I agree that there are situations where funders would prefer organizations to have significant restrictions. I’m hopeful that in our situation, we can find ways for funders to find sizeable organizations that they can have enough trust in that they don’t need to go through many legal restrictions.
Or, if we can develop important relationships with high levels of justified trust, then we can heavily delegate decision-making to sizeable organizations, giving them the ability to be very flexible as is best. If we can’t get to these levels of trust, then the appropriate thing is to restrict them more.
In the corporate world, big businesses have to change a lot to do well. In the startup world, pivoting is a major deal. There are a lot of best practices in how to not do this too much or too little.
I’d also agree that there are some really bad large organizations out there. I’d guess that main reason they are bad is because they are in incentive landscapes that are poorly structured or noncompetitive. I’d be curious how effective the median small nonprofit is in the ecosystems you are pointing at—I’d expect that they’re fairly mediocre as well.
If I were a strong team member in a bad organization, I could easily see myself expecting to be more effective outside, in a tiny org. But if I were a high-level decision-maker (board member or funder), and I knew that there was a very strong team member inside my big organization, I’d probably prefer to have/move this person to a top leadership role, then have them be a leader in a new tiny organization.
I think that the specific team and focus areas at Charity Entrepeneurship seem like arguably good fits for an incubator, instead of a larger organization. However, if there are other groups considering making incubators, I’d definitely encourage them to consider making startup studios as well. (I have made this recommendation to three other groups considering considering incubators.)
Thanks for the comments here!
I agree that there are situations where funders would prefer organizations to have significant restrictions. I’m hopeful that in our situation, we can find ways for funders to find sizeable organizations that they can have enough trust in that they don’t need to go through many legal restrictions.
I’ve written about this here: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/rqo9AswmH7KRF77ko/improve-delegation-abilities-today-delegate-heavily-tomorrow
Or, if we can develop important relationships with high levels of justified trust, then we can heavily delegate decision-making to sizeable organizations, giving them the ability to be very flexible as is best. If we can’t get to these levels of trust, then the appropriate thing is to restrict them more.
In the corporate world, big businesses have to change a lot to do well. In the startup world, pivoting is a major deal. There are a lot of best practices in how to not do this too much or too little.
I’d also agree that there are some really bad large organizations out there. I’d guess that main reason they are bad is because they are in incentive landscapes that are poorly structured or noncompetitive. I’d be curious how effective the median small nonprofit is in the ecosystems you are pointing at—I’d expect that they’re fairly mediocre as well.
If I were a strong team member in a bad organization, I could easily see myself expecting to be more effective outside, in a tiny org. But if I were a high-level decision-maker (board member or funder), and I knew that there was a very strong team member inside my big organization, I’d probably prefer to have/move this person to a top leadership role, then have them be a leader in a new tiny organization.
I think that the specific team and focus areas at Charity Entrepeneurship seem like arguably good fits for an incubator, instead of a larger organization. However, if there are other groups considering making incubators, I’d definitely encourage them to consider making startup studios as well. (I have made this recommendation to three other groups considering considering incubators.)