Would the AWF be interested/able to indicate if the grantees have room for more funding from individual donors?
A grant from the AWF is a strong indication of a good potential donation opportunity, however the grant may have already filled the funding gap. If a donor (for whatever reason, e.g. tax deductibility, running a fundraiser etc) wants to donate directly to an animal welfare charity (instead of a fund), would you recommend they donate to any recent grantees or only follow the advice of a charity evaluator (e.g. ACE)?
I’d add that even if these organizations are already very well funded from Open Phil and the EA Animal Welfare Fund, there still is a lot of value in getting additional donations from other donors...
`1.) diversity of donations is generally important for organizational health, to avoid overreliance on any one funder and to provide more independence from intentional or unintentional pressures from that funder. (That being said, for some organizations, having pressure from these funders is a really good thing, as many times I trust the strategy of these funders more than the strategy of these organizations.)
2.) if you trust an organization and its leadership and are not personally as constrained (say by cause area or mission or need to justify decisions) as the big funders, providing fully unrestricted funding can be much more valuable to the organization per dollar than money received from large institutions in allowing them to try new initiatives, etc. (Though of course you would want to understand more about why these large funders aren’t also funding these new initiatives or other ideas.)
3.) some large funders are capped in the amount of a budget they are willing to be for an organization (say max 50%) and it can be much harder to get the other part. By providing money to an organization, you may be unlocking more funding from these larger funders due to the cap. (Though as far as I know the “max 50%” thing is no longer true for Open Phil or any of the EA Funds and I think these funders are much more comfortable now funding very large portions of a budget. However I think this factor still exists to some degree.)
4.) it can be a useful signal to larger funders that individual donors trust the organization enough to support it
I think we would be interested and able to do this. However, I am not sure exactly what that would look like. I can think more about this and might look to implement something!
In the meantime, if you’re a donor who is interested in our thoughts, please feel free to contact us.
Another solution is to allocate to the fund, and we can then distribute it from there!
I’m sure others have much more considered thoughts on how to evaluate and communicate room for more funding, but here are some I’ve been musing on.
I’ve found it more productive to frame the question in the negative: “Why wouldn’t this charity have room for more funding?”
I think that’s because it only takes a few things to constrain a charity’s growth, but when the org has room to grow, there are many directions it can grow. So when I try to think of the ways a charity could grow, I’m almost always going to underestimate the number of opportunities the charity itself has identified. For example, I might think a charity has exhausted the opportunities for a certain kind of campaign, but it probably wouldn’t occur to me that they could make all of their campaigns much more effective if they hired an operations staffer with Salesforce expertise.
Starting with the negative framing, there seem to be only a few kinds of constraints a charity can have other than funding. Probably not exhaustive, but here’s my list:
Mission constraints: Do I generally expect this charity to do high-impact work? If I’m only excited about a few of their projects, then it’s less likely that marginal donations will counterfactually increase those projects.
Note that questions of program constraints (e.g., “no more states they could run ballot measures in”) often reduce to questions of mission constraints (e.g., “if they run out of states to do ballot measures in, will they identify another high-impact program to launch?”).
Talent constraints: Is the charity able to hire people good enough to continue their high-impact work?
Operational constraints: Does the charity have enough administrative bandwidth to hire staff or expand programs without straining their systems so much that their effectiveness suffers?
Relative timing constraints: Are there comparably cost-effective charities with much more urgent and important funding needs?
Note that I don’t think timing should be considered a constraint independent of the needs of comparably cost-effective charities. If a charity already has enough funding to, e.g., hire as many staff as it has the capacity to hire in the next two years, then additional funding now will allow them to plan for hiring in the third year and optimize their current plans accordingly.
Operational constraints: Does the charity have enough administrative bandwidth to hire staff or expand programs without straining their systems so much that their effectiveness suffers?
