All of these activities sound like services provided to the EA community. [...] the same way Givedirectly is and should be judged by how effectively they serve their beneficiaries (e.g. Africans below the poverty line), CEA should be judged by how effectively it serves its effective beneficiaries by empowering them to do those things.
This doesnât sound right to me. If you want to focus on the customer analogy, the funders are paying CEA to provide impact according to their impact metrics. CEA engages with a subset of the EA community that they think will lead to effects that they think will lead to impact according to their own theory of change and/âor the ToC of the funder(s). Target groups can differ based on the ToC of project, so you see people engaging on the forum but being rejected from EAGs.
I think there is much room for criticism when looking more closely at the ToCs, which is more to your next point:
The movement was founded on Givewell/âGWWC doing reviews of and ultimately promoting charitiesâreviews for which transparency is an absolute prerequisite for recommendation
It seems importantly hypocritical as a movement to demand it of evaluees but not to practice it at a meta level
Both Givewell and GWWC want to shift donation money to effective charities, which is why they have to make a compelling case for donors. Transparency seems to be a good tool for this. The analogy here would be CEA making the case for them to get funded for their work. Zach has written a bit about how they engage with funders.
I personally think there is a good case to be made to try for broader meta-funding diversification, which would necessitate more transparency around impact measurement. The EA Meta Funding Landscape Report asks some good questions. However, I can also see that the EV of this might be lower than that of engaging with a smaller set of funders. Transparency and engaging with a broad audience can be pretty time-consuming and thus lower the cost-effectiveness of your approach.
(All opinions are my own and donât reflect those of the organisations Iâm affiliated with.)
Right, the community isnât the ultimate beneficiary of CEAâs work. Itâs roughly analogous to donors who receive GiveWell adviceâthe ToC works instrumentally through the community/âGW donors but impact is derived from positive effects on ultimate beneficiaries (generally children in Africa). Somewhat analogously, an object-level org creates impact through its employees, but employees are not beneficiaries of the org.
Both Givewell and GWWC want to shift donation money to effective charities, which is why they have to make a compelling case for donors. Transparency seems to be a good tool for this. The analogy here would be CEA making the case for them to get funded for their work. Zach has written a bit about how they engage with funders.
That undermines the first motivation for I gave for transparency, but I donât think it really touches on the other four. And as you say, it only undermines the first to the extent that we donât think it would be better that they get more diverse funding.
I think if only for feedback-loop reasons, it would be far better for CEA to get more from the communityâif theyâre struggling to do so, that could be considered an important form of feedback in itself.
However, I can also see that the EV of this might be lower than that of engaging with a smaller set of funders. Transparency and engaging with a broad audience can be pretty time-consuming and thus lower the cost-effectiveness of your approach.
I feel like this proves too much. Givewellâs potential donors could make exactly the same claim, but Givewell repeatedly reinforced their belief that greater transparency is necessary to have high credence that the organisation in question is doing a good job. The fact that CEAâs outputs are less concrete/âmeasurable/âdirectly tied to human welfare if anything makes me think itâs more important that feedback loops are tightened than for Givewell evaluands.
This doesnât sound right to me. If you want to focus on the customer analogy, the funders are paying CEA to provide impact according to their impact metrics. CEA engages with a subset of the EA community that they think will lead to effects that they think will lead to impact according to their own theory of change and/âor the ToC of the funder(s). Target groups can differ based on the ToC of project, so you see people engaging on the forum but being rejected from EAGs.
I think there is much room for criticism when looking more closely at the ToCs, which is more to your next point:
Both Givewell and GWWC want to shift donation money to effective charities, which is why they have to make a compelling case for donors. Transparency seems to be a good tool for this. The analogy here would be CEA making the case for them to get funded for their work. Zach has written a bit about how they engage with funders.
I personally think there is a good case to be made to try for broader meta-funding diversification, which would necessitate more transparency around impact measurement. The EA Meta Funding Landscape Report asks some good questions. However, I can also see that the EV of this might be lower than that of engaging with a smaller set of funders. Transparency and engaging with a broad audience can be pretty time-consuming and thus lower the cost-effectiveness of your approach.
(All opinions are my own and donât reflect those of the organisations Iâm affiliated with.)
Right, the community isnât the ultimate beneficiary of CEAâs work. Itâs roughly analogous to donors who receive GiveWell adviceâthe ToC works instrumentally through the community/âGW donors but impact is derived from positive effects on ultimate beneficiaries (generally children in Africa). Somewhat analogously, an object-level org creates impact through its employees, but employees are not beneficiaries of the org.
That undermines the first motivation for I gave for transparency, but I donât think it really touches on the other four. And as you say, it only undermines the first to the extent that we donât think it would be better that they get more diverse funding.
I think if only for feedback-loop reasons, it would be far better for CEA to get more from the communityâif theyâre struggling to do so, that could be considered an important form of feedback in itself.
I feel like this proves too much. Givewellâs potential donors could make exactly the same claim, but Givewell repeatedly reinforced their belief that greater transparency is necessary to have high credence that the organisation in question is doing a good job. The fact that CEAâs outputs are less concrete/âmeasurable/âdirectly tied to human welfare if anything makes me think itâs more important that feedback loops are tightened than for Givewell evaluands.