The fact that EA is more legible than other philanthropy makes this non-obvious, but I think that EA is less reliant on personal connections or inside connections with powerful people than most other major philanthropy or class of philanthropy. Academic funders are similar, but in place of personal connections they are about scholarly qualifications mostly at elite institutions, and the implicit or explicit training in how to apply to those grants and the ways to appeal to the individuals who evaluate them—which is a different but also problematic failure mode.
In contrast, there is much more openness to non-insiders to build connections, much more openness to feedback, etc. In fact, posting useful and important things to the EA forum is often enough to get attention and potentially get funding. But I agree that people used to other types of credentialing probably sees this as much more exclusionary, albeit mostly based on lack of looking at the community before applying for funds.
Of course, this is based on my personal experience with other philanthropies and funders, and may not generalize. I would be interested in hearing from others who have gotten grants from other foundations about whether they are more or less closed to outsiders, and/or whether the qualifications are more or less difficult to know without inside information and connections to others.
Great points, thanks David. I especially like the compare and contrast between personal connections and academic credentials. I think probably you’re more experienced with academia and non-EA philanthropy than I am, so your empirical views are different. But I also think that even if EA is better than these other communities, we should still be thinking about (1) keeping it that way, and (2) maybe getting even less reliant. This is part of what I was saying with:
None of this is unique to EA. While I think EA is particularly guilty of some of these issues, in general I could aim this criticism in any direction and hit someone guilty of it. But “everyone else does it” is not in and of itself a reason to accept it. We claim to be doing something really difficult and important, so we should try to be as good as possible.
I think your observations may be counterevidence to anyone saying that EA should become more reliant on personal connections. Since you think (possibly correctly) that other major philanthropy is more reliant on personal connections than EA is, and I assume we agree that EA philanthropy is better than most other major philanthropy.
The fact that EA is more legible than other philanthropy makes this non-obvious, but I think that EA is less reliant on personal connections or inside connections with powerful people than most other major philanthropy or class of philanthropy. Academic funders are similar, but in place of personal connections they are about scholarly qualifications mostly at elite institutions, and the implicit or explicit training in how to apply to those grants and the ways to appeal to the individuals who evaluate them—which is a different but also problematic failure mode.
In contrast, there is much more openness to non-insiders to build connections, much more openness to feedback, etc. In fact, posting useful and important things to the EA forum is often enough to get attention and potentially get funding. But I agree that people used to other types of credentialing probably sees this as much more exclusionary, albeit mostly based on lack of looking at the community before applying for funds.
Of course, this is based on my personal experience with other philanthropies and funders, and may not generalize. I would be interested in hearing from others who have gotten grants from other foundations about whether they are more or less closed to outsiders, and/or whether the qualifications are more or less difficult to know without inside information and connections to others.
Great points, thanks David. I especially like the compare and contrast between personal connections and academic credentials. I think probably you’re more experienced with academia and non-EA philanthropy than I am, so your empirical views are different. But I also think that even if EA is better than these other communities, we should still be thinking about (1) keeping it that way, and (2) maybe getting even less reliant. This is part of what I was saying with:
I think your observations may be counterevidence to anyone saying that EA should become more reliant on personal connections. Since you think (possibly correctly) that other major philanthropy is more reliant on personal connections than EA is, and I assume we agree that EA philanthropy is better than most other major philanthropy.