It’s helpful to know why you thought the relationship was unclear.
But I don’t think us (HLI) publishing research during the giving season is “cynical timing” any more than you publishing this piece when many people from GWWC, FP, and HLI are on vacation is “cynical timing”.
When you’re an organization without guaranteed funding, it seems strategic to try to make yourself salient to people when they reach for their pocketbooks. I don’t see that as cynical.
FWIW, the explanation is rather mundane: the giving season acts as hard deadline which pushes us to finish our reports.
To add to this, even if it were timed, I don’t think that timing the publication outputs to coincide with peak giving season will necessarily differentiate between a funding-constrained research organisation and a funding-constrained advocacy organisation, if both groups think that peak giving season will lead to more donations that are instrumentally useful for their goals.
you publishing this piece when many people from GWWC, FP, and HLI are on vacation
I think the reason I’m publishing it now is because it’s when I’m on vacation! (But yes, that’s a fair point).
I think the timing makes sense for HLI, but given how adverserial the articles come across (to me) it seems like they are trying to shift funding away from [generic top charity] to StrongMinds, which is why it seems to me it’s more about StrongMinds than HLI. I expect HLI could get just as much salence publishing about bednets on their own at that time than adding the comparison to StrongMinds. (Not sure about this though, but it does seem like the strategy seems to involve generating lots of heat rather than light)
FWIW, the explanation is rather mundane: the giving season acts as hard deadline which pushes us to finish our reports.
Yes, that does make sense (and probably is about as mundane as my reason for publishing whilst GWWC, FP and HLI are on vacation)
I think the reason I’m publishing it now is because it’s when I’m on vacation! (But yes, that’s a fair point).
To be clear, that’s what I meant to imply—I assumed you published this when you had time, not because the guards were asleep.
I think the timing makes sense for HLI, but given how adverserial the articles come across (to me) it seems like they are trying to shift funding away from [generic top charity] to StrongMinds, which is why it seems to me it’s more about StrongMinds than HLI.
Everything is compared to StrongMinds because that’s what our models currently say is best. When (and I expect it’s only a matter of when) something else takes StrongMinds’ place, we will compare the charities we review to that one. The point is to frame the charities we review in terms of how they compare to our current best bet. I guess this is an alternative to putting everything in terms of GiveDirectly cash transfers—which IMO would generate less heat and light.
Everything is compared to StrongMinds because that’s what our models currently say is best. [...] I guess this is an alternative to putting everything in terms of GiveDirectly cash transfers—which IMO would generate less heat and light.
GW compares everything to GiveDirectly (which isn’t considered their best charity). I like that approach because:
Giving people cash is really easy to understand
It’s high capacity
It’s not a moving target (unlike say worms or betnets which changes all the time based on how the charities are executing)
I think for HLI (at their current stage) everthing is going to be a moving target (because there’s so much uncertainty about the WELLBY effect of every action) but I’d rather have only one moving target rather than two.
FWIW, I’m not unsympathetic to comparing everything to GiveDirectly CTs, and this is probably something we will (continue to) discuss internally at HLI.
Simon,
It’s helpful to know why you thought the relationship was unclear.
But I don’t think us (HLI) publishing research during the giving season is “cynical timing” any more than you publishing this piece when many people from GWWC, FP, and HLI are on vacation is “cynical timing”.
When you’re an organization without guaranteed funding, it seems strategic to try to make yourself salient to people when they reach for their pocketbooks. I don’t see that as cynical.
FWIW, the explanation is rather mundane: the giving season acts as hard deadline which pushes us to finish our reports.
To add to this, even if it were timed, I don’t think that timing the publication outputs to coincide with peak giving season will necessarily differentiate between a funding-constrained research organisation and a funding-constrained advocacy organisation, if both groups think that peak giving season will lead to more donations that are instrumentally useful for their goals.
I think the reason I’m publishing it now is because it’s when I’m on vacation! (But yes, that’s a fair point).
I think the timing makes sense for HLI, but given how adverserial the articles come across (to me) it seems like they are trying to shift funding away from [generic top charity] to StrongMinds, which is why it seems to me it’s more about StrongMinds than HLI. I expect HLI could get just as much salence publishing about bednets on their own at that time than adding the comparison to StrongMinds. (Not sure about this though, but it does seem like the strategy seems to involve generating lots of heat rather than light)
Yes, that does make sense (and probably is about as mundane as my reason for publishing whilst GWWC, FP and HLI are on vacation)
To be clear, that’s what I meant to imply—I assumed you published this when you had time, not because the guards were asleep.
Everything is compared to StrongMinds because that’s what our models currently say is best. When (and I expect it’s only a matter of when) something else takes StrongMinds’ place, we will compare the charities we review to that one. The point is to frame the charities we review in terms of how they compare to our current best bet. I guess this is an alternative to putting everything in terms of GiveDirectly cash transfers—which IMO would generate less heat and light.
GW compares everything to GiveDirectly (which isn’t considered their best charity). I like that approach because:
Giving people cash is really easy to understand
It’s high capacity
It’s not a moving target (unlike say worms or betnets which changes all the time based on how the charities are executing)
I think for HLI (at their current stage) everthing is going to be a moving target (because there’s so much uncertainty about the WELLBY effect of every action) but I’d rather have only one moving target rather than two.
FWIW, I’m not unsympathetic to comparing everything to GiveDirectly CTs, and this is probably something we will (continue to) discuss internally at HLI.