Global Health & Development Fund: Despite the general uptick in 2022, the GH&D Fund did not share in this surge and has yet to distribute any grants in 2023.
I think some of the growth from 2020 to 2022 was due to the FTX Foundation. Since FTX increased overall funding, Open Phil could also grant more to EA Funds. However, there was no growth in the GH&D fund because it has traditionally been majorly supported by direct donations. Open Phil still increased their funding of the area of GH&D by increasing their grants to GiveWell. Open Phil said the following in November 2021:
Today we are excited to announce our largest-to-date support for GiveWellâs recommendations: $300 million for 2021, up from $100 million last year, with tentative plans[1] to donate an additional $500 million per year in 2022 and 2023.
The growth plans did not materialise partly due to the collapse of FTX.
For what itâs worth my guess is that a key reason people arenât giving as much to our GH&D fund is due to the influx of healthy competitors. Ie, itâs not offering much of a differentiated product from what people could get elsewhere. I havenât interviewed our donors about this so I canât be sure, but my impression is that when the GH&D fund first launched, there werenât any plausible competitors for donors for the niche of âI want to figure out my own cause prioritization, but I want to defer to external experts to source and prioritize interventions and projects.â But these days GiveWell manages a number of their own funds (as opposed to âjustâ writing up public recommendations for charities to suggest people give to), Giving What We Can has their own Global Health&Wellbeing fund, etc.
In contrast, EA Fundsâ other funds still retain an edge as arguably being the default place to donate to for those cause areas, for a reasonable subset of engaged donors.
Let its donors know that donating to GHDF in its current form has a similar effect to donating to AGF (if that is in fact the case).
Consider appointing additional fund managers independent from GiveWell.
Consider accepting applications.
In any case, the goal of this post is mostly about starting a discussion about the future of GHDF rather than providing super informed takes about it. So feel free to share your thoughts or vision below!
However, GiveWellâs All Grants Fundwas only launched in August 2022, GWWCâsGlobal Health and Wellbeing Fund was only launched in late 2023, and there might be some lag between decreased donations and decreased grants, so I do not think new competitors alone could explain GHDFâs 52 % (= 1 â 4.8/â10) decrease in grants from 2021 to 2022 reported by Ricardo.
Importantly, GHDF has now updated the amounts they granted in 2022 and 2023. On December 20, in agreement with Ricardoâs analysis, the amounts granted in 2022 and 2023 were 4.8 and 0 M$, whereas now they are 11 and 3.4 M$. I wonder why the amount granted in 2022 took 1 year to be updated to the correct value.
Nice analysis, Ricardo!
I think some of the growth from 2020 to 2022 was due to the FTX Foundation. Since FTX increased overall funding, Open Phil could also grant more to EA Funds. However, there was no growth in the GH&D fund because it has traditionally been majorly supported by direct donations. Open Phil still increased their funding of the area of GH&D by increasing their grants to GiveWell. Open Phil said the following in November 2021:
The growth plans did not materialise partly due to the collapse of FTX.
(My own guesses only)
For what itâs worth my guess is that a key reason people arenât giving as much to our GH&D fund is due to the influx of healthy competitors. Ie, itâs not offering much of a differentiated product from what people could get elsewhere. I havenât interviewed our donors about this so I canât be sure, but my impression is that when the GH&D fund first launched, there werenât any plausible competitors for donors for the niche of âI want to figure out my own cause prioritization, but I want to defer to external experts to source and prioritize interventions and projects.â But these days GiveWell manages a number of their own funds (as opposed to âjustâ writing up public recommendations for charities to suggest people give to), Giving What We Can has their own Global Health&Wellbeing fund, etc.
In contrast, EA Fundsâ other funds still retain an edge as arguably being the default place to donate to for those cause areas, for a reasonable subset of engaged donors.
Nice point, Linch! I have a post somewhat related to that:
However, GiveWellâs All Grants Fund was only launched in August 2022, GWWCâs Global Health and Wellbeing Fund was only launched in late 2023, and there might be some lag between decreased donations and decreased grants, so I do not think new competitors alone could explain GHDFâs 52 % (= 1 â 4.8/â10) decrease in grants from 2021 to 2022 reported by Ricardo.
Importantly, GHDF has now updated the amounts they granted in 2022 and 2023. On December 20, in agreement with Ricardoâs analysis, the amounts granted in 2022 and 2023 were 4.8 and 0 M$, whereas now they are 11 and 3.4 M$. I wonder why the amount granted in 2022 took 1 year to be updated to the correct value.