But I have been working on a research paper where we interview private foundation grantmakers to try to better understand how they operate and the information used in their decision making. One of the takeaways is that trust-based philanthropy has had HUGE influence on private foundation grantmaking, despite being very new (every participant we interviewed indicated their foundation had implemented at least some trust based philanthropy practices).
This got me thinking—has EA had any influence? Not a single participant indicated that EA had influenced their grantmaking, and I would say that 75% were neutral and 25% were openly hostile to the idea of EA influencing their grantmaking.
I think EA would benefit from conversations around how to sell EA ideas to these other groups. I think it would require what some would view as “watering down”[1] of EA principles, but could substantially increase the overall impact of EA. Definitely interesting to think about what aspects of EA could be compromised before it ceases to be EA at all.
For example, most US private foundations are severely constrained by the original founder’s intent, such as spending funds in X geographic area. Could these foundations be persuaded and made more effective through a version of EA that encourages effective giving, given existing foundation constraints?
I generally agree with this critique.
A while back I wrote about an idea for an org that focuses on redirecting US private foundation grants toward more effective causes. Got a lot of feedback, and the consensus was that existing private foundations just aren’t tractable. And I tend to agree with that.
But I have been working on a research paper where we interview private foundation grantmakers to try to better understand how they operate and the information used in their decision making. One of the takeaways is that trust-based philanthropy has had HUGE influence on private foundation grantmaking, despite being very new (every participant we interviewed indicated their foundation had implemented at least some trust based philanthropy practices).
This got me thinking—has EA had any influence? Not a single participant indicated that EA had influenced their grantmaking, and I would say that 75% were neutral and 25% were openly hostile to the idea of EA influencing their grantmaking.
I think EA would benefit from conversations around how to sell EA ideas to these other groups. I think it would require what some would view as “watering down”[1] of EA principles, but could substantially increase the overall impact of EA. Definitely interesting to think about what aspects of EA could be compromised before it ceases to be EA at all.
For example, most US private foundations are severely constrained by the original founder’s intent, such as spending funds in X geographic area. Could these foundations be persuaded and made more effective through a version of EA that encourages effective giving, given existing foundation constraints?