After reading Crowdfunding for Effective Climate Change, which advocates funding a think tank in order to influence government spending on clean energy R&D, I realized I don’t understand the relevant considerations determining when to directly fund work in a given area and when to try to redirect government funding towards an area. Is it determined based on charity-specific factors, or are there broader principles GiveWell/OpenPhil/etc use to evaluate this question in a given cause area?
[Question] How to evaluate the impact of influencing governments vs direct work in a given cause area?
After reading Crowdfunding for Effective Climate Change, which advocates funding a think tank in order to influence government spending on clean energy R&D, I realized I don’t understand the relevant considerations determining when to directly fund work in a given area and when to try to redirect government funding towards an area. Is it determined based on charity-specific factors, or are there broader principles GiveWell/OpenPhil/etc use to evaluate this question in a given cause area?