A milder ask would be for a commitment to publicize if they ever grant an animal-aid program and to allow retroactive redesignation during the relevant time period from All Grants or Unrestricted to Top Charities or some other restriction that excludes animal-aid programs.
Given that much of All Grants ends up going to top charities anyway, I don’t think there’s much concern about the donation being in AG or Unrestricted causing a counterfactual increase in the amount that would have been spent on an animal-aid program.
In my view, if GiveWell starts funding a lot of livelihoods work, it should offer additional designations to allow donors to choose between lifesaving or health work versus livelihoods work, rather than having to defer to GiveWell’s moral weights as between the two. So that would also likely solve the problem for donors who object to animal-aid programs anyway.
Thanks, Jason. My concern is fungibility across buckets. I assume livelihoods (incl. any animal-based programs) won’t be funded via the Top Charities Fund, but do TCF inflows still reduce the amount of flexible All Grants money GiveWell needs for top-charity gaps—thereby freeing flexible dollars for non-TC opportunities (potentially animal-based)?
While it’s impossible to prove that absolutely zero funging would occur, there are some features that make me think it is very unlikely to be present at any significant level here:
For GiveWell to give to an animal-aid program, it would need to conclude that this was a better buy than a Top Charity (unless the funding source was limited to livelihoods work, in which case it wouldn’t potentially funge with your donation to the Top Charities Fund). As I read their livelihoods announcement, they are searching for donation options for a donor who weighed livelihoods benefits twice as heavily as GiveWell’s own moral weights. This suggests that animal-aid funding would come out of monies dedicated to livelihood work which couldn’t be used for Top Charities anyway, which makes funging unlikely.
If I understand your concern correctly, a donation to the Top Charity Fund might reduce the marginal cost-effectiveness of the most cost-effective Top Charity after all donations from the Top Charity Fund are allocated. This might make it easier for an animal-aid program to clear the bar for All Grants or Unrestricted funding.
GiveWell raises in the hundreds of millions of dollars for the Top Charities. This doesn’t include their non-GiveWell funding sources. Generally, the Top Charities are able to absorb large amount of funding without the cost-effectiveness dropping very much.
Moreover, my understanding is that the calculated cost-effectiveness bar for Top Charities only moves in fairly large increments. If the best marginal use of the 250 millionth through 253 millionth dollar GiveWell can recommend toward Top Charities is for Charity X’s program in County Z, I doubt GiveWell is recalculating the bar between (say) the 251.4 millionth dollar and the 251.5 millionth dollar.
So unless one is a large donor, I think it’s reasonable to model the cost-effectiveness of Top Charities for funging purposes as fixed. I think that remains approximately true for all but the largest donors.
Although I can’t figure out why I think this, the expected small size of any animal-aid grant (at least in early years) also makes me think the risk is lower. Maybe it is that—even assuming your Top Charities donation counterfactually caused something else to get funded, and further assuming it was a livelihoods program, the odds that the next livelihoods dollar would be for an animal-aid program do not seem high.
To the extent one is concerned about this kind of funging risk, it is also likely present if you gave to the top charity organization directly. Supposing that AMF is the most effective Top Charity at the margin today, giving it $1MM should have about the same effect on the Top Charities cost-effectiveness bar as giving GiveWell Top Charities $1MM to give to AMF. Indeed, unless one of the Top Charities wasn’t going to get funded by GiveWell this round anyway, this result may hold for independent gifts to any Top Charity. So although intuitively the funging risk feels higher because you’re giving to a different fund at GiveWell, I’m not sure how much that is the case.
A milder ask would be for a commitment to publicize if they ever grant an animal-aid program and to allow retroactive redesignation during the relevant time period from All Grants or Unrestricted to Top Charities or some other restriction that excludes animal-aid programs.
Given that much of All Grants ends up going to top charities anyway, I don’t think there’s much concern about the donation being in AG or Unrestricted causing a counterfactual increase in the amount that would have been spent on an animal-aid program.
In my view, if GiveWell starts funding a lot of livelihoods work, it should offer additional designations to allow donors to choose between lifesaving or health work versus livelihoods work, rather than having to defer to GiveWell’s moral weights as between the two. So that would also likely solve the problem for donors who object to animal-aid programs anyway.
Thanks, Jason. My concern is fungibility across buckets. I assume livelihoods (incl. any animal-based programs) won’t be funded via the Top Charities Fund, but do TCF inflows still reduce the amount of flexible All Grants money GiveWell needs for top-charity gaps—thereby freeing flexible dollars for non-TC opportunities (potentially animal-based)?
While it’s impossible to prove that absolutely zero funging would occur, there are some features that make me think it is very unlikely to be present at any significant level here:
For GiveWell to give to an animal-aid program, it would need to conclude that this was a better buy than a Top Charity (unless the funding source was limited to livelihoods work, in which case it wouldn’t potentially funge with your donation to the Top Charities Fund). As I read their livelihoods announcement, they are searching for donation options for a donor who weighed livelihoods benefits twice as heavily as GiveWell’s own moral weights. This suggests that animal-aid funding would come out of monies dedicated to livelihood work which couldn’t be used for Top Charities anyway, which makes funging unlikely.
If I understand your concern correctly, a donation to the Top Charity Fund might reduce the marginal cost-effectiveness of the most cost-effective Top Charity after all donations from the Top Charity Fund are allocated. This might make it easier for an animal-aid program to clear the bar for All Grants or Unrestricted funding.
GiveWell raises in the hundreds of millions of dollars for the Top Charities. This doesn’t include their non-GiveWell funding sources. Generally, the Top Charities are able to absorb large amount of funding without the cost-effectiveness dropping very much.
Moreover, my understanding is that the calculated cost-effectiveness bar for Top Charities only moves in fairly large increments. If the best marginal use of the 250 millionth through 253 millionth dollar GiveWell can recommend toward Top Charities is for Charity X’s program in County Z, I doubt GiveWell is recalculating the bar between (say) the 251.4 millionth dollar and the 251.5 millionth dollar.
So unless one is a large donor, I think it’s reasonable to model the cost-effectiveness of Top Charities for funging purposes as fixed. I think that remains approximately true for all but the largest donors.
Although I can’t figure out why I think this, the expected small size of any animal-aid grant (at least in early years) also makes me think the risk is lower. Maybe it is that—even assuming your Top Charities donation counterfactually caused something else to get funded, and further assuming it was a livelihoods program, the odds that the next livelihoods dollar would be for an animal-aid program do not seem high.
To the extent one is concerned about this kind of funging risk, it is also likely present if you gave to the top charity organization directly. Supposing that AMF is the most effective Top Charity at the margin today, giving it $1MM should have about the same effect on the Top Charities cost-effectiveness bar as giving GiveWell Top Charities $1MM to give to AMF. Indeed, unless one of the Top Charities wasn’t going to get funded by GiveWell this round anyway, this result may hold for independent gifts to any Top Charity. So although intuitively the funging risk feels higher because you’re giving to a different fund at GiveWell, I’m not sure how much that is the case.