Rob Wiblin: A regular listener wrote in and was curious to know where Open Phil currently stands on its policy of not funding an individual organization too much, or not being too large a share of their total funding, because I think in the past you kind of had a rule of thumb that you were nervous about being the source of more than 50% of the revenue of a nonprofit. And this kind of meant that there was a niche where people who were earning to give could kind of effectively provide the other 50% that Open Phil was not willing to provide. Whatâs the status of that whole situation?
Holden Karnofsky: Well, itâs always just been a nervousness thing. I mean, Iâve seen all kinds of weird stuff on the internet that people⌠Games of telephone are intense. The way people can get one idea of what your policy is from hearing something from someone. So Iâve seen some weird stuff about it âOpen Phil refuses to ever be more than 50%, no matter what. And this is becoming this huge bottleneck, and for every dollar you put in, itâs another dollarâŚâ Itâs like, what? No, weâre just nervous about it. We are more than 50% for a lot of EA organizations. I think it is good to not just have one funder. I think thatâs an unhealthy dynamic. And I do think there is some kind of multiplier for people donating to organizations, there absolutely is, and thatâs good. And you should donate to EA organizations if you want that multiplier. I donât think the multiplierâs one-to-one, but I think thereâs something there. I donât know what other questions you have on that, but itâs a consideration.
Rob Wiblin: I mean, I think it totally makes sense that youâre reluctant to start approaching the 100% mark where an organization is completely dependent on you and theyâve formed no other relationships with potential backup supporters. They donât have to think about the opinions of anyone other than a few people that Open Phil. That doesnât seem super healthy.
Holden Karnofsky: Well, not only do they⌠I mean, itâs a lack of accountability but itâs also a lack of freedom. I think itâs an unhealthy relationship. Theyâre worried that if they ever piss us off, they could lose it and they havenât built another fundraising base. They donât know what would happen next, and that makes our relationship really not good. So itâs not preferred. It doesnât mean we can never do it. Weâre 95% sometimes.
Rob Wiblin: Yeah, it does seem like organizations should kind of reject that situation in almost any circumstance of becoming so dependent on a single funder that to some extent, theyâre just⌠Not only is the funder a supporter, but theyâre effectively managing them, or youâre going to be so nervous about their opinions that you just have to treat them as though they were a line manager. Because you know so much more about the situation than the funder probably does, otherwise they would be running the organization. But accepting that, so youâre willing to fund more than 50% of an organizationâs budget in principle?
Holden Karnofsky: Yeah.
Rob Wiblin: But you get more and more reluctant as theyâre approaching 100%. That does mean that there is a space there for people to be providing the gap between what youâre willing to supply and 100%. So maybe thatâs potentially good news for people who wanted to take the earning to give route and were focused on longtermist organizations.
Holden Karnofsky: Yeah, and I think the reason itâs good news is the thing I said before, which is that it is good for there not to just be one dominant funder. So when youâre donating to EA organizations, youâre helping them have a more diversified funding base, youâre helping them not be only accountable to one group, and we want that to happen. And we do these fair-share calculations sometimes. So weâll kind of estimate how much longtermist money is out there that would be kind of eligible to support a certain organization, and then weâll pay our share based on how much of that we are. And so often thatâs more like two thirds, or has been more like two thirds than 50%. Going forward it might fall a bunch. So I mean, thatâs the concept. And I would say it kind of collapses into the earlier reason I gave why earning to give can be beneficial.
On Open Phil aiming to not cover the vast majority of an organizationâs budget, from the 80,000 Hours podcast:
Other useful discussion in The state of longtermism section.