On one hand, I agree with you that expressions of interest or even intent are different than commitments, and commitments are different from money in hand. I wish we had exact quotes to figure out what interpretations were justified, but it’s certainly possible Caleb’s communication was precise and Igor read too much into it.
OTOH, there is an embedded problem here. If the grant were approved, it would be unethical to drop patients in favor of EAs. Igor’s choices were to behave unethically, stop taking new clients before the grant was approved, or delay implementation once the grant was approved. People often feel an obligation not to delay after they’ve received funding[1], in which case pausing new clients was the only ethical choice.
I do think Igor made mistakes here. But I also see patterns that shouldn’t have happened. Even if Caleb merely expressed a hope to be able to give an answer by a given date, rather than promising it, he appears to have missed a lot of intentions and should have updated on his own ability to predict response times. Maybe Igor is more heavily misrepresenting the exchanges, but this seems fairly typical of my experience within EA (not with Caleb in particular, and not just with grantmakers).
it’s me, I was people, although after enough delayed grant responses I’m mostly over this. I’m not sure how much of this was internal pressure vs. a vibe from grantmakers.
People often feel an obligation not to delay after they’ve received funding
Thanks for flagging this! As a purely forward-looking matter (not blaming anyone), I’d now like to explicitly push back against any such norm. For comparison: it’s standard in academia for grant-funded projects to begin the following academic year after grant funding is received (so, often 6 months or more).
This delay is necessary because it’s not feasible for universities to drop a planned class at the last minute, after students have already enrolled in it. But independent contractors can have prior commitments too. For someone in that situation, I thinkit would be a great idea to explicitly build into a proposal that its start date would be “X months after confirmation of grant approval”, to allow time for the necessary adjustments. I expect grant-makers would be understanding of such a timeline. (It’s not fair to applicants to expect them to make risky adjustments prior to receiving grant confirmation, after all!) And if the timeline is built into the proposal that they approve, there seems less risk of pressure of any sort (internal or otherwise) to imprudently accelerate.
If the grant were approved, it would be unethical to drop patients in favor of EAs. Igor’s choices were to behave unethically, stop taking new clients before the grant was approved, or delay implementation once the grant was approved
Surely the onus is on the applicant to explain all their constraints to the grantmaker, so that expectations can be set? If Igor had said he was not taking new clients in anticipation of the grant, I feel fairly confident it would have been discouraged and the uncertainty of the grant being approved emphasised.
It would never have occurred to me that discontinuing patient relationships is considered unethical, so that definitely needed to be spelled out.
I tentatively agree with you Igor should have done several things differently, including making his constraints clearer and not changing his job until he had the money in hand.
I think the real question is “how many applicant mistakes should grantmakers be expected to gracefully handle?” Given that they interact with so many people, especially people new to direct work who couldn’t possibly figure out the exact rules ahead of time, I think it’s reasonable that EAIF and other entry-level grantmakers be able to handle a fair number[1]. I imagine that someone with no application experience and inconsistent communication from EAIF would have found it challenging to explain the nuances of their situation in a way that was heard.
I was going to say “someone with no application experience would have found it difficult to know how to interpret EAIF’s communications”, but I reject the concept that EAIF should need that much translation. It makes me sad that I automatically double timing estimates from EA orgs, treat that as the absolute minimum time something could take, and am often still disappointed. If they can’t be more accurate, they could at least give more conservative estimates.
On the other hand, this case appears to have been unusually legally complicated and have ESL issues. Maybe EAIF is handling the 98th percentile case well and this was the unlucky 99th. It’s surely not worth the effort to have zero mistakes, and I don’t what the right goal is.
My understanding is SFF deliberately does the opposite and considers ability to fill out the detailed forms to be a qualification. I can also see an argument for that approach. But I do think granting orgs should make a decision and follow through on it.
It makes me sad that I automatically double timing estimates from EA orgs, treat that as the absolute minimum time something could take, and am often still disappointed.
