Thanks for posting this! I’m a fundraiser, and I work with both funds and individual donors. From a charity perspective, I’ve noticed a few potential advantages of direct donations that might be worth considering alongside the points you raised:
Direct gifts help diversify funding and build organizational resilience. When most funding comes through a few large funds, charities can become more reliant on those sources, which may increase financial instability if priorities shift.
Direct gifts sometimes unlock matching funds or time-sensitive opportunities, which can amplify their leverage.
Donations made directly to charities can often be deployed more quickly and help sustain longer-term donor relationships, while funds might distribute on fixed schedules.
Some of the efficiency gained through coordination might be offset by the extra layer of infrastructure and decision-making.
That said, I think many of the arguments for funds carry weight. I’d love to hear examples where coordination through funds clearly improved outcomes to help me calibrate my own bias toward charity-side concerns.
When most funding comes through a few large funds, charities can become more reliant on those sources, which may increase financial instability if priorities shift.
And this may be particularly true if the funds significantly rely on each other—e.g., GWWC Global Health and Wellbeing Fund and EA Funds Global Health and Development Fund seem very heavily dependent on GiveWell’s work.
Thanks for posting this! I’m a fundraiser, and I work with both funds and individual donors. From a charity perspective, I’ve noticed a few potential advantages of direct donations that might be worth considering alongside the points you raised:
Direct gifts help diversify funding and build organizational resilience. When most funding comes through a few large funds, charities can become more reliant on those sources, which may increase financial instability if priorities shift.
Direct gifts sometimes unlock matching funds or time-sensitive opportunities, which can amplify their leverage.
Donations made directly to charities can often be deployed more quickly and help sustain longer-term donor relationships, while funds might distribute on fixed schedules.
Some of the efficiency gained through coordination might be offset by the extra layer of infrastructure and decision-making.
That said, I think many of the arguments for funds carry weight. I’d love to hear examples where coordination through funds clearly improved outcomes to help me calibrate my own bias toward charity-side concerns.
And this may be particularly true if the funds significantly rely on each other—e.g., GWWC Global Health and Wellbeing Fund and EA Funds Global Health and Development Fund seem very heavily dependent on GiveWell’s work.