You write that Funds like ACE or the EA Animal Welfare Fund can be a solution to the coordination problem when financial cutbacks are necessary (and you donât want to apply across-the-board cuts). Thatâs true, but such funds also create exactly the dependencies on a few large donors that you criticize in the text, donât they? This dependency wouldnât exist if the money came directly from many small donors.
In general, one could say that ACE and EAAWF are better informed than individuals (also regarding the question of which organizations are particularly effective), but the same could be said about OP. I also find that plausible in principle, but I also think that a certain degree of âdemocratizationâ makes sense because it reduces the risk of wrong decisions and keeps a public discussion about effectiveness ongoing, which ultimately (hopefully) leads to better identification of more effective measures.
A lower dependency on major donors could also be good if we assume that (at least in some situations) the organizations themselves are better able than the large donors to assess which measures are most effective. With a high dependency, they might implement the measures preferred by the major donor, even though they actually believe that other measures would be more effective.
And then there are the arguments mentioned in the text. Can the arguments be summarized in such a way that the main problem of fragility is that larger fluctuations in financial resources are to be expected, and in the event of significant cutbacks, structures, experiences, and security that have been built up over years would be lost, and rebuilding them would come with additional costs?
And apologies for the late replyâI turned off the notifications after the debate week.
I think the main argument I tried to put forward was more about the dependency of many organisations to one single major donor and the risks associated with this (and how it would make sense to mitigate this via more donations). And to be clear, I wasnât criticising Open Philanthropy. I just think that given Open Philanthropy is a bit alone in the field, animal welfare is neglected in a unique way. If there were multiple donors that are equally major as Open Philanthropy, there wouldnât be such fragility. But as far as I am aware, EAAWF and ACE do not have such funds and do not provide such large grants as of now. They are much smaller than the OP farm animal welfare program.
I donât think it would be likely that OP, ACE and EAAWF simultaneously decide to downscale, since OP has multiple causes while ACE and EAAWF have sole focus on animal welfare. So I donât think having a bigger EAAWF or ACE would result in the same level of fragility, even if organisations still depend on major donors. The main difference would be that many organisations would rely on multiple major donors rather than one single major donor.
By the way, I am less concerned with which avenue (funds or individual organisations) one should choose to donate. But my initial concern with the âindividualâ approach was that more individual donors spread more funds to more organisations which at the end would not help to mitigate this fragility if OP withdraws from animal welfare or significantly downscales. In theory, individual donors can also coordinate to channel their donations to fill in the gaps if such an event occurs, but in practice, I think funds would be more able to do this more efficiently. This is more of a practical issue which I donât have super strong views about.
On the other hand, âfunds vs. individual donorsâ is another debate where I strongly agree with you that more oversight of individual donors is very needed. As you mentioned, this depends mostly on the level of knowledge of the donors, but I can also add (in favour of the individual approach) that this also depends on the level of engagement of the donors. I donât expect major funds with limited staff can engage with each of their grantees perfectly. I think individual donors can play a very important role in engaging with these organisations as âshareholdersâ (or grant managers) and hopefully improve their performance. Of course, donors can do that for funds to some degree as well.
To reply to the last paragraph: yes, I think this is a fair summary.
Hi Engin, thanks for your reply! I agree that itâs better to have multiple major donors than one major donor (e.g. itâs better to have four major donors who contribute to 20% of all funding each; than one major donor who gives 80% of all funding). I would assume that EAAWF and ACE rely on smaller donors who would have donated invidually otherwise. So in the case thatâfor exampleâthere is one major donor (60%) and many small donors (summing up to 40%), I donât know if itâs good to pool the money of the small donors by ACE or EAAWF (as long as they donate to equally effective charities) so that there are one major donor (60%), and e.g. ACE and EAAWF as further major donors (each 20%). On the one hand, itâs easier for ACE and EAAWF to react to a cut of funding by the major donor. On the other hand, there will probably be many charities which depend on ACE or EAAWF instead of many small donors. Of course, if the total amount of donations increases by new major donors, itâs a different thing.