I would think if an organization had operational constraints, it would still have room for more funding, just the funding would be spent on expanding operations (e.g., hiring more operations staff, buying operations software, etc.)
One relevant constraint I can think of that would (hopefully temporarily) affect room for more funding are issues around management / culture / strategy capacity around the speed of hiring—an organization can only spend money to hire and expand so quickly and maybe they are already saturated. Typing this out now, I realize this is probably what you meant anyway.
tl;dr: I don’t think “slow and steady” growth is a problem, only “slow and unsteady” growth.
speed of hiring—an organization can only spend money to hire and expand so quickly and maybe they are already saturated
Actually, I don’t think expansion speed alone should be considered a factor in room for more funding. If there are no mission constraints or relative timing constraints, should it matter to me when the organization spends my money? If not, why not donate now so they’ll have more to use once they are no longer saturated?
I was trying to define operational constraints more narrowly, to include only the kind of growth that actually threatens the effectiveness of the org. I’m not sure exactly what this would look like. Perhaps if an org currently has promising programs, but is growing in a way that I think will create problems for them, then I would worry they won’t be effective by the time they are no longer saturated.
Yeah, I think it certainly would be fine to donate to an organization that can make use of your money but not for a year or two. I think this would actually be very helpful to the org as a signal of support and for removing some uncertainty for them, to allow them to actually grow (steadily).
I would think if an organization had operational constraints, it would still have room for more funding, just the funding would be spent on expanding operations.
I think the grantees least likely to have room for more funding are individuals, teams of less than 4 people, and high-impact projects within lower-impact organizations. But these are also the cases where it tends to be easiest to cold-call the grantee and get the full answer in a quick call. For example, an independent researcher could tell you “I’m doing this alongside my PhD so I really can’t actually take on more projects” or “My last grant just ran out so I can keep working on this new project as long as I can pay for it.”
Note that my reasoning might be motivated by the fact that I work for an org that receives substantial support from the EA AWF (Wild Animal Initiative), and part of my job includes fundraising. Hopefully my perspective contributes more than my bias detracts!
Would the AWF be interested/able to indicate if the grantees have room for more funding from individual donors?
A grant from the AWF is a strong indication of a good potential donation opportunity, however the grant may have already filled the funding gap. If a donor (for whatever reason, e.g. tax deductibility, running a fundraiser etc) wants to donate directly to an animal welfare charity (instead of a fund), would you recommend they donate to any recent grantees or only follow the advice of a charity evaluator (e.g. ACE)?
I’d add that even if these organizations are already very well funded from Open Phil and the EA Animal Welfare Fund, there still is a lot of value in getting additional donations from other donors...
`1.) diversity of donations is generally important for organizational health, to avoid overreliance on any one funder and to provide more independence from intentional or unintentional pressures from that funder. (That being said, for some organizations, having pressure from these funders is a really good thing, as many times I trust the strategy of these funders more than the strategy of these organizations.)
2.) if you trust an organization and its leadership and are not personally as constrained (say by cause area or mission or need to justify decisions) as the big funders, providing fully unrestricted funding can be much more valuable to the organization per dollar than money received from large institutions in allowing them to try new initiatives, etc. (Though of course you would want to understand more about why these large funders aren’t also funding these new initiatives or other ideas.)
3.) some large funders are capped in the amount of a budget they are willing to be for an organization (say max 50%) and it can be much harder to get the other part. By providing money to an organization, you may be unlocking more funding from these larger funders due to the cap. (Though as far as I know the “max 50%” thing is no longer true for Open Phil or any of the EA Funds and I think these funders are much more comfortable now funding very large portions of a budget. However I think this factor still exists to some degree.)
4.) it can be a useful signal to larger funders that individual donors trust the organization enough to support it
I think we would be interested and able to do this. However, I am not sure exactly what that would look like. I can think more about this and might look to implement something!
In the meantime, if you’re a donor who is interested in our thoughts, please feel free to contact us.
