I think this project may be leaving significant amounts of impact on the table if the diversity of the regranting team is not increased. The key advantages one might suggest of regranting over traditional grantmaking is it is better at the ‘explore’ side of the ‘explore-exploit’ spectrum. However, this is significantly reduced without more diversity amongst regranters, as the people they know and networks they are in may be similar.
I don’t know and haven’t researched the history of each regranter (they all seem impressive and capable from a cursory glance!) However my impression is there is no one from Africa or Latin America (two burgening areas of xrisk activity), and also much of Asia (with the majority of the world’s population in it, as well as at least two great powers in China and India). Failing to have such geographic diversity may make it harder to seek out the highest impact opportunities, and seems to miss some of the key advantages of regranting.
There are other axes as well that improved diversity amongst regranters may be better. The inclusion of more women may be another one that is important. Increased diversity of backgrounds, including more people with humanities/social science. It also may be interesting to have either a ‘devil’s advocate’ regranter who is skeptical of longtermism to fund critical work on longtermism and xrisk, or to have a regranter who approaches xrisk from a less ‘EA’ paradigm to increase the diversity of approaches to xrisk mitigation that may be funded.
How to increase these diversities and more I’d a difficult question. The point isn’t just a box-ticking exercise, but rather to have a portfolio of regranters diverse enough that we can be confident that as large a diversity of relevant projects can be touched by the programme as possible.
I think one of the difficulties here is that Austin and his colleagues are doing this through their personal and professional networks, just like anyone starting a project. Unless the Manifold team were to make some sort of a blinded application process (which has it’s own costs and burdens), I don’t really see a way around the obstacle of recruiting mainly from people you know. An organization can change this overtime. But despite how much I dislike how much harder it is to get funded if you’re not well-connected in the Bay Area community, not relying on connections at the start strikes me as very challenging.
I’ll also share my opinion that Austin has the right response here: he is open to suggestions and willing to consider them.
Hi Gideon, I’m a regranter and I live in Latin America. This has basically no effect on what I choose to fund.
I also care a lot more about animals than most (maybe all) the regranters.
The thing you want to select for in a group of regranters is the diversity of knowledge of opportunities and some intellectual diversity of approaches to longtermism. It seems like Manifund did a decent job here? I think i was selected for my forecasting on Manifold but there are others who work in pandemic preparedness and a lot of people work in different ways no AI safety (which is sort of what the donor wanted).
We’re happy to consider more diverse regrantors—if you have specific candidates in mind, please send them this launch post, or make an intro to us (austin@manifund.org)!
Thanks for the feedback! Geographic diversity in particular does seem pretty important for getting the most out of regranting—much dissatisfaction about the current funding situation comes from how much harder it is to get funded if you’re not well-connected in the Bay Area community.
I’m disappointed that we currently don’t even have much UK representation, since that’s the other EA hub. This is largely because we are based in the SF so are better connected here. As Austin said, happy to hear suggestions for people connected in other areas who could better surface new opportunities!
Without claiming that the other dimensions of diversity aren’t important, I see geographic and cause area diversity as the most important dimensions.
Regranters are much more likely to grant to people they either know personally or through their networks. They are also much more likely to grant to projects they understand.
Yes, one issue with our initial cohort is that it’s extremely US/Bay Area-centric. We’re especially excited for people outside this hub to apply for a regrant budget!
If I had to, I would guess that there is maybe one Republican leaning regrantor in there. Do you think we should actively recruit more Trump supporting regrantors, as this would also increase diversity? It also looks like almost all of the regrantors have university degrees. Do you think there should be more regrantors with no formal education? Approximately 14% of the world adult population is illiterate after all.
Which of the humanities should people be recruited from?
Haha, I think you meant this sarcastically but I would actually love to find Republican, or non-college-educated, or otherwise non-”traditional EA” regrantors. (If this describes you or someone you know, encourage them to apply!)
