One idea that isn’t on your list is to start a “donor circle”. I found this really powerful in the past, and I’d greatly like to do again in the future!
My previous “donor circle” experience was for making a ~$10k grant near the start of COVID: I got a few dozen other friends on board who also wanted to give $1k-$100k each, and we all started a messenger chat and a spreadsheet to look through various opportunities.
Everyone contributed as much research manpower as they wanted; one person stepped up with “co-lead” level of involvement, but many others contributed as well. Together we identified a whole bunch of opportunities, came up with criteria, and made “recommendations” that the less-research-involved members of the circle then followed as they saw fit. Overall we ended up collectively giving about $400k, which was a size at which it felt really worthwhile for ~2-4 people to do a “side project” for.
(1) once you’re (collectively) a >$100k donor, you can get on the phone with people who might not otherwise give you time, and donate to groups that aren’t taking “normal-person-sized” donation. E.g. a representative from CEPI was willing to spend time with us, and CEPI is mostly courting >$1m donations.
(2) our writeup and criteria ended up influencing a medium-sized foundation; their decisions >$10m in grants used our list of criteria as a rubric.
(3) the presence of others who were excited to use my recommendations made it feel more directly socially rewarding and valuable to spend time on the project.
I think this works best when everyone in the donor circle agrees up-front on approximate “type” of opportunity the group is looking for, or criteria, or something like that.
I’m not sure when exactly a donor circle is the right strategy, but in general I do think that banding together with others, and building strong “working relationships” with other practitioners, is really important for any meaningful endeavor.
Separately but somewhat relatedly: Having worked at Open Phil, it’s definitely the case that smaller opportunities just don’t clear the bar of being worth spending time vetting. I think a powerful way that “individual” donors can contribute is in helping get small things “off the ground”, so that they can grow to a size where they’re later in the right range for large institutional donors. In that sense it’s bit like angel investing.
As the person who became Catherine’s co-lead on this project, I just want to second everything she says above. I found being a part of this donor circle to be a really amazing experience, and I agree that because of our nimble structure and specific focus we were able to find opportunities that other people hadn’t picked up on. For example, we were among the earliest supporters of Fast Grants, and we also provided critical early support for a global initiative to synthesize evidence about COVID that eventually attracted a $1M grant from the Canadian government in no small part because of our investment.
For what it’s worth, I’m personally quite excited about the value of doing more of this kind of networked philanthropic advising and am pretty sure it’s going to be a major focus of the second half of my career, so I’d be happy to explore collaborating with you and anyone else in a similar-ish position.
One idea that isn’t on your list is to start a “donor circle”. I found this really powerful in the past, and I’d greatly like to do again in the future!
My previous “donor circle” experience was for making a ~$10k grant near the start of COVID: I got a few dozen other friends on board who also wanted to give $1k-$100k each, and we all started a messenger chat and a spreadsheet to look through various opportunities.
Everyone contributed as much research manpower as they wanted; one person stepped up with “co-lead” level of involvement, but many others contributed as well. Together we identified a whole bunch of opportunities, came up with criteria, and made “recommendations” that the less-research-involved members of the circle then followed as they saw fit. Overall we ended up collectively giving about $400k, which was a size at which it felt really worthwhile for ~2-4 people to do a “side project” for.
(see writeup here: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/opdMXibKjkoL69s96/prioritizing-covid-19-interventions-and-individual-donations).
Some things that were really cool were:
(1) once you’re (collectively) a >$100k donor, you can get on the phone with people who might not otherwise give you time, and donate to groups that aren’t taking “normal-person-sized” donation. E.g. a representative from CEPI was willing to spend time with us, and CEPI is mostly courting >$1m donations.
(2) our writeup and criteria ended up influencing a medium-sized foundation; their decisions >$10m in grants used our list of criteria as a rubric.
(3) the presence of others who were excited to use my recommendations made it feel more directly socially rewarding and valuable to spend time on the project.
I think this works best when everyone in the donor circle agrees up-front on approximate “type” of opportunity the group is looking for, or criteria, or something like that.
I’m not sure when exactly a donor circle is the right strategy, but in general I do think that banding together with others, and building strong “working relationships” with other practitioners, is really important for any meaningful endeavor.
Separately but somewhat relatedly: Having worked at Open Phil, it’s definitely the case that smaller opportunities just don’t clear the bar of being worth spending time vetting. I think a powerful way that “individual” donors can contribute is in helping get small things “off the ground”, so that they can grow to a size where they’re later in the right range for large institutional donors. In that sense it’s bit like angel investing.
As the person who became Catherine’s co-lead on this project, I just want to second everything she says above. I found being a part of this donor circle to be a really amazing experience, and I agree that because of our nimble structure and specific focus we were able to find opportunities that other people hadn’t picked up on. For example, we were among the earliest supporters of Fast Grants, and we also provided critical early support for a global initiative to synthesize evidence about COVID that eventually attracted a $1M grant from the Canadian government in no small part because of our investment.
For what it’s worth, I’m personally quite excited about the value of doing more of this kind of networked philanthropic advising and am pretty sure it’s going to be a major focus of the second half of my career, so I’d be happy to explore collaborating with you and anyone else in a similar-ish position.