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 youâre 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!
Iâm sure others have much more considered thoughts on how to evaluate and communicate room for more funding, but here are some Iâve been musing on.
Iâve found it more productive to frame the question in the negative: âWhy wouldnât this charity have room for more funding?â
I think thatâs because it only takes a few things to constrain a charityâs 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, Iâm 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 wouldnât 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 hereâs my list:
Mission constraints: Do I generally expect this charity to do high-impact work? If Iâm only excited about a few of their projects, then itâs less likely that marginal donations will counterfactually increase those projects.
Note that questions of program constraints (e.g., âno more states they could run ballot measures inâ) often reduce to questions of mission constraints (e.g., âif they run out of states to do ballot measures in, will they identify another high-impact program to launch?â).
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 donât 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 /â culture /â strategy capacity around the speed of hiringâan 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 donât think âslow and steadyâ growth is a problem, only âslow and unsteadyâ growth.
speed of hiringâan organization can only spend money to hire and expand so quickly and maybe they are already saturated
Actually, I donât 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 theyâll 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. Iâm 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 wonât 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 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 youâre 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!
Iâm sure others have much more considered thoughts on how to evaluate and communicate room for more funding, but here are some Iâve been musing on.
Iâve found it more productive to frame the question in the negative: âWhy wouldnât this charity have room for more funding?â
I think thatâs because it only takes a few things to constrain a charityâs 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, Iâm 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 wouldnât 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 hereâs my list:
Mission constraints: Do I generally expect this charity to do high-impact work? If Iâm only excited about a few of their projects, then itâs less likely that marginal donations will counterfactually increase those projects.
Note that questions of program constraints (e.g., âno more states they could run ballot measures inâ) often reduce to questions of mission constraints (e.g., âif they run out of states to do ballot measures in, will they identify another high-impact program to launch?â).
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 donât 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 /â culture /â strategy capacity around the speed of hiringâan 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 donât think âslow and steadyâ growth is a problem, only âslow and unsteadyâ growth.
Actually, I donât 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 theyâll 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. Iâm 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 wonât 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!