Hi Calum—thanks for this. I think your heuristics for thinking about giving are very helpful and would endorse them to donors.
To address your other point, I don’t think this claim does rely on GiveWell having fixed grantmaking capacity. It relies on GiveWell having some limit to its grantmaking capacity, and a reasonable belief that that limit may be covered by existing receipts and expected receipts. Given that GiveWell’s announcement of this grant says that the grant is $1bn and that it aspires to grow its grantmaking to $1bn, that belief is reasonable, especially as GiveWell will also continue to receive donations from other donors (and has in the first 6 months of the year).
To use your own logic, you could use the historical parallel, which is that GiveWell’s grantmaking has remained reasonably constant for the past several years (around $400m per year, except for a dip in 2023). It is great that GiveWell says it will direct more this year, but this has been announced alongside a dramatic increase in receipts. It doesn’t follow that donors should therefore believe that it can increase grantmaking indefinitely, and it isn’t unreasonable for donors to wait and see whether these projections come to pass.
FWIW, I do expect GiveWell’s grantmaking to increase substantially this year—I think the post said it has already ~equalled last year’s grantmaking in the first half of the year, which is great. I think it is quite unclear whether GiveWell’s grantmaking will exceed its receipts, however.
To frame this directly, would you bet your own money that GiveWell will grant more than it receives in 2026? I would personally bet the opposite, especially as it granted out less than it received in 2021, 2022, 2023, roughly broke even in 2024, and almost certainly received more than it granted in 2025 (although it has not released final figures for 2025 receipts yet).
In short, I don’t think this argument relies on the claim you suggest it does. It instead relies on reasonable claims based on a) GiveWell’s disclosures of its own finances; and b) the historical pattern of GiveWell’s grantmaking.
(Your comment also doesn’t address the issue of power concentration, which just got much worse, and could be mitigated by donors, but then neither did mine, so fair enough.)
I am nonetheless excited to see how much GiveWell can move this year, remain a huge fan and donor with my own money, and endorse your questions as smart ones for any donor to think about.
yo, I will respond more later, at which point I’ll delete this comment and upload a new one. I don’t have time to write something careful at the moment, which is why I should not enter Forum discussions in general. 🤦♂️
Hi Calum—thanks for this. I think your heuristics for thinking about giving are very helpful and would endorse them to donors.
To address your other point, I don’t think this claim does rely on GiveWell having fixed grantmaking capacity. It relies on GiveWell having some limit to its grantmaking capacity, and a reasonable belief that that limit may be covered by existing receipts and expected receipts. Given that GiveWell’s announcement of this grant says that the grant is $1bn and that it aspires to grow its grantmaking to $1bn, that belief is reasonable, especially as GiveWell will also continue to receive donations from other donors (and has in the first 6 months of the year).
To use your own logic, you could use the historical parallel, which is that GiveWell’s grantmaking has remained reasonably constant for the past several years (around $400m per year, except for a dip in 2023). It is great that GiveWell says it will direct more this year, but this has been announced alongside a dramatic increase in receipts. It doesn’t follow that donors should therefore believe that it can increase grantmaking indefinitely, and it isn’t unreasonable for donors to wait and see whether these projections come to pass.
FWIW, I do expect GiveWell’s grantmaking to increase substantially this year—I think the post said it has already ~equalled last year’s grantmaking in the first half of the year, which is great. I think it is quite unclear whether GiveWell’s grantmaking will exceed its receipts, however.
To frame this directly, would you bet your own money that GiveWell will grant more than it receives in 2026? I would personally bet the opposite, especially as it granted out less than it received in 2021, 2022, 2023, roughly broke even in 2024, and almost certainly received more than it granted in 2025 (although it has not released final figures for 2025 receipts yet).
In short, I don’t think this argument relies on the claim you suggest it does. It instead relies on reasonable claims based on a) GiveWell’s disclosures of its own finances; and b) the historical pattern of GiveWell’s grantmaking.
(Your comment also doesn’t address the issue of power concentration, which just got much worse, and could be mitigated by donors, but then neither did mine, so fair enough.)
I am nonetheless excited to see how much GiveWell can move this year, remain a huge fan and donor with my own money, and endorse your questions as smart ones for any donor to think about.
yo, I will respond more later, at which point I’ll delete this comment and upload a new one. I don’t have time to write something careful at the moment, which is why I should not enter Forum discussions in general. 🤦♂️
thanks for your reply!