I wonder whether this alters the calculus for whether to give to donor lotteries (as opposed to EA Funds)?
Four months ago, it seemed like donating to the donor lottery was being recommended as a kind of default (unless the donor had a particularly cool and unusual idea for where to donate). I speculated that it might be better for a lot of donors to just donate to the Funds, resulting in the money being allocated by the fund managers rather than whoever won the lottery[^1]. It seemed at the time that the response was fairly sanguine about the possibility that individual donors (e.g. lottery winners) might make better allocations than the fund managers.
If we thought that the EA Funds are quite well-funded relative to the potential projects available to fund, we might be more inclined to think this is true (since the lottery winner can, in theory, seek out more promising opportunities). If, however, EA Funds are relatively under-funded, and can’t fund many promising opportunities available to them, then it might seem better to just encourage people to donate to the funds by default (unless, perhaps, they are particularly confident that they or others could beat the fund managers with more time to reflect).
One might argue that it would be better for people to donate to the lottery even when the Funds are very underfunded, because whoever the winner is can make a judicious decision (potentially advised by the Fund managers) about whether they should just donate to the Funds or not. As I noted at the time, I’m a little worried that lottery winners might be biased against just donating their winnings back to the Fund. And, more generally, one might wonder about why the lottery winner would be expected to make a better decision about that question than the fund managers themselves. There may also be other advantages to people donating directly to the funds if they are under-funded (e.g. perhaps grants can be made more quickly via people donating directly to the funds, than via the lottery winner conducting their own investigations and possibly choosing to donate to the funds, or perhaps funding decisions can be made more reliably, if the funds have a more predictable amount of money coming in, rather than a large pool of money possibly going to them, possibly being donated to projects they would recommend and possibly being donated elsewhere), but of course I don’t know about whether any of those practical details hold.
[^1]
Though to be clear I also speculated that it could be better for people to make individual donation decisions, rather than to donate to the lottery, if this lead to more investigation, experimentation and knowledge generation from a larger number of more engaged individuals.
I wonder whether this alters the calculus for whether to give to donor lotteries (as opposed to EA Funds)?
I personally think it doesn’t change it much. As you previously mentioned, there’s a risk of donors being biased against giving to funds and instead wanting to do their “own thing”; I hope that donor lottery winners will be able to overcome that.
It seemed at the time that the response was fairly sanguine about the possibility that individual donors (e.g. lottery winners) might make better allocations than the fund managers.
It’s worth noting that I only believe this under the assumption that the individual donors know about some specific opportunities that the fund managers are unaware of, or perhaps have significant worldview differences with the fund managers.
It’s worth noting that I only believe this under the assumption that the individual donors know about some specific opportunities that the fund managers are unaware of, or perhaps have significant worldview differences with the fund managers.
The long-term future fund can only give to people who apply for funding though (right?) whereas someone who wins a donor lottery can give literally anywhere. This seems another reason why a donor lottery winner might give better?
I don’t really think there’s a difference between the two:
The LTFF can encourage anyone to apply. Several of the grants of the current round are a result of proactive outreach to specific individuals. (This still involves filling in the application form, but that’s just because it’s slightly lower-effort than exchanging the same information via email.)
A donor lottery winner can only grant to individuals who submit due diligence materials to CEA, which also involves filling in some forms.
I wonder whether this alters the calculus for whether to give to donor lotteries (as opposed to EA Funds)?
Four months ago, it seemed like donating to the donor lottery was being recommended as a kind of default (unless the donor had a particularly cool and unusual idea for where to donate). I speculated that it might be better for a lot of donors to just donate to the Funds, resulting in the money being allocated by the fund managers rather than whoever won the lottery[^1]. It seemed at the time that the response was fairly sanguine about the possibility that individual donors (e.g. lottery winners) might make better allocations than the fund managers.
If we thought that the EA Funds are quite well-funded relative to the potential projects available to fund, we might be more inclined to think this is true (since the lottery winner can, in theory, seek out more promising opportunities). If, however, EA Funds are relatively under-funded, and can’t fund many promising opportunities available to them, then it might seem better to just encourage people to donate to the funds by default (unless, perhaps, they are particularly confident that they or others could beat the fund managers with more time to reflect).
One might argue that it would be better for people to donate to the lottery even when the Funds are very underfunded, because whoever the winner is can make a judicious decision (potentially advised by the Fund managers) about whether they should just donate to the Funds or not. As I noted at the time, I’m a little worried that lottery winners might be biased against just donating their winnings back to the Fund. And, more generally, one might wonder about why the lottery winner would be expected to make a better decision about that question than the fund managers themselves. There may also be other advantages to people donating directly to the funds if they are under-funded (e.g. perhaps grants can be made more quickly via people donating directly to the funds, than via the lottery winner conducting their own investigations and possibly choosing to donate to the funds, or perhaps funding decisions can be made more reliably, if the funds have a more predictable amount of money coming in, rather than a large pool of money possibly going to them, possibly being donated to projects they would recommend and possibly being donated elsewhere), but of course I don’t know about whether any of those practical details hold.
[^1]
Though to be clear I also speculated that it could be better for people to make individual donation decisions, rather than to donate to the lottery, if this lead to more investigation, experimentation and knowledge generation from a larger number of more engaged individuals.
I personally think it doesn’t change it much. As you previously mentioned, there’s a risk of donors being biased against giving to funds and instead wanting to do their “own thing”; I hope that donor lottery winners will be able to overcome that.
It’s worth noting that I only believe this under the assumption that the individual donors know about some specific opportunities that the fund managers are unaware of, or perhaps have significant worldview differences with the fund managers.
The long-term future fund can only give to people who apply for funding though (right?) whereas someone who wins a donor lottery can give literally anywhere. This seems another reason why a donor lottery winner might give better?
I don’t really think there’s a difference between the two:
The LTFF can encourage anyone to apply. Several of the grants of the current round are a result of proactive outreach to specific individuals. (This still involves filling in the application form, but that’s just because it’s slightly lower-effort than exchanging the same information via email.)
A donor lottery winner can only grant to individuals who submit due diligence materials to CEA, which also involves filling in some forms.
OK thanks that makes sense