I think this project may be leaving significant amounts of impact on the table if the diversity of the regranting team is not increased. The key advantages one might suggest of regranting over traditional grantmaking is it is better at the ‘explore’ side of the ‘explore-exploit’ spectrum. However, this is significantly reduced without more diversity amongst regranters, as the people they know and networks they are in may be similar.
I don’t know and haven’t researched the history of each regranter (they all seem impressive and capable from a cursory glance!) However my impression is there is no one from Africa or Latin America (two burgening areas of xrisk activity), and also much of Asia (with the majority of the world’s population in it, as well as at least two great powers in China and India). Failing to have such geographic diversity may make it harder to seek out the highest impact opportunities, and seems to miss some of the key advantages of regranting.
There are other axes as well that improved diversity amongst regranters may be better. The inclusion of more women may be another one that is important. Increased diversity of backgrounds, including more people with humanities/social science. It also may be interesting to have either a ‘devil’s advocate’ regranter who is skeptical of longtermism to fund critical work on longtermism and xrisk, or to have a regranter who approaches xrisk from a less ‘EA’ paradigm to increase the diversity of approaches to xrisk mitigation that may be funded.
How to increase these diversities and more I’d a difficult question. The point isn’t just a box-ticking exercise, but rather to have a portfolio of regranters diverse enough that we can be confident that as large a diversity of relevant projects can be touched by the programme as possible.
I think one of the difficulties here is that Austin and his colleagues are doing this through their personal and professional networks, just like anyone starting a project. Unless the Manifold team were to make some sort of a blinded application process (which has it’s own costs and burdens), I don’t really see a way around the obstacle of recruiting mainly from people you know. An organization can change this overtime. But despite how much I dislike how much harder it is to get funded if you’re not well-connected in the Bay Area community, not relying on connections at the start strikes me as very challenging.
I’ll also share my opinion that Austin has the right response here: he is open to suggestions and willing to consider them.
Hi Gideon, I’m a regranter and I live in Latin America. This has basically no effect on what I choose to fund.
I also care a lot more about animals than most (maybe all) the regranters.
The thing you want to select for in a group of regranters is the diversity of knowledge of opportunities and some intellectual diversity of approaches to longtermism. It seems like Manifund did a decent job here? I think i was selected for my forecasting on Manifold but there are others who work in pandemic preparedness and a lot of people work in different ways no AI safety (which is sort of what the donor wanted).
We’re happy to consider more diverse regrantors—if you have specific candidates in mind, please send them this launch post, or make an intro to us (
austin@manifund.org)!Thanks for the feedback! Geographic diversity in particular does seem pretty important for getting the most out of regranting—much dissatisfaction about the current funding situation comes from how much harder it is to get funded if you’re not well-connected in the Bay Area community.
I’m disappointed that we currently don’t even have much UK representation, since that’s the other EA hub. This is largely because we are based in the SF so are better connected here. As Austin said, happy to hear suggestions for people connected in other areas who could better surface new opportunities!
Without claiming that the other dimensions of diversity aren’t important, I see geographic and cause area diversity as the most important dimensions.
Regranters are much more likely to grant to people they either know personally or through their networks. They are also much more likely to grant to projects they understand.
Yes, one issue with our initial cohort is that it’s extremely US/Bay Area-centric. We’re especially excited for people outside this hub to apply for a regrant budget!
If I had to, I would guess that there is maybe one Republican leaning regrantor in there. Do you think we should actively recruit more Trump supporting regrantors, as this would also increase diversity? It also looks like almost all of the regrantors have university degrees. Do you think there should be more regrantors with no formal education? Approximately 14% of the world adult population is illiterate after all.
Which of the humanities should people be recruited from?
Haha, I think you meant this sarcastically but I would actually love to find Republican, or non-college-educated, or otherwise non-”traditional EA” regrantors. (If this describes you or someone you know, encourage them to apply!)