I’m generally with you on “doing one thing well”; but I also note that there are efficiencies in combining programs, which charities seem extremely reluctant to do on their own, even when the synergies are obvious. It’s plausible to me that merger is the best way to get these economies of scale. Or else some kind of outsourced service provider that could create synergies outside of the individual charities operations, similar to how most smaller e-tailers don’t deliver their own merchandise.
When I visited some GiveDirectly beneficiaries in Kenya, I was struck by the story of a guy who had gotten some horticultural training from PLAN more than a decade previous, but had been unable to put it to use since for lack of funds (until GiveDirectly came around). Yet I doubt that either GiveDirectly or PLAN would have the slightest interest in aligning their programs to get the increased impact that in this case happened by accident. I think about this anecdote a lot.
Yep I agree with this, in a minority of situations it might be plausible to merge orgs. I doubt mergers would usually achieve more efficiency, and would be interested to hear of an example, I would imagine it has worked well in some cases. The Givewell examples are combinations of interventions not merged organisations, and make a lot of sense.
One thing I’ve been dubious about along these lines is that some big orgs that seem to be moving into cost effective interventions they might not be expert at rolling out to access Givewell funding. For example One Acre fund, an org which has a great mission to maximize crop yield for substance farming, was funded by Givewell to test a chlorination program in Rwanda. I dont love this and my instinct would be I would rather a dedicated experienced chlorination org scaled up to take this on.
In saying that I was super impressed that OneAcre fund and GiveWell decided to stop this trial early because it didn’t seem to be working and one acre fund effectively returned some of the money. Kudos to this high integrity approach to effective aid, super rare to see.
I’m generally with you on “doing one thing well”; but I also note that there are efficiencies in combining programs, which charities seem extremely reluctant to do on their own, even when the synergies are obvious. It’s plausible to me that merger is the best way to get these economies of scale. Or else some kind of outsourced service provider that could create synergies outside of the individual charities operations, similar to how most smaller e-tailers don’t deliver their own merchandise.
When I visited some GiveDirectly beneficiaries in Kenya, I was struck by the story of a guy who had gotten some horticultural training from PLAN more than a decade previous, but had been unable to put it to use since for lack of funds (until GiveDirectly came around). Yet I doubt that either GiveDirectly or PLAN would have the slightest interest in aligning their programs to get the increased impact that in this case happened by accident. I think about this anecdote a lot.
Yep I agree with this, in a minority of situations it might be plausible to merge orgs. I doubt mergers would usually achieve more efficiency, and would be interested to hear of an example, I would imagine it has worked well in some cases. The Givewell examples are combinations of interventions not merged organisations, and make a lot of sense.
One thing I’ve been dubious about along these lines is that some big orgs that seem to be moving into cost effective interventions they might not be expert at rolling out to access Givewell funding. For example One Acre fund, an org which has a great mission to maximize crop yield for substance farming, was funded by Givewell to test a chlorination program in Rwanda. I dont love this and my instinct would be I would rather a dedicated experienced chlorination org scaled up to take this on.
In saying that I was super impressed that OneAcre fund and GiveWell decided to stop this trial early because it didn’t seem to be working and one acre fund effectively returned some of the money. Kudos to this high integrity approach to effective aid, super rare to see.