Hey Vasco, these are my personal thoughts and not FP’s (I have now left FP, and anything FP says should take precedence). I have pretty limited capacity to respond, but a few quick notes—
First, I think it’s totally true that there are some BOTEC errors, many/ most of them mine (thank you GWWC for spotting them— it’s so crucial to a well-functioning ecosystem, and more selfishly, to improving my skills as a grantmaker. I really value this!)
At the same time—these are hugely rough BOTECs, that were never meant to be rigorous CEA’s: they were being used as decision-making tools to enable quick decision-making under limited capacity (i do not take the actual numbers seriously: i expect they’re wrong in both directions), with many factors beyond the BOTEC going into grantmaking decisions.
I don’t want to make judgments about whether or not the fund (while I was there) was surpassing GiveWell or not— super happy to leave this to GWWC. I was focused on funders who would not counterfactually give to GW, meaning that this was less decision-relevant for me.
I think it’s helpful to look at the grant history from FP GHDF. Here’s all the grants that I think have been made by FP GHDF since Jan 2023, apologies if i’ve missed any:
* New Incentives, Sightsavers, Pure Earth, Evidence Action
* r.i.c.e, FEM, Suvita (roughly- currently scaling orgs, that were considerably smaller/ more early stage when we originally granted)
* 1 was an advocacy grant to 1DaySooner, 1 was an advocacy grant to LEEP
* 5 are recent young orgs, that we think are promising but ofc supporting young orgs is hit and miss (Ansh, Taimaka, Essential, IMPALA, HealthLearn)
* 1 was deworming research grant
* 1 was an anti-corruption journalism grant which we think is promising due to economic growth impacts (OCCRP)
I think it’s plausible that i spent too little time on these grant evals, and this probably contributed to BOTEC errors. But I feel pretty good about the actual decision-making, although I am very biased:
* At least 2 or 3 of these struck me as being really time-sensitive (all grants are time-sensitive in a way, but I’m talking about ‘might have to shut down some or all operations’ or ‘there is a time-sensitive scaling opportunity’). * I think there is a bit of a gap for early-ish funding, and benefits to opening up more room for funding by scaling these orgs (i.e. funding orgs beyond seed funding, but before orgs can absorb or have the track record for multi million grants). Its still early days, but feel pretty good about the trajectories of the young orgs that FP GHDF supported. * Having a few high EV, ‘big if true’ grants feels reasonable to me (advocacy, economic growth, R and D).
I hope this context is useful, and note that I can’t speak to FP’s current/ future plans with the FP GHDF. I value the engagement- thanks.
Worth pointing out that FP staff who could reply on this is on Thanksgiving break, so will probably take until next week.
Hey Vasco, these are my personal thoughts and not FP’s (I have now left FP, and anything FP says should take precedence). I have pretty limited capacity to respond, but a few quick notes—
First, I think it’s totally true that there are some BOTEC errors, many/ most of them mine (thank you GWWC for spotting them— it’s so crucial to a well-functioning ecosystem, and more selfishly, to improving my skills as a grantmaker. I really value this!)
At the same time—these are hugely rough BOTECs, that were never meant to be rigorous CEA’s: they were being used as decision-making tools to enable quick decision-making under limited capacity (i do not take the actual numbers seriously: i expect they’re wrong in both directions), with many factors beyond the BOTEC going into grantmaking decisions.
I don’t want to make judgments about whether or not the fund (while I was there) was surpassing GiveWell or not— super happy to leave this to GWWC. I was focused on funders who would not counterfactually give to GW, meaning that this was less decision-relevant for me.
I think it’s helpful to look at the grant history from FP GHDF. Here’s all the grants that I think have been made by FP GHDF since Jan 2023, apologies if i’ve missed any:
* New Incentives, Sightsavers, Pure Earth, Evidence Action
* r.i.c.e, FEM, Suvita (roughly- currently scaling orgs, that were considerably smaller/ more early stage when we originally granted)
* 4 are ecosystem multiplier-y grants (Giving Multiplier, TLYCS, Effective Altruism Australia, Effektiv Spenden)
* 1 was an advocacy grant to 1DaySooner, 1 was an advocacy grant to LEEP
* 5 are recent young orgs, that we think are promising but ofc supporting young orgs is hit and miss (Ansh, Taimaka, Essential, IMPALA, HealthLearn)
* 1 was deworming research grant
* 1 was an anti-corruption journalism grant which we think is promising due to economic growth impacts (OCCRP)
I think it’s plausible that i spent too little time on these grant evals, and this probably contributed to BOTEC errors. But I feel pretty good about the actual decision-making, although I am very biased:
* At least 2 or 3 of these struck me as being really time-sensitive (all grants are time-sensitive in a way, but I’m talking about ‘might have to shut down some or all operations’ or ‘there is a time-sensitive scaling opportunity’).
* I think there is a bit of a gap for early-ish funding, and benefits to opening up more room for funding by scaling these orgs (i.e. funding orgs beyond seed funding, but before orgs can absorb or have the track record for multi million grants). Its still early days, but feel pretty good about the trajectories of the young orgs that FP GHDF supported.
* Having a few high EV, ‘big if true’ grants feels reasonable to me (advocacy, economic growth, R and D).
I hope this context is useful, and note that I can’t speak to FP’s current/ future plans with the FP GHDF. I value the engagement- thanks.