I definitely strongly agree with this. I do think its slowly, ever so slowlygetting better though.
On one hand, I agree with you that expressions of interest or even intent are different than commitments, and commitments are different from money in hand. I wish we had exact quotes to figure out what interpretations were justified, but it’s certainly possible Caleb’s communication was precise and Igor read too much into it.
OTOH, there is an embedded problem here. If the grant were approved, it would be unethical to drop patients in favor of EAs. Igor’s choices were to behave unethically, stop taking new clients before the grant was approved, or delay implementation once the grant was approved. People often feel an obligation not to delay after they’ve received funding[1], in which case pausing new clients was the only ethical choice.
I do think Igor made mistakes here. But I also see patterns that shouldn’t have happened. Even if Caleb merely expressed a hope to be able to give an answer by a given date, rather than promising it, he appears to have missed a lot of intentions and should have updated on his own ability to predict response times. Maybe Igor is more heavily misrepresenting the exchanges, but this seems fairly typical of my experience within EA (not with Caleb in particular, and not just with grantmakers).
it’s me, I was people, although after enough delayed grant responses I’m mostly over this. I’m not sure how much of this was internal pressure vs. a vibe from grantmakers.
Thanks for flagging this! As a purely forward-looking matter (not blaming anyone), I’d now like to explicitly push back against any such norm. For comparison: it’s standard in academia for grant-funded projects to begin the following academic year after grant funding is received (so, often 6 months or more).
This delay is necessary because it’s not feasible for universities to drop a planned class at the last minute, after students have already enrolled in it. But independent contractors can have prior commitments too. For someone in that situation, I think it would be a great idea to explicitly build into a proposal that its start date would be “X months after confirmation of grant approval”, to allow time for the necessary adjustments. I expect grant-makers would be understanding of such a timeline. (It’s not fair to applicants to expect them to make risky adjustments prior to receiving grant confirmation, after all!) And if the timeline is built into the proposal that they approve, there seems less risk of pressure of any sort (internal or otherwise) to imprudently accelerate.
I think that would be a big step forward- and it might not even be a change in policy, just something that needs to be said more explicitly.
I don’t think it solves the entire problem, but at a certain point I just need to write my Why Living On Personal Grants Sucks post.
Surely the onus is on the applicant to explain all their constraints to the grantmaker, so that expectations can be set? If Igor had said he was not taking new clients in anticipation of the grant, I feel fairly confident it would have been discouraged and the uncertainty of the grant being approved emphasised.
It would never have occurred to me that discontinuing patient relationships is considered unethical, so that definitely needed to be spelled out.
I tentatively agree with you Igor should have done several things differently, including making his constraints clearer and not changing his job until he had the money in hand.
I think the real question is “how many applicant mistakes should grantmakers be expected to gracefully handle?” Given that they interact with so many people, especially people new to direct work who couldn’t possibly figure out the exact rules ahead of time, I think it’s reasonable that EAIF and other entry-level grantmakers be able to handle a fair number[1]. I imagine that someone with no application experience and inconsistent communication from EAIF would have found it challenging to explain the nuances of their situation in a way that was heard.
I was going to say “someone with no application experience would have found it difficult to know how to interpret EAIF’s communications”, but I reject the concept that EAIF should need that much translation. It makes me sad that I automatically double timing estimates from EA orgs, treat that as the absolute minimum time something could take, and am often still disappointed. If they can’t be more accurate, they could at least give more conservative estimates.
On the other hand, this case appears to have been unusually legally complicated and have ESL issues. Maybe EAIF is handling the 98th percentile case well and this was the unlucky 99th. It’s surely not worth the effort to have zero mistakes, and I don’t what the right goal is.
My understanding is SFF deliberately does the opposite and considers ability to fill out the detailed forms to be a qualification. I can also see an argument for that approach. But I do think granting orgs should make a decision and follow through on it.
I definitely strongly agree with this. I do think its slowly, ever so slowly getting better though.