I think it would depend. For many charities, the ultimate cost of this sort of “strict liability” policy is borne by the intended beneficiaries. I would be hesitant to extend in certain cases beyond what I think morality requires.
For a grad student receiving a micro grant, asking to return funds already earned is too much, and expecting significant vetting is unrealistic and inefficient.
The potential value, I think, would be for midsize+ organizations with a diverse donor base. They could put e.g. 5% of each year’s donation into a buffer, releasing 1% each year to programs as time passed without any red flags.
Very few nonprofits could absorb a reversal of a megadonor’s gifts.
I should maybe have been more explicit in stating the actual policy proposal:
I don’t think paying back necessarily needs to be done on the level of an individual project/grant. Insofar as the EA community is, well, a community, it might be viable to take responsibility on the level of the community.
For instance, in the discussion I linked to on twitter, the suggestion was that EAs would set up a fund that they could donate to for the victims of FTX.
This would presumably still create lots of community-wide incentives, as well as incentives among the leaders of EA, because nobody wants their community to waste a lot of resources due to having worked with bad actors. But it would also be much less burdensome to individual granttakers.
I think it would depend. For many charities, the ultimate cost of this sort of “strict liability” policy is borne by the intended beneficiaries. I would be hesitant to extend in certain cases beyond what I think morality requires.
For a grad student receiving a micro grant, asking to return funds already earned is too much, and expecting significant vetting is unrealistic and inefficient.
The potential value, I think, would be for midsize+ organizations with a diverse donor base. They could put e.g. 5% of each year’s donation into a buffer, releasing 1% each year to programs as time passed without any red flags.
Very few nonprofits could absorb a reversal of a megadonor’s gifts.
I should maybe have been more explicit in stating the actual policy proposal:
I don’t think paying back necessarily needs to be done on the level of an individual project/grant. Insofar as the EA community is, well, a community, it might be viable to take responsibility on the level of the community.
For instance, in the discussion I linked to on twitter, the suggestion was that EAs would set up a fund that they could donate to for the victims of FTX.
This would presumably still create lots of community-wide incentives, as well as incentives among the leaders of EA, because nobody wants their community to waste a lot of resources due to having worked with bad actors. But it would also be much less burdensome to individual granttakers.