Thank you for your comment, you are raising an important point! You’re absolutely right that having Constance volunteer full-time has been an extraordinary help, and we haven’t explicitly accounted for this in our internal cost-effectiveness (CE) estimates yet. This would pose an interesting challenge when thinking about marginal cost-effectiveness, as her contribution isn’t something that additional funds could replicate directly.
For now, we’ve only used our historical CE estimates as a “sanity check” while designing our 2025 goals and budget, ensuring they align broadly with our plans—so we didn’t strongly anchor on this data. For now, our numbers seem to check out nevertheless, because other shifts in our team and budget (e.g., changes in staffing and salaries) have kept our average costs per FTE relatively stable (e.g., in 2024 we operated on ~$240k with 4.5 FTE, including Constance, and for 2025, we expect to hold 4.5 FTE at ~$260k). Additionally, we’ve introduced more automations, outsourced tasks to volunteers where appropriate, and focused our resources on programs that have shown the most promise. We expect that these steps have helped ensure we’re using our funds more effectively, and hopefully counteract this limitation.
That said, we see the need to revisit these estimates in greater detail, especially as we evaluate our end-of-year community survey results. Funders haven’t raised this specific concern with us so far—perhaps because they’re more focused on our theory of change, specific projects, and broader impact metrics. However, your point is a valuable reminder to incorporate these nuances more explicitly in our future planning.
Thank you again for sharing your perspective and for your support of the community. We deeply appreciate it!
Thank you for your comment, you are raising an important point! You’re absolutely right that having Constance volunteer full-time has been an extraordinary help, and we haven’t explicitly accounted for this in our internal cost-effectiveness (CE) estimates yet. This would pose an interesting challenge when thinking about marginal cost-effectiveness, as her contribution isn’t something that additional funds could replicate directly.
For now, we’ve only used our historical CE estimates as a “sanity check” while designing our 2025 goals and budget, ensuring they align broadly with our plans—so we didn’t strongly anchor on this data. For now, our numbers seem to check out nevertheless, because other shifts in our team and budget (e.g., changes in staffing and salaries) have kept our average costs per FTE relatively stable (e.g., in 2024 we operated on ~$240k with 4.5 FTE, including Constance, and for 2025, we expect to hold 4.5 FTE at ~$260k). Additionally, we’ve introduced more automations, outsourced tasks to volunteers where appropriate, and focused our resources on programs that have shown the most promise. We expect that these steps have helped ensure we’re using our funds more effectively, and hopefully counteract this limitation.
That said, we see the need to revisit these estimates in greater detail, especially as we evaluate our end-of-year community survey results. Funders haven’t raised this specific concern with us so far—perhaps because they’re more focused on our theory of change, specific projects, and broader impact metrics. However, your point is a valuable reminder to incorporate these nuances more explicitly in our future planning.
Thank you again for sharing your perspective and for your support of the community. We deeply appreciate it!