8) What have we learned from this and how can we improve our grantmaking process?
The way we see it, we rejected a grant proposal that deserved to be rejected, and challenging, reasonable questions have been asked as to why we initially considered it and didn’t reject it earlier. We deeply regret that we may have inadvertently compromised the confidence of our community and constituents. This causes us huge distress, as does the idea that FLI or its personnel would somehow align with ideologies to which we are fundamentally opposed. We are working hard to continue improving the structure and process of our grantmaking processes, including more internal and (in appropriate cases) external review. For starters, for organizations not already well-known to FLI or clearly unexceptionable (e.g. major universities), we will request and evaluate more information about the organization, its personnel, and its history before moving on to additional stages.
So.
The FLI did nothing wrong. Their system worked fine.
But we EAs of late are such a seething hive of anger-addled impatient fools, that a lie got halfway around the world before the truth laced up its shoes. And any number of people will never hear the less viral truth.
And now the FLI will be increasing bureaucracy and ruling unestablished EA ventures out instead of in, to defend themselves against us the inhabitants of this forum.
I’m so incredibly weary of what is happening to this community.
I don’t completely agree: grantmaking organizations shouldn’t issue grant intent letters which imply this level of certainty before completing their evaluation. I expect one outcome here will be that FLI changes how they phrase letters they send at this stage to be clearer about what they actually represent, and this will be a good thing on its own where it helps grantees better understand where they are in the process and how confident to be about incoming funds.
I’m also not convinced that the stage at which this was caught is the stage at which their process was intended to catch it, but that wouldn’t rise to the level of doing something wrong—it would be small internal mistake if it hadn’t been for the misleading letter.
Apparently FLI doesn’t usually issue letters of intent at all, but the grantee requested it in this case.
Separate from the letter, there’s a question of whether more vetting should occur at an earlier stage of FLI’s process — either to save time and effort on FLI’s part, or to avoid sending a bunch of grantees informal emails that get their hopes up, or because the overall amount of vetting in the process might be too low (even though in principle it could be that FLI is doing normal levels of vetting and just spacing it out weirdly).
I had to draft and re-draft the parent comment to write it without cursing. I am crying angry tears right now. Both are deeply out of character for me.
So.
The FLI did nothing wrong. Their system worked fine.
But we EAs of late are such a seething hive of anger-addled impatient fools, that a lie got halfway around the world before the truth laced up its shoes. And any number of people will never hear the less viral truth.
And now the FLI will be increasing bureaucracy and ruling unestablished EA ventures out instead of in, to defend themselves against us the inhabitants of this forum.
I’m so incredibly weary of what is happening to this community.
I don’t completely agree: grantmaking organizations shouldn’t issue grant intent letters which imply this level of certainty before completing their evaluation. I expect one outcome here will be that FLI changes how they phrase letters they send at this stage to be clearer about what they actually represent, and this will be a good thing on its own where it helps grantees better understand where they are in the process and how confident to be about incoming funds.
I’m also not convinced that the stage at which this was caught is the stage at which their process was intended to catch it, but that wouldn’t rise to the level of doing something wrong—it would be small internal mistake if it hadn’t been for the misleading letter.
Apparently FLI doesn’t usually issue letters of intent at all, but the grantee requested it in this case.
Separate from the letter, there’s a question of whether more vetting should occur at an earlier stage of FLI’s process — either to save time and effort on FLI’s part, or to avoid sending a bunch of grantees informal emails that get their hopes up, or because the overall amount of vetting in the process might be too low (even though in principle it could be that FLI is doing normal levels of vetting and just spacing it out weirdly).
I had to draft and re-draft the parent comment to write it without cursing. I am crying angry tears right now. Both are deeply out of character for me.
I have been worn down.
❤
:(