Thanks for writing this post, I think it raises some interesting points and I’d be interested in reading several of these critiques.
(Adding a few thoughts on some of the funding related things, but I encourage critiques of these points if someone wants to write them)
Sometimes funders try to play 5d chess with each other to avoid funging each other’s donations, and this results in the charity not getting enough funding.
I’m not aware of this happening very much, at least between EA Funds, Open Phil and FTX (but it’s plausible to me that this does happen occasionally). In general I think that funders have a preference to just try and be transparent with each other and cooperate. I think occasionally this will stop organisations being funded, but I think it’s pretty reasonable to not want to fund org x for project y given that they already have money for it from someone or take actions in this direction. I am aware of quite a few projects that have been funded by both Open Phil and FTX—I’m not sure whether this is much evidence against your position or is part of the 5d chess.
Sometimes funders don’t provide much clarity on the amount of time they intend to fund organizations for, which makes it harder to operate the organization long-term or plan for the future.
Lots of EA funding mechanisms seem basically based on building relationships with funders, which makes it much harder to start a new organization in the space if you’re an outsider.
This is a thing I’ve heard a few times from grantees, I think there is some truth to it, although most funding applications that I see are time bounded anyway and we tend to just fund for the lifetime of specific projects or orgs will apply for x years worth of costs and we provide funding for that with the expectation that they will ask for more if they need it. If there are better structures that you think are easier to implement I’d be interested in hearing them, perhaps you’d prefer funding for a longer period of time conditional on meeting certain goals? I think relationships with funders can be helpful but I think it is relatively rarely the difference between people receiving funding and not receiving it within EA (although this is pretty low confidence). I can think of lots of people that we have decided against funding who have pretty good professional/personal relationships with funders. To be clear, I’m just saying that pre-existing relationships are NOT required to get funding and they do not substantially increase the chances of being funded (in my estimation).
Relatedly, it’s harder to build these relationships without knowing a large EA vocabulary, which seems bad for bringing in new people.
These interactions seem addressable through funders basically thinking less about how other funders are acting, and also working on longer time-horizons with grants to organizations.
I think I disagree that the main issue is vocabulary, maybe there’s cultural differences? One way in which I could imagine non EAs struggling to get funding for good projects is if they over inflate their accomplishments or set unrealistic goals as might be expected when applying to other funders, if probably think they had worse judgement than people who are more transparent about their shortcomings and strengths or worry that they were trying to con me in other parts of the application. This seems reasonable to me though, I probably do want to encourage people to be transparent.
Re funders brain drain
I’m not super convinced by this, I do think grantmaking is impactful and I’m not sure it’s particularly high status relative to working at other EA orgs (e.g. I’d be surprised if people were turning down roles at redwood or Arc to work at OPP because of status—but maybe you have similar concerns about these orgs?). Most grantmakers have pretty small teams so it’s plausibly not that big an issue anyway although I agree that if these people weren’t doing grant making they’d probably do useful things elsewhere.
RE 5d chess—I think I’ve experienced this a few times at organizations I’ve worked with (e.g. multiple funders saying, “we think its likely someone else will fund this, so are not/only partially funding it, though we want the entire thing funded,” and then the project ends up not fully funded, and the org has to go back with a new ask/figure things out. This is the sort of interaction I’m thinking of here. It seems costly for organizations and funders. But I’ve got like an n=2 here, so it might just be chance (though one person at a different organization has messaged me since I posted this and said this point resonated with their experiences). I don’t think this is intentional on funders part!
RE timelines—I agree with everything here. I think this is a tricky problem to navigate in general, because funders can have good reasons to not want to fund projects for extended periods.
RE vocabulary—cultural differences make sense as a good explanation too. I can think of one instance where I felt like this was especially noticeable—I encouraged a non-EA project I thought was promising to apply for funding, and they didn’t get it. I pitched the funder on the project personally, and they changed their mind. There are obviously other factors at play here (e.g. maybe the funder trusted my judgement?), but I felt like looking at their application, it seemed like they just didn’t express things in “EA terms” despite being pretty cool, and their application wasn’t overly sensational or something.
