Yeah I mean, no kidding. But it’s called Open Philanthropy. It’s easy to imagine there exists a niche for a meta-charity with high transaparency and visibility. It also seems clear that Open Philanthropy advertises as a fulfillment of this niche as much as possible and that donors do want this.
I don’t understand this point. Can you spell it out?
From my perspective, Open Phil’s main legible contribution is a) identifying great donation opportunities, b) recommending Cari Tuna and Dustin Moskovitz to donate to such opportunities, and c) building up an apparatus to do so at scale.
Their donors are specific people, not hypothetical “donors who want transparency.” I assume Open Phil is quite candid/transparent with their actual donors, though of course I don’t have visibility here.
In fairness, the situation is a bit confusing. Open Phil came from GiveWell, which is meant for external donors. In comparison, as Linch mentioned, Open Phil mainly recommends donations just to Good Ventures (Cari Tuna and Dustin Moskovitz). My impression is that OP’s main concern is directly making good grants, not recommending good grants to other funders. Therefore, a large amount of public research is not particularly crucial.
I think the name is probably not quite ideal for this purpose. I think of it more like “Highly Effective Philanthropy”; it seems their comparative advantage / unique attribute is much more their choices of focus and their talent pool, than it is their openness, at this point.
If there is frustration here, it seems like the frustration is a bit more “it would be nice if they could change their name to be more reflective of their current focus”, than “they should change their work to reflect the previous title they chose”.
I don’t understand this point. Can you spell it out?
From my perspective, Open Phil’s main legible contribution is a) identifying great donation opportunities, b) recommending Cari Tuna and Dustin Moskovitz to donate to such opportunities, and c) building up an apparatus to do so at scale.
Their donors are specific people, not hypothetical “donors who want transparency.” I assume Open Phil is quite candid/transparent with their actual donors, though of course I don’t have visibility here.
In fairness, the situation is a bit confusing. Open Phil came from GiveWell, which is meant for external donors. In comparison, as Linch mentioned, Open Phil mainly recommends donations just to Good Ventures (Cari Tuna and Dustin Moskovitz). My impression is that OP’s main concern is directly making good grants, not recommending good grants to other funders. Therefore, a large amount of public research is not particularly crucial.
I think the name is probably not quite ideal for this purpose. I think of it more like “Highly Effective Philanthropy”; it seems their comparative advantage / unique attribute is much more their choices of focus and their talent pool, than it is their openness, at this point.
If there is frustration here, it seems like the frustration is a bit more “it would be nice if they could change their name to be more reflective of their current focus”, than “they should change their work to reflect the previous title they chose”.
Sorry I did not realize that OP doesn’t solicit donations from non megadonors. I agree this recontextualizes how we should interpret transparency.
Given the lack of donor diversity, tho, I am confused why their cause areas would be so diverse.