I wonder if this is an argument for Good Ventures funding more endowments. If they endow a re-granter that funds something weird, they can say “well the whole point of this endowment was to diversify decision-making; it’s out of our hands at this point”. From the perspective of increasing the diversity of the funding landscape, a no-strings endowment seems best, although it could have other disadvantages.
[By ‘endowment’ I’m suggesting a large, one-time lump sum given to a legally independent organization. That organization could choose to give away the endowment quickly and then dissolve, or give some legally mandated minimum disbursement every year, or anything in between.]
>> If they endow a re-granter that funds something weird, they can say “well the whole point of this endowment was to diversify decision-making; it’s out of our hands at this point”.
I proposed this myself at one point, and the team politely and quite correctly me informed me that projecting this response from critics was naive. We are ultimately responsible for the grants downstream of our decisions in the eyes of the world, regardless of who made intermediate decisions.
As an example of how this has played out in practice, we’re known (and largely reviled) locally in San Francisco for supporting the controversial DA Chesa Boudin. In fact, I did not even vote for him (and did not vote in the recall), and the only association is the fact that we made a grant in 2019 to a group that supported him in later years, for totally unrelated work. We made a statement to clarify all this, which helped a little on the margin, but did not substantially change the narrative.
Just to clarify, since I commented in a sibling comment. I agree with the above and think that Good Ventures would still be reputationally on the hook of what an endowment would fund (edit: and generally think that just putting more layers between you and a thing you want to support but not be associated, in order to reduce the risk of association, is a tool that comes with large negative externalities and loss of trust).
The reason why I think it would help is because it would nevertheless genuinely increase funder diversity in the ecosystem, which is something that you said you cared about. I do think that might still expose your and Cari’s reputation to some risk, which I understand is something you also care a bunch about, but I don’t think is a good argument on altruistic grounds (which is fine, it’s your money).
Like I said, I proposed it myself. So I’m sympathetic to the idea, and maybe we’ll come back to it in some years if it truly becomes impossible to achieve real plurality.
Yes, I think funding an endowment would have been a great thing to do (and something I advocated for many times over the years). My sense is that it’s too late now.
I wonder if this is an argument for Good Ventures funding more endowments. If they endow a re-granter that funds something weird, they can say “well the whole point of this endowment was to diversify decision-making; it’s out of our hands at this point”. From the perspective of increasing the diversity of the funding landscape, a no-strings endowment seems best, although it could have other disadvantages.
[By ‘endowment’ I’m suggesting a large, one-time lump sum given to a legally independent organization. That organization could choose to give away the endowment quickly and then dissolve, or give some legally mandated minimum disbursement every year, or anything in between.]
>> If they endow a re-granter that funds something weird, they can say “well the whole point of this endowment was to diversify decision-making; it’s out of our hands at this point”.
I proposed this myself at one point, and the team politely and quite correctly me informed me that projecting this response from critics was naive. We are ultimately responsible for the grants downstream of our decisions in the eyes of the world, regardless of who made intermediate decisions.
As an example of how this has played out in practice, we’re known (and largely reviled) locally in San Francisco for supporting the controversial DA Chesa Boudin. In fact, I did not even vote for him (and did not vote in the recall), and the only association is the fact that we made a grant in 2019 to a group that supported him in later years, for totally unrelated work. We made a statement to clarify all this, which helped a little on the margin, but did not substantially change the narrative.
Just to clarify, since I commented in a sibling comment. I agree with the above and think that Good Ventures would still be reputationally on the hook of what an endowment would fund (edit: and generally think that just putting more layers between you and a thing you want to support but not be associated, in order to reduce the risk of association, is a tool that comes with large negative externalities and loss of trust).
The reason why I think it would help is because it would nevertheless genuinely increase funder diversity in the ecosystem, which is something that you said you cared about. I do think that might still expose your and Cari’s reputation to some risk, which I understand is something you also care a bunch about, but I don’t think is a good argument on altruistic grounds (which is fine, it’s your money).
Like I said, I proposed it myself. So I’m sympathetic to the idea, and maybe we’ll come back to it in some years if it truly becomes impossible to achieve real plurality.
Yes, I think funding an endowment would have been a great thing to do (and something I advocated for many times over the years). My sense is that it’s too late now.