Thanks, Ozzie! I expect we’ll be chatting more about working together. Some point-by-point replies:
I imagine some of this information should eventually be private to donors. Like, the medical expenses one.
Yeah, idk, this is one of the areas I think I’m idiosyncratic; I think in an ideal world that almost no information would be kept private (maybe excepting infohazards like bomb construction techniques.) I think this attitude has been incredibly good for Manifold’s growth and development, and am patterning my approach to Manifund based on this.
In any case, right now we’re one small player amidst a variety of EA funders, so I’m not very worried about our radical transparency stance. I do also think there’s a good chance we change courses (maybe 30% in the next 12 months?) based on grantee/regrantor/donor feedback.
I’d want to eventually see Slack/Discord channels for each regrantor and their donors, or some similar setup.
Interesting idea! My best guess is that our specific donor for Round 1 doesn’t have the time/interest to do this, but if other donors are looking for a more hands-on role, we’d be open to that as well!
I imagine some regranters would eventually work in teams
This sounds promising. Right now we’re in a pretty proto-mvp stage, trying to catch up to what other funders have figured out. I do think collaboration across grantmakers is generally good; though caveat that teamwork does impose coordination costs, and for small (<$20k?) grants I’d lean towards moving faster.
As money amounts increase, I’d like to see regranters getting paid. It’s tough work.
We went back and forth on this. Right now all our regrantors are volunteers, while FF paid theirs. I think getting the specific compensation scheme right is tricky (pay by grant? by hour? by % commission?) and I suspect FF’s may have had bad incentives + optics, so we opted to launch first and revisit this later.
Even assuming radical transparency within the relevant communities is the best policy, there are ways to mitigate the Googleability of the information for someone searching on the grantee’s name.
As a practical matter, not taking those steps makes the publicness of the sensitive information significantly depend on the distinctiveness of the person’s name. John Smith has significantly less of a downside to applying than someone with a near-unique moniker, and that will result in suboptimal distributions.
> but if other donors are looking for a more hands-on role, we’d be open to that as well!
My guess is that some donors don’t exactly want to be hands-on for specific grants, but do want to get updates and ask specific questions to the grantmaker. This could be a bit of a pain to the grantmaker, but would be a better experience for the funder. In some cases, this seems worth it (mainly if we want to get more funders).
> trying to catch up to what other funders have figured out For what it’s worth, at the LTFF (and I think other EA Funds), there’s a voting system where people vote on scores, and proposals that achieve a certain average or higher get funded. I agree this is overkill for many small grants.
> and I suspect FF’s may have had bad incentives + optics, so we opted to launch first and revisit this later. I like that strategy. Later on though, I’d imagine that maybe regranters could request different perks. If there were a marketplace—funders choose regranters—then some regranter could request ~5%, and funders would take that into consideration. I suspect some granters don’t need the money, but others might only be able to do it if there were pay.
do want to get updates and ask specific questions to the grantmaker
Ah, I see, makes sense. Perhaps a strategy of “we send out weekly updates to the donor about where their money has been going” is a better fit than “live chat”. Will think about this!
a voting system where people vote on scores
Def makes sense for grants above some dollar threshold (eg $100k?) I would love to be a fly on the wall (or even participate in LTFF grantmaking?) to learn what best practices have been, and see if they make sense for us
If there were a marketplace—funders choose regranters
Haha, love the idea of a regrantors picking their own compensation models in a competitive marketplace!
Thanks, Ozzie! I expect we’ll be chatting more about working together. Some point-by-point replies:
Yeah, idk, this is one of the areas I think I’m idiosyncratic; I think in an ideal world that almost no information would be kept private (maybe excepting infohazards like bomb construction techniques.) I think this attitude has been incredibly good for Manifold’s growth and development, and am patterning my approach to Manifund based on this.
In any case, right now we’re one small player amidst a variety of EA funders, so I’m not very worried about our radical transparency stance. I do also think there’s a good chance we change courses (maybe 30% in the next 12 months?) based on grantee/regrantor/donor feedback.
Interesting idea! My best guess is that our specific donor for Round 1 doesn’t have the time/interest to do this, but if other donors are looking for a more hands-on role, we’d be open to that as well!
This sounds promising. Right now we’re in a pretty proto-mvp stage, trying to catch up to what other funders have figured out. I do think collaboration across grantmakers is generally good; though caveat that teamwork does impose coordination costs, and for small (<$20k?) grants I’d lean towards moving faster.
We went back and forth on this. Right now all our regrantors are volunteers, while FF paid theirs. I think getting the specific compensation scheme right is tricky (pay by grant? by hour? by % commission?) and I suspect FF’s may have had bad incentives + optics, so we opted to launch first and revisit this later.
(to be continued)
Even assuming radical transparency within the relevant communities is the best policy, there are ways to mitigate the Googleability of the information for someone searching on the grantee’s name.
As a practical matter, not taking those steps makes the publicness of the sensitive information significantly depend on the distinctiveness of the person’s name. John Smith has significantly less of a downside to applying than someone with a near-unique moniker, and that will result in suboptimal distributions.
Thanks for the replies! Quickly,
> but if other donors are looking for a more hands-on role, we’d be open to that as well!
My guess is that some donors don’t exactly want to be hands-on for specific grants, but do want to get updates and ask specific questions to the grantmaker. This could be a bit of a pain to the grantmaker, but would be a better experience for the funder. In some cases, this seems worth it (mainly if we want to get more funders).
> trying to catch up to what other funders have figured out
For what it’s worth, at the LTFF (and I think other EA Funds), there’s a voting system where people vote on scores, and proposals that achieve a certain average or higher get funded. I agree this is overkill for many small grants.
> and I suspect FF’s may have had bad incentives + optics, so we opted to launch first and revisit this later.
I like that strategy. Later on though, I’d imagine that maybe regranters could request different perks. If there were a marketplace—funders choose regranters—then some regranter could request ~5%, and funders would take that into consideration. I suspect some granters don’t need the money, but others might only be able to do it if there were pay.
Ah, I see, makes sense. Perhaps a strategy of “we send out weekly updates to the donor about where their money has been going” is a better fit than “live chat”. Will think about this!
Def makes sense for grants above some dollar threshold (eg $100k?) I would love to be a fly on the wall (or even participate in LTFF grantmaking?) to learn what best practices have been, and see if they make sense for us
Haha, love the idea of a regrantors picking their own compensation models in a competitive marketplace!