It seems like both EA and non-EA private foundations’ grantmaking is only really accountable to their funders, so I guess that also means the question has to be asked one level up: why haven’t EAs convinced more major funders of the merits of their approach?
I suspect Ian is right that EA’s approach hasn’t always been geared towards making friends. And there’s never going to be much common ground between EA and an arts endowment foundation. But I’d question whether the foundations in general felt they were being disrupted: it was mostly the major multinational charities being accused of wasting money and misleading with their marketing to the general public, whilst the grant-makers in foundations funding health/development overseas would typically be familiar with RCTs and cost benefit analysis, and possibly wishing they had the internal resource to be as thorough and as public in their evaluations as GiveWell...
(I’m also curious what sort of conversations might have taken place between the likes of GiveWell and Rethink Priorities and broadly aligned foundations at various times, if anyone can shed any light on that?)
I also suspect that (beyond direct differences with Charity Navigator) the perception of EA being more “elitist philosophy” than a rigorous approach has been shaped more by later developments: after being the disruptive upstarts that criticised incumbent orgs even in “high impact” fields for spending big on stuff unsupported by evidence like capacity building initiatives, EA orgs pivoted towards running capacity building initiatives of their own, only more internally-focused and sometimes more lavish, and the general advice for improving your chances of EA-funding became “network”. Most of the more recent criticism of EA has been of the movement rather than the methods, and it certainly hasn’t been based on the idea it’s too rigorous...
I’d be certainly be interested in more posts on what methodology other foundations use(d). I suspect a lot of them use(d) something not dissimilar to the ITN framework and/or cost/benefit analysis without the EA gloss (and sometimes within different constraints). I think there’s a lot of merit in assessing where there’s common ground and points of difference. Would be interesting to hear what motivates the transition to TBP as well, especially if it’s foundations taking a decision to reduce the amount of impact calculation they do themselves.
It seems like both EA and non-EA private foundations’ grantmaking is only really accountable to their funders, so I guess that also means the question has to be asked one level up: why haven’t EAs convinced more major funders of the merits of their approach?
I suspect Ian is right that EA’s approach hasn’t always been geared towards making friends. And there’s never going to be much common ground between EA and an arts endowment foundation. But I’d question whether the foundations in general felt they were being disrupted: it was mostly the major multinational charities being accused of wasting money and misleading with their marketing to the general public, whilst the grant-makers in foundations funding health/development overseas would typically be familiar with RCTs and cost benefit analysis, and possibly wishing they had the internal resource to be as thorough and as public in their evaluations as GiveWell...
(I’m also curious what sort of conversations might have taken place between the likes of GiveWell and Rethink Priorities and broadly aligned foundations at various times, if anyone can shed any light on that?)
I also suspect that (beyond direct differences with Charity Navigator) the perception of EA being more “elitist philosophy” than a rigorous approach has been shaped more by later developments: after being the disruptive upstarts that criticised incumbent orgs even in “high impact” fields for spending big on stuff unsupported by evidence like capacity building initiatives, EA orgs pivoted towards running capacity building initiatives of their own, only more internally-focused and sometimes more lavish, and the general advice for improving your chances of EA-funding became “network”. Most of the more recent criticism of EA has been of the movement rather than the methods, and it certainly hasn’t been based on the idea it’s too rigorous...
I’d be certainly be interested in more posts on what methodology other foundations use(d). I suspect a lot of them use(d) something not dissimilar to the ITN framework and/or cost/benefit analysis without the EA gloss (and sometimes within different constraints). I think there’s a lot of merit in assessing where there’s common ground and points of difference. Would be interesting to hear what motivates the transition to TBP as well, especially if it’s foundations taking a decision to reduce the amount of impact calculation they do themselves.