I think the framing of good grantmaking as “spotting great opportunities early” is precisely how EA gets beat.
Fast Grants seems to have been hugely impactful for a fairly small amount of money, the trick is that the grantees weren’t even asking, there was no institution to give no, and no cost-effectiveness estimate to run. It’s a somewhat more entrepreneurial approach to grantmaking. It’s not that EA thought it wasn’t very promising, it’s that EA didn’t even see the opportunity.
I think it’s worth noting that a ton of OpenPhil’s portfolio would score really poorly along conventional EA metrics. They argue as much in this piece. So of course the community collectively gets credit because OpenPhil identifies as EA, but it’s worth noting that their “hits based giving” approach divers substantially from more conventional EA-style (quantitative QALY/cost-effectiveness) analysis and asking what that should mean for the movement more generally.
The coronavirus Fast Grants were great, but their competitive advantage seems to have been that they were they first (and fastest) people to move in a crisis.
The overall Emergent Ventures idea is interesting and worth exploring (I say, while running a copy of it), but has it had proven cost-effective impact yet? I haven’t been following the people involved but I don’t remember MR formally following up.
There’s a list of winners here, but I’m not sure how you would judge counterfactual impact. With a lot of these, it’s difficult to demonstrate that the grantee would have been unable to do their work without the grant.
At the very least, I think Alexey was fairly poor when he received the grant and would have had to get a day job otherwise.
I think it’s worth noting that a ton of OpenPhil’s portfolio would score really poorly along conventional EA metrics. They argue as much in this piece.
To be clear, to the extent your claim is true, giving money to things that ex ante have a lower cost-effectiveness than Givewell top charities + have low information value is more of a strike against Open Phil than it is against the idea of using cost-effectiveness analysis.
So of course the community collectively gets credit because OpenPhil identifies as EA, but it’s worth noting that their “hits based giving” approach divers substantially from more conventional EA-style (quantitative QALY/cost-effectiveness) analysis and asking what that should mean for the movement more generally.
My impression is that most major EA funding bodies, bar Givewell, are mostly following a hits based giving approach nowadays. Eg EA Funds are pretty explicit about this. I definitely agree with the underlying point about weaknesses of traditional EA methods, but I’m not sure this implies a deep question for the movement, vs a question that’s already fairly internalised
Sure. But I think the story there was that Open Phil intentionally split off to pursue this much more aggressive approach, and GiveWell is more traditional charity focused/requires high standards of evidence. And I think having prominent orgs doing each strategy is actually pretty great? They just fit into different niches
I think Fast Grants may not be great on a longtermist worldview (though it might still be good in terms of capacity-building, hmm), and there are few competent EA grantmakers with a neartermist, human-centric worldview.
I think the framing of good grantmaking as “spotting great opportunities early” is precisely how EA gets beat.
Fast Grants seems to have been hugely impactful for a fairly small amount of money, the trick is that the grantees weren’t even asking, there was no institution to give no, and no cost-effectiveness estimate to run. It’s a somewhat more entrepreneurial approach to grantmaking. It’s not that EA thought it wasn’t very promising, it’s that EA didn’t even see the opportunity.
I think it’s worth noting that a ton of OpenPhil’s portfolio would score really poorly along conventional EA metrics. They argue as much in this piece. So of course the community collectively gets credit because OpenPhil identifies as EA, but it’s worth noting that their “hits based giving” approach divers substantially from more conventional EA-style (quantitative QALY/cost-effectiveness) analysis and asking what that should mean for the movement more generally.
The coronavirus Fast Grants were great, but their competitive advantage seems to have been that they were they first (and fastest) people to move in a crisis.
The overall Emergent Ventures idea is interesting and worth exploring (I say, while running a copy of it), but has it had proven cost-effective impact yet? I haven’t been following the people involved but I don’t remember MR formally following up.
There’s a list of winners here, but I’m not sure how you would judge counterfactual impact. With a lot of these, it’s difficult to demonstrate that the grantee would have been unable to do their work without the grant.
At the very least, I think Alexey was fairly poor when he received the grant and would have had to get a day job otherwise.
To be clear, to the extent your claim is true, giving money to things that ex ante have a lower cost-effectiveness than Givewell top charities + have low information value is more of a strike against Open Phil than it is against the idea of using cost-effectiveness analysis.
My impression is that most major EA funding bodies, bar Givewell, are mostly following a hits based giving approach nowadays. Eg EA Funds are pretty explicit about this. I definitely agree with the underlying point about weaknesses of traditional EA methods, but I’m not sure this implies a deep question for the movement, vs a question that’s already fairly internalised
The Global Health and Dev side of Open Phil still gives a lot to less hits-based giving.
Sure, but outside of OpenPhil, GiveWell is the vast majority of EA spending right?
Not a grant-making organization, but as another example, the Rethink Priorities report on Charter Cities seemed fairly “traditional EA” style analysis.
Sure. But I think the story there was that Open Phil intentionally split off to pursue this much more aggressive approach, and GiveWell is more traditional charity focused/requires high standards of evidence. And I think having prominent orgs doing each strategy is actually pretty great? They just fit into different niches
I think Fast Grants may not be great on a longtermist worldview (though it might still be good in terms of capacity-building, hmm), and there are few competent EA grantmakers with a neartermist, human-centric worldview.