: 2020 accounts). They produce ratings on companies, governments, etc. These ratings help answer the question: “if I lend the company money, will I get my money back”. Most major companies have a rating with S&P. (S&P also does other things like indices, however I’m sure the ratings bit alone spends >$100m p.a.)
S&P for charities?
Currently, very few analytical orgs in the EA space aim to have as broad a coverage of charities as S&P does of companies/governments/etc.
However an org which did this would have significant benefits.
They would have a broader appeal because they would be useful to so many more people; it could conceivably achieve the level of brand recognition achieved by charity evaluators such as Charity Navigator, which have high levels of brand recognition in the US (c50% with a bit of rounding).
Lots of the impact here is the illegible impact that comes from being well-known and highly influential; this could lead to more major donors being attracted to EA-style donating, or many other things.
There’s also the impact that could come from donating to higher impact things within a lower impact cause area, and the impact of influencing the charity sector to have more impact.
I find these arguments convincing enough that I founded an organisation (SoGive) to implement them.
At the margin, GiveWell is likely more cost-effective, however I’d allude to Ben’s comments about cost-effectiveness x scale in a separate comment.
S&P for companies’ impact?
Human activity, as measured by GDP (for all that measure has flaws) is split roughly 60%(ish) by for-profit companies, 30%(ish) by governments and a little bit from other things (like charities).
As I have argued elsewhere, EA has likely neglected the 60% of human activity, and should be investing more in helping companies to have more positive impact (or avoiding their negative impact)
The charity CDP spent £16.5m (c.$23m) in the year to March 2019 (source). They primarily focus on the question of how much carbon emissions are associated with each company. The bigger question of how much overall impact is associated with each company would no doubt require a substantially larger organisation, spending at least an order of magnitude more than the c$23m spent by CDP.
(Note: I haven’t thought very carefully about whether “S&P for companies’ impact” really is a high-impact project)
Interesting thougts Sanjay and I agree that we neglect the 60% for profit sector
My biggest concern with your solution in one sentence: as long as people mostly care about money they want to act on advice that maximises their financial return. Of course we could ” subsidise” a service like that for social profit, but as long as it is not in the systems interest to act on our advice it’s useless.
So changing the incentives of the system (through policy advocacy) or movement building (expanding the moral circle) seem more promosing from this viewpoint. On the other hand: once enough people are really interested in social profits we need to have the insights which companies do good and which do not. Maybe it’s more a question of the right timing...
When I started thinking about these issues last year, my thinking was pretty similar to what you said.
I thought about it and considered that for the biggest risks, investors may have a selfish incentive to avoid to model and manage the impacts that their companies have on the wider world—if only because the wider world includes the rest of their own portfolio!
It turns out I was not the first to think of this concept, and its name is Universal Ownership. (I’ve described it on the forum here)
Universal Ownership doesn’t go far enough, in my view, but it’s a step forward compared to where we are today, and gives people an incentive to care about social impacts (or social “profits”)
I believe that in time EA research/analysis orgs both could and should spend > $100m pa.
There are many non-EA orgs whose staff largely sit at a desk, and who spend >$100m, and I believe an EA org could too.
Let’s consider one example. Standard & Poors (S&P) spent c.$3.8bn in 2020 (source: 2020 accounts). They produce ratings on companies, governments, etc. These ratings help answer the question: “if I lend the company money, will I get my money back”. Most major companies have a rating with S&P. (S&P also does other things like indices, however I’m sure the ratings bit alone spends >$100m p.a.)
S&P for charities?
Currently, very few analytical orgs in the EA space aim to have as broad a coverage of charities as S&P does of companies/governments/etc.
However an org which did this would have significant benefits.
They would have a broader appeal because they would be useful to so many more people; it could conceivably achieve the level of brand recognition achieved by charity evaluators such as Charity Navigator, which have high levels of brand recognition in the US (c50% with a bit of rounding).
Lots of the impact here is the illegible impact that comes from being well-known and highly influential; this could lead to more major donors being attracted to EA-style donating, or many other things.
There’s also the impact that could come from donating to higher impact things within a lower impact cause area, and the impact of influencing the charity sector to have more impact.
I find these arguments convincing enough that I founded an organisation (SoGive) to implement them.
At the margin, GiveWell is likely more cost-effective, however I’d allude to Ben’s comments about cost-effectiveness x scale in a separate comment.
S&P for companies’ impact?
Human activity, as measured by GDP (for all that measure has flaws) is split roughly 60%(ish) by for-profit companies, 30%(ish) by governments and a little bit from other things (like charities).
As I have argued elsewhere, EA has likely neglected the 60% of human activity, and should be investing more in helping companies to have more positive impact (or avoiding their negative impact)
The charity CDP spent £16.5m (c.$23m) in the year to March 2019 (source). They primarily focus on the question of how much carbon emissions are associated with each company. The bigger question of how much overall impact is associated with each company would no doubt require a substantially larger organisation, spending at least an order of magnitude more than the c$23m spent by CDP.
(Note: I haven’t thought very carefully about whether “S&P for companies’ impact” really is a high-impact project)
Interesting thougts Sanjay and I agree that we neglect the 60% for profit sector
My biggest concern with your solution in one sentence: as long as people mostly care about money they want to act on advice that maximises their financial return. Of course we could ” subsidise” a service like that for social profit, but as long as it is not in the systems interest to act on our advice it’s useless.
So changing the incentives of the system (through policy advocacy) or movement building (expanding the moral circle) seem more promosing from this viewpoint. On the other hand: once enough people are really interested in social profits we need to have the insights which companies do good and which do not. Maybe it’s more a question of the right timing...
When I started thinking about these issues last year, my thinking was pretty similar to what you said.
I thought about it and considered that for the biggest risks, investors may have a selfish incentive to avoid to model and manage the impacts that their companies have on the wider world—if only because the wider world includes the rest of their own portfolio!
It turns out I was not the first to think of this concept, and its name is Universal Ownership. (I’ve described it on the forum here)
Universal Ownership doesn’t go far enough, in my view, but it’s a step forward compared to where we are today, and gives people an incentive to care about social impacts (or social “profits”)