The fact that some organizations cannot get funded does not seem like strong evidence that EA as a whole is funding-constrained. Given that other organizations can raise large funds, an alternative explanation is that donors think that the expected impact of the organizations that cannot get funding is low. I also don’t think it follows from your argument that earning to give is a great idea.
I agree that a failure to get funded does not imply funding constraints, but I definitely do think that many EA orgs, especially early ones, could benefit from more people with money looking to donate. There tends to be a large information asymmetry where you need to establish a clear track record and/or have someone spend a lot of time evaluating you before you can get funded. This is hard for early organizations to make happen.
I also think there are other systematic failures in EA where the best orgs do not always get fully funded.
If the best projects already have enough money, and are hiring significantly less people than the total number of potentially full time EAs, its possible that funding the next “tier” of worse-than-best projects is worthwhile. And it’s not clear that we have the money to do that.
I would disagree with that line of reasoning—as donors, we should be seeking to channel money into the most effective places it can do good, not trying to spread out the opportunity to do good to different individuals within the EA movement.
So if donor A can create 10 utils by donating $1 to Org Z, or create 5 utils and one new EA job by donating $1 to Org Y, the choice seems to be clear. My understanding is that our current research suggests that this is the case. (I also agree with Arepo, however, about donors potentially being irrational.)
When people say all of the top orgs have enough money, my interpretation is that I can’t really create any value at all by donating to them. That is, donor A can create 0 utils by donating to $1 to Org Z, because doing so doesn’t actually allow Org Z to scale in a meaningful way.
If I also can’t work at Org Z, then donating to Org Y looks like my next best option.
That makes sense — on a second look, I misread your first comment. Absolutely agree that the community shouldn’t have a go big or go home mentality, ie it shouldn’t be seen as impossible to do good if you can’t get an ultra selective job at one of these organizations.
I agree with Stefan, but I do in fact think (for other reasons) that earning to give is a great idea, and one of the main approaches EAs should consider. I think it’s a smaller constraint overall than hiring, but still a very important constraint.
Given that other organizations can raise large funds, an alternative explanation is that donors think that the expected impact of the organizations that cannot get funding is low.
It’s not entirely obvious how that looks different from EA being funding constrained. No donors are perfectly rational and they surely tend to be irrational in relatively consistent ways, which means that some orgs having surplus funds is totally consistent with there not being enough money to fund all worthwhile orgs. (this essentially seems like a microcosm of the world having enough money to fix all its problems with ease, and yet there ever having been a niche for EA funding).
Also, if we take the estimates of the value of EA marginal hires on the survey from a couple of years back literally, EA orgs tend to massively underpay their staff compared to their value, and presumably suffer from a lower quality hiring pool as a result.
The fact that some organizations cannot get funded does not seem like strong evidence that EA as a whole is funding-constrained. Given that other organizations can raise large funds, an alternative explanation is that donors think that the expected impact of the organizations that cannot get funding is low. I also don’t think it follows from your argument that earning to give is a great idea.
I agree that a failure to get funded does not imply funding constraints, but I definitely do think that many EA orgs, especially early ones, could benefit from more people with money looking to donate. There tends to be a large information asymmetry where you need to establish a clear track record and/or have someone spend a lot of time evaluating you before you can get funded. This is hard for early organizations to make happen.
I also think there are other systematic failures in EA where the best orgs do not always get fully funded.
If the best projects already have enough money, and are hiring significantly less people than the total number of potentially full time EAs, its possible that funding the next “tier” of worse-than-best projects is worthwhile. And it’s not clear that we have the money to do that.
I would disagree with that line of reasoning—as donors, we should be seeking to channel money into the most effective places it can do good, not trying to spread out the opportunity to do good to different individuals within the EA movement.
So if donor A can create 10 utils by donating $1 to Org Z, or create 5 utils and one new EA job by donating $1 to Org Y, the choice seems to be clear. My understanding is that our current research suggests that this is the case. (I also agree with Arepo, however, about donors potentially being irrational.)
When people say all of the top orgs have enough money, my interpretation is that I can’t really create any value at all by donating to them. That is, donor A can create 0 utils by donating to $1 to Org Z, because doing so doesn’t actually allow Org Z to scale in a meaningful way.
If I also can’t work at Org Z, then donating to Org Y looks like my next best option.
That makes sense — on a second look, I misread your first comment. Absolutely agree that the community shouldn’t have a go big or go home mentality, ie it shouldn’t be seen as impossible to do good if you can’t get an ultra selective job at one of these organizations.
I agree with Stefan, but I do in fact think (for other reasons) that earning to give is a great idea, and one of the main approaches EAs should consider. I think it’s a smaller constraint overall than hiring, but still a very important constraint.
It’s not entirely obvious how that looks different from EA being funding constrained. No donors are perfectly rational and they surely tend to be irrational in relatively consistent ways, which means that some orgs having surplus funds is totally consistent with there not being enough money to fund all worthwhile orgs. (this essentially seems like a microcosm of the world having enough money to fix all its problems with ease, and yet there ever having been a niche for EA funding).
Also, if we take the estimates of the value of EA marginal hires on the survey from a couple of years back literally, EA orgs tend to massively underpay their staff compared to their value, and presumably suffer from a lower quality hiring pool as a result.