Related to this point, I was surprised to see this
Given that GiveWellâs All Grants Fund has basically the same graph
Many other grants from the All Grants Fund donât have a ton of evidence behind them and are exploratory. As an example, they funded part of an RCT on building trailbridges in Rwanda, with reasoning «While our best guess is that bridges are below the range of cost-effectiveness of programs we would recommend funding, we think thereâs a reasonable chance the findings of the RCT update us toward believing this program is above our bar. [...]» and an RCT on providing eyeglasses for similar reasons.
Hey Lorenzo thanks for this thatâs a good point and I had somehow missed that graph which you are right is hilariously similar to mine!
I didnât get into the nuance in the article, but I think that the All Grants fund still provides a high amount of certainty for most of their grants. This is how GiveWell puts it.
âThe All Grants Fund provides grants to our Top Charities as well as grants to incubate newer programs, promote policy change, fund relevant research, or support other potentially high-impact, cost-effective initiatives that donât fit neat categorization.
The All Grants Fund supports the highest-impact opportunities we can identify in global health and well-being. This may include some grants with high expected value that carry a higher risk of not achieving their potential impact.âČ
Funding through the all grants fund mostly (not all) falls into 2 categories.
Grants that still have a high level of evidence behind them, but just not as much as the top charities. Most even have RCT to evidence behind them.
Evidence generation for promising interventions. The rail intervention you suggested falls largely into this category.
I see this particular TSU grant as moving somewhat away from even the All Grants philosophy as there is really not much evidence at all that TSUs work, and this grant is also not evidence generating at least as it seems at the moment.
When I read that description I infer âmake the best decision we can under uncertaintyâ, not âonly make decisions with a decent standard of evidence or to gather more evidenceâ. Itâs a reasonable position to think that the TSUs grant is a bad idea or that it would be unreasonable to expect it to be a good idea without further evidence, but I feel like GiveWell are pretty clear that theyâre fine with making high risk grants, and in this case they seem to think this TSUs will be high expected value
Yeah based on the evidence of what GiveWell actually have given most grants to in the past I would have gone with this as what I think GiveWell meant and what I would personally like the most.
âonly make decisions with a decent standard of evidence or to gather more evidenceâ
I think it makes sense to have separation, and have Openphil in doing higher risk bets undet your heuristic of âmake the best decision we can under uncertaintyâ. Why have 2 different bodies doing the same thing with largely the same pool of money?
But yes you might be right that at least now maybe both GiveWell and Open Phil are meaning and doing that.
Fair enough, I guess my take from all this is that you mainly just want the all grants fund to have a different philosophy than the one GiveWell is following in practice? Or do you also think theyâre making a mistake by their own lights?
I just originally thought that the All Grants fund has stuff with a decent evidence base, but less certainty then the top charities. So still more certainty than most other funders in the world.
Nearly all of the charities there would fit that description so I think they were following that practice. So yes I thought they were making a mistake somewhat by their own lights, or maybe taking the fund in a bit of a different direction.
Or Maybe I was just wrong about what they were trying to do.
And I expect this to increasingly be the case in the future, as GiveWell finds new donors and OpenPhil finds other things to donate to. So I wouldnât say itâs âlargely the same pool of moneyâ
Agreed. GiveWell also takes outside donors and OpenPhil doesnât. Iâve donated to the all grants fund because I wanted to help with risk tolerant and fast giving after the aid cuts, and am glad the opportunity exists
Related to this point, I was surprised to see this
Given that GiveWellâs All Grants Fund has basically the same graph
Many other grants from the All Grants Fund donât have a ton of evidence behind them and are exploratory. As an example, they funded part of an RCT on building trailbridges in Rwanda, with reasoning «While our best guess is that bridges are below the range of cost-effectiveness of programs we would recommend funding, we think thereâs a reasonable chance the findings of the RCT update us toward believing this program is above our bar. [...]» and an RCT on providing eyeglasses for similar reasons.
Hey Lorenzo thanks for this thatâs a good point and I had somehow missed that graph which you are right is hilariously similar to mine!
I didnât get into the nuance in the article, but I think that the All Grants fund still provides a high amount of certainty for most of their grants. This is how GiveWell puts it.
âThe All Grants Fund provides grants to our Top Charities as well as grants to incubate newer programs, promote policy change, fund relevant research, or support other potentially high-impact, cost-effective initiatives that donât fit neat categorization.
The All Grants Fund supports the highest-impact opportunities we can identify in global health and well-being. This may include some grants with high expected value that carry a higher risk of not achieving their potential impact.âČ
Funding through the all grants fund mostly (not all) falls into 2 categories.
Grants that still have a high level of evidence behind them, but just not as much as the top charities. Most even have RCT to evidence behind them.
Evidence generation for promising interventions. The rail intervention you suggested falls largely into this category.
I see this particular TSU grant as moving somewhat away from even the All Grants philosophy as there is really not much evidence at all that TSUs work, and this grant is also not evidence generating at least as it seems at the moment.
When I read that description I infer âmake the best decision we can under uncertaintyâ, not âonly make decisions with a decent standard of evidence or to gather more evidenceâ. Itâs a reasonable position to think that the TSUs grant is a bad idea or that it would be unreasonable to expect it to be a good idea without further evidence, but I feel like GiveWell are pretty clear that theyâre fine with making high risk grants, and in this case they seem to think this TSUs will be high expected value
Yeah based on the evidence of what GiveWell actually have given most grants to in the past I would have gone with this as what I think GiveWell meant and what I would personally like the most.
âonly make decisions with a decent standard of evidence or to gather more evidenceâ
I think it makes sense to have separation, and have Openphil in doing higher risk bets undet your heuristic of âmake the best decision we can under uncertaintyâ. Why have 2 different bodies doing the same thing with largely the same pool of money?
But yes you might be right that at least now maybe both GiveWell and Open Phil are meaning and doing that.
Fair enough, I guess my take from all this is that you mainly just want the all grants fund to have a different philosophy than the one GiveWell is following in practice? Or do you also think theyâre making a mistake by their own lights?
I just originally thought that the All Grants fund has stuff with a decent evidence base, but less certainty then the top charities. So still more certainty than most other funders in the world.
Nearly all of the charities there would fit that description so I think they were following that practice. So yes I thought they were making a mistake somewhat by their own lights, or maybe taking the fund in a bit of a different direction.
Or Maybe I was just wrong about what they were trying to do.
It doesnât apply to the TSU grant, but note that a high percentage of GiveWell-directed donations donât come from OpenPhilanthropy:
And I expect this to increasingly be the case in the future, as GiveWell finds new donors and OpenPhil finds other things to donate to. So I wouldnât say itâs âlargely the same pool of moneyâ
Agreed. GiveWell also takes outside donors and OpenPhil doesnât. Iâve donated to the all grants fund because I wanted to help with risk tolerant and fast giving after the aid cuts, and am glad the opportunity exists
I donât think thatâs true anymore: https://ââwww.openphilanthropy.org/ââpartner-with-us/ââ but I imagine OpenPhil only takes donors above a certain size (here they say >$1M/âyear) while GiveWell takes donations of all sizes