1) There isn’t really a lack of funds for new effective charities—there are a variety of grant programs, both those run by CEA and others, that will help such efforts get started.
2) The coordination overhead between major donors, researchers, and non-EA orgs is already prohibitively costly. (Coordination has some costs that expand super-exponentially, and there’s already a lot of groups involved.)
3) I’m unsure that there are major costs that would be avoided by coordinating, or opportunities that would be found. Small donors can give to the major charities via Givewell fairly easily, and can choose any other cause on their own.
4) Having a “give here” suggestion/priority list seems to create potentially damaging correlation between givers’ priorities—we’d probably prefer to allow donors to make their own allocation. (Though Givewell does publish recommendations for charities they don’t support that they nonetheless suggest are worth funding, so I’m not sure anyone else sees this as an issue.)
Wei—a few points in response:
1) There isn’t really a lack of funds for new effective charities—there are a variety of grant programs, both those run by CEA and others, that will help such efforts get started.
2) The coordination overhead between major donors, researchers, and non-EA orgs is already prohibitively costly. (Coordination has some costs that expand super-exponentially, and there’s already a lot of groups involved.)
3) I’m unsure that there are major costs that would be avoided by coordinating, or opportunities that would be found. Small donors can give to the major charities via Givewell fairly easily, and can choose any other cause on their own.
4) Having a “give here” suggestion/priority list seems to create potentially damaging correlation between givers’ priorities—we’d probably prefer to allow donors to make their own allocation. (Though Givewell does publish recommendations for charities they don’t support that they nonetheless suggest are worth funding, so I’m not sure anyone else sees this as an issue.)