Another solution is to allocate to the fund, and we can then distribute it from there!
I’m sure others have much more considered thoughts on how to evaluate and communicate room for more funding, but here are some I’ve been musing on.
I’ve found it more productive to frame the question in the negative: “Why wouldn’t this charity have room for more funding?”
I think that’s because it only takes a few things to constrain a charity’s growth, but when the org has room to grow, there are many directions it can grow. So when I try to think of the ways a charity could grow, I’m almost always going to underestimate the number of opportunities the charity itself has identified. For example, I might think a charity has exhausted the opportunities for a certain kind of campaign, but it probably wouldn’t occur to me that they could make all of their campaigns much more effective if they hired an operations staffer with Salesforce expertise.
Starting with the negative framing, there seem to be only a few kinds of constraints a charity can have other than funding. Probably not exhaustive, but here’s my list:
Mission constraints: Do I generally expect this charity to do high-impact work? If I’m only excited about a few of their projects, then it’s less likely that marginal donations will counterfactually increase those projects.
Note that questions of program constraints (e.g., “no more states they could run ballot measures in”) often reduce to questions of mission constraints (e.g., “if they run out of states to do ballot measures in, will they identify another high-impact program to launch?”).
Talent constraints: Is the charity able to hire people good enough to continue their high-impact work?
Operational constraints: Does the charity have enough administrative bandwidth to hire staff or expand programs without straining their systems so much that their effectiveness suffers?
Relative timing constraints: Are there comparably cost-effective charities with much more urgent and important funding needs?
Note that I don’t think timing should be considered a constraint independent of the needs of comparably cost-effective charities. If a charity already has enough funding to, e.g., hire as many staff as it has the capacity to hire in the next two years, then additional funding now will allow them to plan for hiring in the third year and optimize their current plans accordingly.
I would think if an organization had operational constraints, it would still have room for more funding, just the funding would be spent on expanding operations (e.g., hiring more operations staff, buying operations software, etc.)
One relevant constraint I can think of that would (hopefully temporarily) affect room for more funding are issues around management / culture / strategy capacity around the speed of hiring—an organization can only spend money to hire and expand so quickly and maybe they are already saturated. Typing this out now, I realize this is probably what you meant anyway.
tl;dr: I don’t think “slow and steady” growth is a problem, only “slow and unsteady” growth.
Actually, I don’t think expansion speed alone should be considered a factor in room for more funding. If there are no mission constraints or relative timing constraints, should it matter to me when the organization spends my money? If not, why not donate now so they’ll have more to use once they are no longer saturated?
I was trying to define operational constraints more narrowly, to include only the kind of growth that actually threatens the effectiveness of the org. I’m not sure exactly what this would look like. Perhaps if an org currently has promising programs, but is growing in a way that I think will create problems for them, then I would worry they won’t be effective by the time they are no longer saturated.
Yeah, I think it certainly would be fine to donate to an organization that can make use of your money but not for a year or two. I think this would actually be very helpful to the org as a signal of support and for removing some uncertainty for them, to allow them to actually grow (steadily).
Great point!
My guess is that the EA AWF’s grantees almost always have room for more funding. In addition to the reasons I think effective orgs generally tend to have room for more funding, the EA AWF does an excellent job highlighting neglected orgs in neglected areas.
I think the grantees least likely to have room for more funding are individuals, teams of less than 4 people, and high-impact projects within lower-impact organizations. But these are also the cases where it tends to be easiest to cold-call the grantee and get the full answer in a quick call. For example, an independent researcher could tell you “I’m doing this alongside my PhD so I really can’t actually take on more projects” or “My last grant just ran out so I can keep working on this new project as long as I can pay for it.”
Note that my reasoning might be motivated by the fact that I work for an org that receives substantial support from the EA AWF (Wild Animal Initiative), and part of my job includes fundraising. Hopefully my perspective contributes more than my bias detracts!