RE brain drain—I agree with everything here. I think I’m more concerned about less prestigious but really promising organizations losing their best people, and that grantmaking in particular is a big draw for folks (though maybe there is a lot of need for talented grantmakers so this isn’t a bad thing!).
Thanks for writing this post, I think it raises some interesting points and I’d be interested in reading several of these critiques.
(Adding a few thoughts on some of the funding related things, but I encourage critiques of these points if someone wants to write them)
I’m not aware of this happening very much, at least between EA Funds, Open Phil and FTX (but it’s plausible to me that this does happen occasionally). In general I think that funders have a preference to just try and be transparent with each other and cooperate. I think occasionally this will stop organisations being funded, but I think it’s pretty reasonable to not want to fund org x for project y given that they already have money for it from someone or take actions in this direction. I am aware of quite a few projects that have been funded by both Open Phil and FTX—I’m not sure whether this is much evidence against your position or is part of the 5d chess.
This is a thing I’ve heard a few times from grantees, I think there is some truth to it, although most funding applications that I see are time bounded anyway and we tend to just fund for the lifetime of specific projects or orgs will apply for x years worth of costs and we provide funding for that with the expectation that they will ask for more if they need it. If there are better structures that you think are easier to implement I’d be interested in hearing them, perhaps you’d prefer funding for a longer period of time conditional on meeting certain goals? I think relationships with funders can be helpful but I think it is relatively rarely the difference between people receiving funding and not receiving it within EA (although this is pretty low confidence). I can think of lots of people that we have decided against funding who have pretty good professional/personal relationships with funders. To be clear, I’m just saying that pre-existing relationships are NOT required to get funding and they do not substantially increase the chances of being funded (in my estimation).
I think I disagree that the main issue is vocabulary, maybe there’s cultural differences? One way in which I could imagine non EAs struggling to get funding for good projects is if they over inflate their accomplishments or set unrealistic goals as might be expected when applying to other funders, if probably think they had worse judgement than people who are more transparent about their shortcomings and strengths or worry that they were trying to con me in other parts of the application. This seems reasonable to me though, I probably do want to encourage people to be transparent.
Re funders brain drain
I’m not super convinced by this, I do think grantmaking is impactful and I’m not sure it’s particularly high status relative to working at other EA orgs (e.g. I’d be surprised if people were turning down roles at redwood or Arc to work at OPP because of status—but maybe you have similar concerns about these orgs?). Most grantmakers have pretty small teams so it’s plausibly not that big an issue anyway although I agree that if these people weren’t doing grant making they’d probably do useful things elsewhere.
Thanks for the response!
RE 5d chess—I think I’ve experienced this a few times at organizations I’ve worked with (e.g. multiple funders saying, “we think its likely someone else will fund this, so are not/only partially funding it, though we want the entire thing funded,” and then the project ends up not fully funded, and the org has to go back with a new ask/figure things out. This is the sort of interaction I’m thinking of here. It seems costly for organizations and funders. But I’ve got like an n=2 here, so it might just be chance (though one person at a different organization has messaged me since I posted this and said this point resonated with their experiences). I don’t think this is intentional on funders part!
RE timelines—I agree with everything here. I think this is a tricky problem to navigate in general, because funders can have good reasons to not want to fund projects for extended periods.
RE vocabulary—cultural differences make sense as a good explanation too. I can think of one instance where I felt like this was especially noticeable—I encouraged a non-EA project I thought was promising to apply for funding, and they didn’t get it. I pitched the funder on the project personally, and they changed their mind. There are obviously other factors at play here (e.g. maybe the funder trusted my judgement?), but I felt like looking at their application, it seemed like they just didn’t express things in “EA terms” despite being pretty cool, and their application wasn’t overly sensational or something.
RE brain drain—I agree with everything here. I think I’m more concerned about less prestigious but really promising organizations losing their best people, and that grantmaking in particular is a big draw for folks (though maybe there is a lot of need for talented grantmakers so this isn’t a bad thing!).
I found this helpful and I feel like it resolved some cruxes for me. Thank you for taking the time to respond!