I like the idea of profiting-to-give as a way to strengthen the community and engage people outside of the limited number of direct work EA jobs; however, I don’t see how an “EA certification” effectively accomplishes this goal.
I do think there would be a place for small EA-run businesses in fields with:
a lot of EAs
low barriers to entry
sharply diminishing returns to scale
Such a business might plausibly be able to donate at least much money as its employees were previously donating individually by virtue of their competitive success in the marketplace (i.e. without relying on EA branding or an EA customer base). By allowing EAs to work together for a common cause, it would also reduce value drift and improve morale.
More speculatively, it might improve recruitment of new EAs and reduce hiring costs for EA organizations by making it easier to find and evaluate committed candidates. If the business collectively decided how to donate its profits, it could also efficiently fufill a function similar to donor lotteries, freeing up more money for medium-size grants. Lastly, by focusing solely on maximizing profit, “profiting-to-give” would avoid the pitfalls of social benefit companies Peter_Hurford mentions while providing fulfilling work to EtG EAs.
I agree strongly with the last point in this comment,- and the post in general. I have a few responses to the first points. I imagine the EA-certification would have many benefits:
certification of successful companies could set an example for other companies to follow, and set a high bar for CSR—not just to dontate x% but to give it to an effective charity.
keeping track of EA-Corps as the movement grows so that they can attract EAs outside the personal networks of the creators
spreading EA values beyond the non-profit industry and tight social networks of current EAs
potentially create a new model for socially-minded businesses to follow (and allow socially-minded investors a new business model which could have better results than the social benefit companies model)
I like the idea of profiting-to-give as a way to strengthen the community and engage people outside of the limited number of direct work EA jobs; however, I don’t see how an “EA certification” effectively accomplishes this goal.
I do think there would be a place for small EA-run businesses in fields with:
a lot of EAs
low barriers to entry
sharply diminishing returns to scale
Such a business might plausibly be able to donate at least much money as its employees were previously donating individually by virtue of their competitive success in the marketplace (i.e. without relying on EA branding or an EA customer base). By allowing EAs to work together for a common cause, it would also reduce value drift and improve morale.
More speculatively, it might improve recruitment of new EAs and reduce hiring costs for EA organizations by making it easier to find and evaluate committed candidates. If the business collectively decided how to donate its profits, it could also efficiently fufill a function similar to donor lotteries, freeing up more money for medium-size grants. Lastly, by focusing solely on maximizing profit, “profiting-to-give” would avoid the pitfalls of social benefit companies Peter_Hurford mentions while providing fulfilling work to EtG EAs.
I agree strongly with the last point in this comment,- and the post in general. I have a few responses to the first points. I imagine the EA-certification would have many benefits:
certification of successful companies could set an example for other companies to follow, and set a high bar for CSR—not just to dontate x% but to give it to an effective charity.
keeping track of EA-Corps as the movement grows so that they can attract EAs outside the personal networks of the creators
spreading EA values beyond the non-profit industry and tight social networks of current EAs
potentially create a new model for socially-minded businesses to follow (and allow socially-minded investors a new business model which could have better results than the social benefit companies model)