You write that Funds like ACE or the EA Animal Welfare Fund can be a solution to the coordination problem when financial cutbacks are necessary (and you donât want to apply across-the-board cuts). Thatâs true, but such funds also create exactly the dependencies on a few large donors that you criticize in the text, donât they? This dependency wouldnât exist if the money came directly from many small donors.
In general, one could say that ACE and EAAWF are better informed than individuals (also regarding the question of which organizations are particularly effective), but the same could be said about OP. I also find that plausible in principle, but I also think that a certain degree of âdemocratizationâ makes sense because it reduces the risk of wrong decisions and keeps a public discussion about effectiveness ongoing, which ultimately (hopefully) leads to better identification of more effective measures.
A lower dependency on major donors could also be good if we assume that (at least in some situations) the organizations themselves are better able than the large donors to assess which measures are most effective. With a high dependency, they might implement the measures preferred by the major donor, even though they actually believe that other measures would be more effective.
And then there are the arguments mentioned in the text. Can the arguments be summarized in such a way that the main problem of fragility is that larger fluctuations in financial resources are to be expected, and in the event of significant cutbacks, structures, experiences, and security that have been built up over years would be lost, and rebuilding them would come with additional costs?
Thanks for the comment!
And apologies for the late replyâI turned off the notifications after the debate week.
I think the main argument I tried to put forward was more about the dependency of many organisations to one single major donor and the risks associated with this (and how it would make sense to mitigate this via more donations). And to be clear, I wasnât criticising Open Philanthropy. I just think that given Open Philanthropy is a bit alone in the field, animal welfare is neglected in a unique way. If there were multiple donors that are equally major as Open Philanthropy, there wouldnât be such fragility. But as far as I am aware, EAAWF and ACE do not have such funds and do not provide such large grants as of now. They are much smaller than the OP farm animal welfare program.
I donât think it would be likely that OP, ACE and EAAWF simultaneously decide to downscale, since OP has multiple causes while ACE and EAAWF have sole focus on animal welfare. So I donât think having a bigger EAAWF or ACE would result in the same level of fragility, even if organisations still depend on major donors. The main difference would be that many organisations would rely on multiple major donors rather than one single major donor.
By the way, I am less concerned with which avenue (funds or individual organisations) one should choose to donate. But my initial concern with the âindividualâ approach was that more individual donors spread more funds to more organisations which at the end would not help to mitigate this fragility if OP withdraws from animal welfare or significantly downscales. In theory, individual donors can also coordinate to channel their donations to fill in the gaps if such an event occurs, but in practice, I think funds would be more able to do this more efficiently. This is more of a practical issue which I donât have super strong views about.
On the other hand, âfunds vs. individual donorsâ is another debate where I strongly agree with you that more oversight of individual donors is very needed. As you mentioned, this depends mostly on the level of knowledge of the donors, but I can also add (in favour of the individual approach) that this also depends on the level of engagement of the donors. I donât expect major funds with limited staff can engage with each of their grantees perfectly. I think individual donors can play a very important role in engaging with these organisations as âshareholdersâ (or grant managers) and hopefully improve their performance. Of course, donors can do that for funds to some degree as well.
To reply to the last paragraph: yes, I think this is a fair summary.
Hi Engin, thanks for your reply!
I agree that itâs better to have multiple major donors than one major donor (e.g. itâs better to have four major donors who contribute to 20% of all funding each; than one major donor who gives 80% of all funding). I would assume that EAAWF and ACE rely on smaller donors who would have donated invidually otherwise. So in the case thatâfor exampleâthere is one major donor (60%) and many small donors (summing up to 40%), I donât know if itâs good to pool the money of the small donors by ACE or EAAWF (as long as they donate to equally effective charities) so that there are one major donor (60%), and e.g. ACE and EAAWF as further major donors (each 20%). On the one hand, itâs easier for ACE and EAAWF to react to a cut of funding by the major donor. On the other hand, there will probably be many charities which depend on ACE or EAAWF instead of many small donors. Of course, if the total amount of donations increases by new major donors, itâs a different thing.