I’d push back on the idea that certain “funding models and employment models . . . follow” from organizational size. I don’t see why donors couldn’t use different funding models, which would allow for different employment models. They choose to deploy short-term grants for their own reasons . . . but much of the fix is changing the funding model. I’m not sure how consolidating orgs is either necessary or sufficient for that. In the non-EA world, larger orgs often have more diverse and stable funding streams than smaller ones . . . but here, the bulk of funding is coming from the same few sources.
I think I mostly agree with what you’re saying. Perhaps the difference at the margins is that if 10 organisations get 10 grants for 10 researchers for 6 months, what they’ll each do is find a person for a short-term contract. If someone leaves or gets sick etc, a stream of work might not be completed and an organisation will be in a tight spot.
If that was instead one organisation, maybe it brings on 5-6 researchers for a year (or ongoing), makes some assumptions about staff turnover and part-time arrangements, and when someone leaves or gets sick it’s not a big deal because work can be reassigned between the team and project timelines can be shuffled (surge people onto the more urgent work). Basically bigger numbers (dollars; staff; projects) gives managers more wiggle room to find ways to make things work.
But I agree with you, that if funders were hard over on smaller organisations, there are ways they could ease the employment model concerns in other ways. I just think the ideal situation from an employment and management perspective would be longer term and more centralised.
I’d push back on the idea that certain “funding models and employment models . . . follow” from organizational size. I don’t see why donors couldn’t use different funding models, which would allow for different employment models. They choose to deploy short-term grants for their own reasons . . . but much of the fix is changing the funding model. I’m not sure how consolidating orgs is either necessary or sufficient for that. In the non-EA world, larger orgs often have more diverse and stable funding streams than smaller ones . . . but here, the bulk of funding is coming from the same few sources.
I think I mostly agree with what you’re saying. Perhaps the difference at the margins is that if 10 organisations get 10 grants for 10 researchers for 6 months, what they’ll each do is find a person for a short-term contract. If someone leaves or gets sick etc, a stream of work might not be completed and an organisation will be in a tight spot.
If that was instead one organisation, maybe it brings on 5-6 researchers for a year (or ongoing), makes some assumptions about staff turnover and part-time arrangements, and when someone leaves or gets sick it’s not a big deal because work can be reassigned between the team and project timelines can be shuffled (surge people onto the more urgent work). Basically bigger numbers (dollars; staff; projects) gives managers more wiggle room to find ways to make things work.
But I agree with you, that if funders were hard over on smaller organisations, there are ways they could ease the employment model concerns in other ways. I just think the ideal situation from an employment and management perspective would be longer term and more centralised.