Could you say more about the possibility of “external” funders for EA community building? It’s probably not realistic to get major funding from a Big-Name Generalist Foundation, given that many of EA’s core ideas inevitably constitute a severe criticism of how Big Philantrophy works. And it would be otherwise hard to decide who an “external” funder was—in my book, “gives lots of money to EA community building” is pretty diagnostic for being an EA and thus not external.
One possibility might be that major funders would only pick up (say) 50% of the tab for most projects/organizations, and that would be conditioned as a match on what the project/organization could attract from small/medium donors (SMDs). I suggest that rank-and-file EAs may be collectively more able to discern whether it is worth pulling money away from direct work to fund meta work because they are closer to the outputs. I suspect that significant SMD buy-in would also practically enforce some of what you’re describing—it gives more people a practical “vote” and the ability to throw a flag if things are starting to go off the rails.
Of course, requiring meta organizations/projects to significantly rely on SMDs has its costs too. But raising money from SMDs is less efficient for any organization than getting the bulk of funding needs from a few big fish. So the question is which organizations should get a greater percentage of their funding from big donors. In contrast to meta organizations, I don’t think there is any significant benefit from having most direct-work organizations more reliant on SMD funding.
To answer this, from my perspective, I’ll quote from my post a few months back:
First, I think that we should expect communities to be self-supporting, outside of donor dollars. Having work spaces and similar is great, but it’s not an impartially altruistic act to give yourself a community. It’s much too easy to view self-interested “community building” as actually altruistic work, and a firewall would be helpful.
Given that, I strongly think that most EAs would be better off giving their 10% to effective charities focused on the actual issues, and then paying dues or voluntarily contributing other, non-EA-designated funds for community building. That seems healthier for the community, and as a side-benefit, removes the current centralized “control” of EA communities, which are dependent on CEA or other groups.
Thanks, David. I think the best approach is probably more complicated than my 10,000 foot comment—“work spaces and similar” are in a different category to me than EAGs, which are in turn in a different category than funding early EA community-building work in middle-income countries. The appropriate “coinsurance” will vary depending on the specific project, but I think you’re right that it may be 100 percent for some of them.
Strongly agree—and if Dustin Moskowitz or Jann Tallinn wants to fund early groups in universities or in developing countries, that seems like a great place to give part of the far-more-than-10%. (But I’d still like it more if that giving wasn’t called or considered EA donations.)
Could you say more about the possibility of “external” funders for EA community building? It’s probably not realistic to get major funding from a Big-Name Generalist Foundation, given that many of EA’s core ideas inevitably constitute a severe criticism of how Big Philantrophy works. And it would be otherwise hard to decide who an “external” funder was—in my book, “gives lots of money to EA community building” is pretty diagnostic for being an EA and thus not external.
One possibility might be that major funders would only pick up (say) 50% of the tab for most projects/organizations, and that would be conditioned as a match on what the project/organization could attract from small/medium donors (SMDs). I suggest that rank-and-file EAs may be collectively more able to discern whether it is worth pulling money away from direct work to fund meta work because they are closer to the outputs. I suspect that significant SMD buy-in would also practically enforce some of what you’re describing—it gives more people a practical “vote” and the ability to throw a flag if things are starting to go off the rails.
Of course, requiring meta organizations/projects to significantly rely on SMDs has its costs too. But raising money from SMDs is less efficient for any organization than getting the bulk of funding needs from a few big fish. So the question is which organizations should get a greater percentage of their funding from big donors. In contrast to meta organizations, I don’t think there is any significant benefit from having most direct-work organizations more reliant on SMD funding.
To answer this, from my perspective, I’ll quote from my post a few months back:
Thanks, David. I think the best approach is probably more complicated than my 10,000 foot comment—“work spaces and similar” are in a different category to me than EAGs, which are in turn in a different category than funding early EA community-building work in middle-income countries. The appropriate “coinsurance” will vary depending on the specific project, but I think you’re right that it may be 100 percent for some of them.
Strongly agree—and if Dustin Moskowitz or Jann Tallinn wants to fund early groups in universities or in developing countries, that seems like a great place to give part of the far-more-than-10%. (But I’d still like it more if that giving wasn’t called or considered EA donations.)