This is fantastic! I hope we’ll see reports like this from the winners of any future donor lotteries run within the community.
A few questions:
How much time would you estimate you spent on this entire process, including the production of your report?
Was all of your funding unrestricted? Did you give ALLFED (or other orgs) any particular guidance on how you wanted them to use your funds?
Had you planned on giving money to all four organizations on your shortlist from the beginning? Did the final division of funds differ much from what you expected? (For example, if you’d expected to give all $100,000 to one organization, or $25,000 to all four.)
Based on Toggl time tracking, I spent 45 hours on the process, including talking to the organisations and preparing the report.
All of the funding was unrestricted, although I had discussions with each organisation about their strategy and provided feedback. The organisations supported are all small, and I expect most of the upside to come from allowing them to demonstrate their worth and grow in the future, so I’d prefer not to constrain their plans.
I had anticipated my donations being somewhat more skewed towards a single organisation, but had always intended to make some grant to all organisations that I felt were promising after conducting an in-depth investigation. In particular, the organisations involved invested significant time (conversations with me, collating relevant data, feedback on this report), and I believe this should be rewarded, similar to the rationale behind GiveWell’s participation grants. I also think it’s likely that much of the money moved as a result of my research will be from third-parties influenced by this post, and I feel my recommendations are more credible if I put “my money where my mouth is”.
This is fantastic! I hope we’ll see reports like this from the winners of any future donor lotteries run within the community.
A few questions:
How much time would you estimate you spent on this entire process, including the production of your report?
Was all of your funding unrestricted? Did you give ALLFED (or other orgs) any particular guidance on how you wanted them to use your funds?
Had you planned on giving money to all four organizations on your shortlist from the beginning? Did the final division of funds differ much from what you expected? (For example, if you’d expected to give all $100,000 to one organization, or $25,000 to all four.)
Based on Toggl time tracking, I spent 45 hours on the process, including talking to the organisations and preparing the report.
All of the funding was unrestricted, although I had discussions with each organisation about their strategy and provided feedback. The organisations supported are all small, and I expect most of the upside to come from allowing them to demonstrate their worth and grow in the future, so I’d prefer not to constrain their plans.
I had anticipated my donations being somewhat more skewed towards a single organisation, but had always intended to make some grant to all organisations that I felt were promising after conducting an in-depth investigation. In particular, the organisations involved invested significant time (conversations with me, collating relevant data, feedback on this report), and I believe this should be rewarded, similar to the rationale behind GiveWell’s participation grants. I also think it’s likely that much of the money moved as a result of my research will be from third-parties influenced by this post, and I feel my recommendations are more credible if I put “my money where my mouth is”.