These are good questions! I don’t work directly with EA Funds, but I wanted to mention a few things that might interest you:
Since this post was produced, new fund management teams have been announced (substantially increasing the number/diversity of people helping to make grants), and the new teams have run an Ask Me Anything session on the Forum.
GiveWell just announced that it will be doubling the size of its research team and looking at a much broader set of global development interventions than it has in the past. If the Global Health and Development Fund continues to follow their recommendations, I wouldn’t be surprised to see new organizations in future years.
Also, GiveWell recently used EA Funds to make a large grant to a development research program working to help governments adopt better policy: “Our understanding is some donors give to that fund because they want to signal support for GiveWell making grants which are more difficult to justify and rely on more subjective judgment calls, but have the potential for greater impact than our top charities. ”
On the question of whether AMF and others are “still the best use of funds”—“best” is always difficult to define, but one reason these charities continue to appear on the Top Charities list is that they continue to do a good job of finding opportunities and spending money quickly. In a year when GiveWell believed that AMF temporarily didn’t have much “room for more funding”, they removed it from their Top Charities list until more opportunities for net distribution opened up. They barely allocated any money to AMF this year compared to several charities they hadn’t supported as much or at all in past years, and removed a program that seemed less effective after a new RCT came out. I don’t necessarily agree with every point in GiveWell’s models, but I think they have a solid track record of changing their views as evidence changes.
These are good questions! I don’t work directly with EA Funds, but I wanted to mention a few things that might interest you:
Since this post was produced, new fund management teams have been announced (substantially increasing the number/diversity of people helping to make grants), and the new teams have run an Ask Me Anything session on the Forum.
GiveWell just announced that it will be doubling the size of its research team and looking at a much broader set of global development interventions than it has in the past. If the Global Health and Development Fund continues to follow their recommendations, I wouldn’t be surprised to see new organizations in future years.
Also, GiveWell recently used EA Funds to make a large grant to a development research program working to help governments adopt better policy: “Our understanding is some donors give to that fund because they want to signal support for GiveWell making grants which are more difficult to justify and rely on more subjective judgment calls, but have the potential for greater impact than our top charities. ”
On the question of whether AMF and others are “still the best use of funds”—“best” is always difficult to define, but one reason these charities continue to appear on the Top Charities list is that they continue to do a good job of finding opportunities and spending money quickly. In a year when GiveWell believed that AMF temporarily didn’t have much “room for more funding”, they removed it from their Top Charities list until more opportunities for net distribution opened up. They barely allocated any money to AMF this year compared to several charities they hadn’t supported as much or at all in past years, and removed a program that seemed less effective after a new RCT came out. I don’t necessarily agree with every point in GiveWell’s models, but I think they have a solid track record of changing their views as evidence changes.