They wanted to do a mixture of “original research” and “community building specifically focused on their area of expertise”
The grantmaker didn’t explicitly say they were a bad fit for it, so it could be construed as inquiring about their theory of impact. A charitable interpretation is that the grantmaker put the grant on hold because they thought the would-be grantee was tackling too many tasks simultaneously, or because of external factors (e.g. FTX) that were not clearly communicated.
A similar scenario has happened other times with other people. I highlighted this because it left a written record behind so it was easier for me to understand what happened and write about it, even though I don’t think it’s a good central example.
Thanks! And the point about this being Latin America/LMIC-specific is something like:
Other people in the same Latin American community as the grantee thought the grant should be approved
The grant maker didn’t take (1)’s feedback as seriously as you think they should have
You suspect that the reason for (2) is an underlying disagreement about how useful feedback from people living in the same geography as the grantees is
I am talking about the LatAm community because this is the community I am familiar with
I don’t have great insight into the grantmaker case in specific. I suspect they are overvaluing general community-building work over cause-specific work, which I think is a reasonable thing to disagree on.
While the subjects of the post have been repeatedly discouraged (by the grantmakers and others) to do cause-specific work in LatAm, they have come to interact and meet other individuals from UK/US who lack expertise in the topic who were encouraged and supported to do cause-specific work in LatAm (by different funders, I believe).
I conjecture (but do not claim) that people in US/UK are better connected and have more opportunities for encouragement and funding compared to people in LatAm. If the people encouraging the US/UK people met these LatAm people, I think they would agree they are better prepared to do it (since they have cause-specific expertise and local knowledge).
Thanks so much Jaime. I completely agree that EA has massively undervalued the comparative advantage of local people working locally due to “cause specific expertise and local knowledge”.
In Uganda here smart, compassionate EA focused people could achieve so much doing local EA focused work, both through letting EA principles guide what they do and influencing others. I struggle to see how they could have more impact through many of the suggestions on the EA guide for lower income countries posts, or by getting involved in international work.
Having grant proposals repeatedly turned down is normal though. Just because you are part of EA doesn’t mean that your grant proposal has enough merit to meet a funding bar. It’s very hard for me to comment on funding not being given, without knowing what was applied for and what they planned to do.
So the scenario was something like:
Organizer wants to do community building and also original AI safety research on the side
Funder says “I think you aren’t a good fit for AI safety research, instead how about you translate the precipice?”
Organizer feel misunderstood because their self-evaluation is that they are better at original AI safety research than translation
Is that right? (I assume you’re being vague because you want to keep the stories anonymous, but I’m having difficulty understanding as a result.)
Basically, yes, though:
They wanted to do a mixture of “original research” and “community building specifically focused on their area of expertise”
The grantmaker didn’t explicitly say they were a bad fit for it, so it could be construed as inquiring about their theory of impact. A charitable interpretation is that the grantmaker put the grant on hold because they thought the would-be grantee was tackling too many tasks simultaneously, or because of external factors (e.g. FTX) that were not clearly communicated.
A similar scenario has happened other times with other people. I highlighted this because it left a written record behind so it was easier for me to understand what happened and write about it, even though I don’t think it’s a good central example.
Thanks! And the point about this being Latin America/LMIC-specific is something like:
Other people in the same Latin American community as the grantee thought the grant should be approved
The grant maker didn’t take (1)’s feedback as seriously as you think they should have
You suspect that the reason for (2) is an underlying disagreement about how useful feedback from people living in the same geography as the grantees is
?
Is more like:
I am talking about the LatAm community because this is the community I am familiar with
I don’t have great insight into the grantmaker case in specific. I suspect they are overvaluing general community-building work over cause-specific work, which I think is a reasonable thing to disagree on.
While the subjects of the post have been repeatedly discouraged (by the grantmakers and others) to do cause-specific work in LatAm, they have come to interact and meet other individuals from UK/US who lack expertise in the topic who were encouraged and supported to do cause-specific work in LatAm (by different funders, I believe).
I conjecture (but do not claim) that people in US/UK are better connected and have more opportunities for encouragement and funding compared to people in LatAm. If the people encouraging the US/UK people met these LatAm people, I think they would agree they are better prepared to do it (since they have cause-specific expertise and local knowledge).
Thanks so much Jaime. I completely agree that EA has massively undervalued the comparative advantage of local people working locally due to “cause specific expertise and local knowledge”.
In Uganda here smart, compassionate EA focused people could achieve so much doing local EA focused work, both through letting EA principles guide what they do and influencing others. I struggle to see how they could have more impact through many of the suggestions on the EA guide for lower income countries posts, or by getting involved in international work.
Having grant proposals repeatedly turned down is normal though. Just because you are part of EA doesn’t mean that your grant proposal has enough merit to meet a funding bar. It’s very hard for me to comment on funding not being given, without knowing what was applied for and what they planned to do.
That makes sense, thanks!