Therefore I don’t fundamentally think that donor orgs need to pay more to attract similar level of talent as NGOs.
Additional reasons this might be true, at least in the EA space:
GiveWell, CG, etc. may be (or may be perceived as) more stable employers than many potential grantees. I’m pretty confident that they will be around in ten years, that the risk of budget-motivated layoffs is modest, and so on. This may be a particular advantage for mid-career folks with kids and mortgages who are less risk tolerant than their younger peers.
It may be easier—or at least perceived as easier—to jump from a more prestigious role at a funder to another job in the social sector than it would be from a non-funder role. So someone in the private sector could think it less risky to leave a high-paying private sector job to work at GiveWell than to work at one of its grantees, even if the salaries were the same.
Additional reasons this might be true, at least in the EA space:
GiveWell, CG, etc. may be (or may be perceived as) more stable employers than many potential grantees. I’m pretty confident that they will be around in ten years, that the risk of budget-motivated layoffs is modest, and so on. This may be a particular advantage for mid-career folks with kids and mortgages who are less risk tolerant than their younger peers.
It may be easier—or at least perceived as easier—to jump from a more prestigious role at a funder to another job in the social sector than it would be from a non-funder role. So someone in the private sector could think it less risky to leave a high-paying private sector job to work at GiveWell than to work at one of its grantees, even if the salaries were the same.