The culture of “when in doubt, apply” combined with the culture of “we can do better things with our time than give feedback,” combined with lack of transparency regarding the statistical odds of getting funded, is a dangerous mix that creates resentment and harms the community.
Agree! I believe this is a big contributor or burnout and people leaving EA.
However, I don’t think the solution is more feedback from grant makers. The vetting boatneck is a big part of the problem. Requiring more feedback will just make it worse.
Giving feedback on applications is hard in a way that I’m not sure how to communicate to people who have not been on the other side of an application process. Sorry for not explaining better. If someone wants to help with this, I can have a call with you, where we talk it though, and then you write it down to share on EA Forum. I think this could be high value since it’s a point I see coming up over and over.
The reason we’re vetting bottlenecked is that very few people are trusted to do this job, but the people who control the money. If want to help solve this, don’t give to EA Funds. Either make your own donation decision, or delegate to literally anyone else. Centralising funding this way was a mistake. (This is not a critique of the people running these funds!)
As the quote says, the situation is created by a combination of factors. I’d like to change the culture of “when in doubt, apply”. Writing an application that actually have a chance of succeeding is a lot of work, and for most people, rejection hurts. Also, maybe if there where fewer applications, maybe grant makers could give feedback.
A lot of EAs that don’t have experience with the grant system thinks that it’s much easier to get funding than it actually is. This is very bad for several reason:
It’s extra demoralising to get rejected when this is the culture around me, even when I know better.
If these people every apply and get rejected, they will get more hurt and demoralised than they would have been with a more accurate picture.
It makes it harder to fundraise outside the established grant system, because everyone immediate reaction is “why not just apply for a grant”. This makes everyone even more reliable on these grants, making the vetting boatneck even worse.
If someone wants to help with this, I can have a call with you, where we talk it though, and then you write it down to share on EA Forum. I think this could be high value since it’s a point I see coming up over and over.
Agree!
I believe this is a big contributor or burnout and people leaving EA.
See also: The Cost of Rejection — EA Forum (effectivealtruism.org)
However, I don’t think the solution is more feedback from grant makers. The vetting boatneck is a big part of the problem. Requiring more feedback will just make it worse.
Giving feedback on applications is hard in a way that I’m not sure how to communicate to people who have not been on the other side of an application process. Sorry for not explaining better. If someone wants to help with this, I can have a call with you, where we talk it though, and then you write it down to share on EA Forum. I think this could be high value since it’s a point I see coming up over and over.
The reason we’re vetting bottlenecked is that very few people are trusted to do this job, but the people who control the money. If want to help solve this, don’t give to EA Funds. Either make your own donation decision, or delegate to literally anyone else. Centralising funding this way was a mistake. (This is not a critique of the people running these funds!)
As the quote says, the situation is created by a combination of factors. I’d like to change the culture of “when in doubt, apply”. Writing an application that actually have a chance of succeeding is a lot of work, and for most people, rejection hurts. Also, maybe if there where fewer applications, maybe grant makers could give feedback.
A lot of EAs that don’t have experience with the grant system thinks that it’s much easier to get funding than it actually is. This is very bad for several reason:
It’s extra demoralising to get rejected when this is the culture around me, even when I know better.
If these people every apply and get rejected, they will get more hurt and demoralised than they would have been with a more accurate picture.
It makes it harder to fundraise outside the established grant system, because everyone immediate reaction is “why not just apply for a grant”. This makes everyone even more reliable on these grants, making the vetting boatneck even worse.
DM’d!