As someone who runs an org that didn’t start work in the “EA world” and only has a minority of funding through EA circles, this is hugely eye opening and even a bit bizzare to me. I can scarcely believe those stories above. I can hardly think of a situation where I would “defer to a funder”. After running an org for 7 years, and working in my field for 11 why on earth would I “defer” to a group who knows far less about what we do than our team?
The funding situation outside of EA is very different among philanthropies. People assess you and your org through what is usually a long and tortuous proces, then see if you fit. Usually we don’t get much feedback. In saying that I’ve had lots of great conversations and suggestions from funders—many of which we have implemented, but I’ve never had one funder ever try and suggest a major change of course, nor make funding contingent on changing anything that’s not really minor.
Interestingly outside of EA in the not-for-profit world “Deferring to funders” might be expressed in another way “chasing the money” and is often the sign of a weak and ineffective NGO. Big NGOs like Save the Children, World Vision and perhaps even CHAI shift their focus like the wind to access new pots of money. They then often roll out programs they don’t have expertise in because they just aren’t set up to do that kind of work, spending a lot of money setting up new programs, rather than scaling and refining what they do best.
On a related note I’ve got big concerns around orgs “Pivoting” and expanding their programs outside their usual core work to access GiveWell projects and money. There’s a lot of danger here not only in lower quality or less efficient work, but also mission creep losing focus on our core work. I might write more about this at some point.
Hi Nick, thanks for your interesting comment. I’m not sure how to read this particular part though:
[...] I’ve never had one funder even try and suggest a major change of course, nor make funding contingent on changing anything.
For clarification, are you saying there is a difference between these two scenarios below, or are they just different ways of phrasing the same thing?:
a funder makes funding contingent on changing something
a funder decides not to fund your org, and informs you what made them make that decision (with the implication that you could change that thing, and get funding next time)
My best guess is that you do see a difference, in which in the former case, the funder is more explicitly requesting a change, and perhaps also that they are your main/only funder, so you have no choice about whether to make the change if you want to continue operating. Is that right? (Edit: or perhaps your emphasis is on whether the suggestion is to make a major change, which is too big for the org to competently undertake.)
I ask because it is counterintuitive to me to think that the below scenario is preferable, because it seems to involve withholding useful information—but perhaps it could be considered worth it, in order for the funder to avoid creating the incentive to just “chase the money”:
a funder deciding not to fund your org, and not telling why they made that decision.
Outside of EA, having one major funder is pretty rare. And if you did have no choice but to change or die, I would suggest the best option is often to die, or at the very least go back to the drawing board and consider your assumptions and advantages. The question isn’t “could” your org make the change, but more does it really make sense to do something completely different?
When we get rejected by non-EA funders, its usually things like
- Not much information so we don’t really know (most common) - You don’t fit the kind of things we fund - You are too early or too late stage - We don’t believe what you’re doing is as good as community health workers/systematic change/xxxxx - You’re not using enough tech
Funders don’t explicitly request large changes because that would be seen as massive overreach.
A funder suggesting an org makes a major pivot doesn’t make much sense to me. Then you’re not even really the same org anymore. I think you’d usually be better to shut the org down and start again if you want to wildly change what you do. If you do change hugely, you’re something new you have no track record or experience there. Outside the EA world funders mostly fund us because reasons like.
a) Think our model makes high impact b) Trust our org’s team and track record doing what we do c) Think our finances makes sense d) Talk to other funders or assessors who recommend us e) It fits their (often quite narrow) funding criteria
As someone who runs an org that didn’t start work in the “EA world” and only has a minority of funding through EA circles, this is hugely eye opening and even a bit bizzare to me. I can scarcely believe those stories above. I can hardly think of a situation where I would “defer to a funder”. After running an org for 7 years, and working in my field for 11 why on earth would I “defer” to a group who knows far less about what we do than our team?
The funding situation outside of EA is very different among philanthropies. People assess you and your org through what is usually a long and tortuous proces, then see if you fit. Usually we don’t get much feedback. In saying that I’ve had lots of great conversations and suggestions from funders—many of which we have implemented, but I’ve never had one funder ever try and suggest a major change of course, nor make funding contingent on changing anything that’s not really minor.
Interestingly outside of EA in the not-for-profit world “Deferring to funders” might be expressed in another way “chasing the money” and is often the sign of a weak and ineffective NGO. Big NGOs like Save the Children, World Vision and perhaps even CHAI shift their focus like the wind to access new pots of money. They then often roll out programs they don’t have expertise in because they just aren’t set up to do that kind of work, spending a lot of money setting up new programs, rather than scaling and refining what they do best.
On a related note I’ve got big concerns around orgs “Pivoting” and expanding their programs outside their usual core work to access GiveWell projects and money. There’s a lot of danger here not only in lower quality or less efficient work, but also mission creep losing focus on our core work. I might write more about this at some point.
Hi Nick, thanks for your interesting comment. I’m not sure how to read this particular part though:
For clarification, are you saying there is a difference between these two scenarios below, or are they just different ways of phrasing the same thing?:
a funder makes funding contingent on changing something
a funder decides not to fund your org, and informs you what made them make that decision (with the implication that you could change that thing, and get funding next time)
My best guess is that you do see a difference, in which in the former case, the funder is more explicitly requesting a change, and perhaps also that they are your main/only funder, so you have no choice about whether to make the change if you want to continue operating. Is that right? (Edit: or perhaps your emphasis is on whether the suggestion is to make a major change, which is too big for the org to competently undertake.)
I ask because it is counterintuitive to me to think that the below scenario is preferable, because it seems to involve withholding useful information—but perhaps it could be considered worth it, in order for the funder to avoid creating the incentive to just “chase the money”:
a funder deciding not to fund your org, and not telling why they made that decision.
Outside of EA, having one major funder is pretty rare. And if you did have no choice but to change or die, I would suggest the best option is often to die, or at the very least go back to the drawing board and consider your assumptions and advantages. The question isn’t “could” your org make the change, but more does it really make sense to do something completely different?
When we get rejected by non-EA funders, its usually things like
- Not much information so we don’t really know (most common)
- You don’t fit the kind of things we fund
- You are too early or too late stage
- We don’t believe what you’re doing is as good as community health workers/systematic change/xxxxx
- You’re not using enough tech
Funders don’t explicitly request large changes because that would be seen as massive overreach.
A funder suggesting an org makes a major pivot doesn’t make much sense to me. Then you’re not even really the same org anymore. I think you’d usually be better to shut the org down and start again if you want to wildly change what you do. If you do change hugely, you’re something new you have no track record or experience there. Outside the EA world funders mostly fund us because reasons like.
a) Think our model makes high impact
b) Trust our org’s team and track record doing what we do
c) Think our finances makes sense
d) Talk to other funders or assessors who recommend us
e) It fits their (often quite narrow) funding criteria
That’s a bit scattergun but hope it helps.