I’ll flag that I’m emotionally biased as a director of an NGO that often has to write 10 page applications and often have 3-5 phone conversations to apply for grants of $5,000 to $25,000 from foundations and donors. $500,000 dollars feels instinctively like an awfully large amount of money to entertain words like “speculative” and “pass”, but maybe I need to move my frame of reference!
I’m intrigued that you are willing to give a grant of $500,000 a “pass”, what do you mean by that exactly? In my mind $500,000 is a large amount of money. To try and steelman a little (with assumptions), do you mean that you would be OK with the grant if the organisation was shown to have a track record in the area, and the approach could have a a high expected value if successful (even if a low chance of success) then you would be OK with the grant even if it didn’t bear fruit?
Personally I don’t believe we should give any grant a “pass” as such. Maybe small grants of a few thousand dollars.
Also what do you mean “if this goes terribly”, do you mean the result of the grant? What would constitute the going terribly?
As a side note, you might well disagree but I don’t think we should need to rely too much on trust when it comes to grants of this size—even if we do trust the org and the people involved. I know other NGOs and donors don’t get as much scrutiny as EA associated grants (one of the great things about EA), but I think any grant over $50,000 could at least always carry with it one page explainer document which outlines the credentials of the org, and what the grant might achieve (even if no math there)
“I’m intrigued that you are willing to give a grant of $500,000 a “pass”, what do you mean by that exactly? In my mind $500,000 is a large amount of money. To try and steelman a little (with assumptions), do you mean that you would be OK with the grant if the organisation was shown to have a track record in the area, and the approach could have a a high expected value if successful (even if a low chance of success) then you would be OK with the grant even if it didn’t bear fruit?”
Yes I do think this.
And the question is whether they are good at predicting. Do you think your long applications help that? Ive done huge grant application docs and thought they were largely a waste of everyone’s time.
I imagine I want scrutiny but I currently trust OP. I don’t sense long documents would have helped—I imagine they knew this was risky.
Hey Nathan
I’ll flag that I’m emotionally biased as a director of an NGO that often has to write 10 page applications and often have 3-5 phone conversations to apply for grants of $5,000 to $25,000 from foundations and donors. $500,000 dollars feels instinctively like an awfully large amount of money to entertain words like “speculative” and “pass”, but maybe I need to move my frame of reference!
I’m intrigued that you are willing to give a grant of $500,000 a “pass”, what do you mean by that exactly? In my mind $500,000 is a large amount of money. To try and steelman a little (with assumptions), do you mean that you would be OK with the grant if the organisation was shown to have a track record in the area, and the approach could have a a high expected value if successful (even if a low chance of success) then you would be OK with the grant even if it didn’t bear fruit?
Personally I don’t believe we should give any grant a “pass” as such. Maybe small grants of a few thousand dollars.
Also what do you mean “if this goes terribly”, do you mean the result of the grant? What would constitute the going terribly?
As a side note, you might well disagree but I don’t think we should need to rely too much on trust when it comes to grants of this size—even if we do trust the org and the people involved. I know other NGOs and donors don’t get as much scrutiny as EA associated grants (one of the great things about EA), but I think any grant over $50,000 could at least always carry with it one page explainer document which outlines the credentials of the org, and what the grant might achieve (even if no math there)
“I’m intrigued that you are willing to give a grant of $500,000 a “pass”, what do you mean by that exactly? In my mind $500,000 is a large amount of money. To try and steelman a little (with assumptions), do you mean that you would be OK with the grant if the organisation was shown to have a track record in the area, and the approach could have a a high expected value if successful (even if a low chance of success) then you would be OK with the grant even if it didn’t bear fruit?”
Yes I do think this.
And the question is whether they are good at predicting. Do you think your long applications help that? Ive done huge grant application docs and thought they were largely a waste of everyone’s time.
I imagine I want scrutiny but I currently trust OP. I don’t sense long documents would have helped—I imagine they knew this was risky.