I agree that salaries in EA should be more in line with the rest of the non-profit sector[1], that Open Philanthropy is the main funder of many projects, that funding diversification has tradeoffs, and that members of the EA community should donate (much) more.
But I think this post exaggerates the % of effectiveness-oriented funding that comes from OpenPhil, at least for projects outside of EA community building.
I think the main reason is that most effectiveness-minded donors (including billionaires and agencies like USAID) are not part of the EA community, but still fund “causes the EA community cares about”.
Other/Individual EA donors 15mm (GWWC donors, etc. based on some rough math from (source). I’m very interested if someone has a better or more accurate figure.
Here are estimated appproximate amounts donated via the GWWC donation platform in the past year, by rough cause area. (Note, these have not been double-checked and should not be considered official numbers, and they don’t include donations reported by pledgers made outside the GWWC platform)
For donors not using the GWWC platform, I think this hinges a lot on how you define “EA donors” (see below)
I’m not sure if Givewell and Open Phil is double counting here (since Open Phil gives to Givewell) but I’m going to ignore Givewell as EA funding since a lot of this comes from what many would consider outside of the EA community (many people and philanthropists who wouldn’t consider themselves to be EAs though I’m not sure this is completely fair).
I think most GWWC donors also don’t consider themselves part of the EA community[4], I don’t think this matters much in terms of our willingness to fund the most impactful projects that help improve the lives of others.
Here are some other effectiveness-oriented sources of donations:
All the partners of the new Lead Exposure Action Fund (and many other large philanthropists) donate very significant amounts to high-impact projects, but I think only Good Ventures ever claimed to be part of the EA community.
The problem, I think, is that most causes the EA community cares about don’t have a lot of outside support. Who outside of the EA community would fund shrimp, wild animals, or insect welfare?
As you mention in a footnote, the Navigation Fund is funding the Shrimp Welfare Project, and many other high-impact projects in causes that the EA community cares about, even if (as far as I know) it’s not explicitly part of the EA community, and you don’t include it in the funding amounts in this post.
I think it’s weird to mention “fund shrimp, wild animals, or insect welfare” as causes in a post on how OpenPhil is the main funder of many EA projects, given that OpenPhil stopped funding those.
I think if you were to ask a well-calibrated Toby Ord/Will Macaskill back in 2009 the odds of the movement having billions of dollars committed to it in a few years, they would have put the odds incredibly low.
In his 2013 TED Talk, Peter Singer claims that Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffet were “the most effective altruists in history”, and in 2023 MacAskill keeps defining EA not in terms of a specific movement/community but in terms of “using evidence and careful reasoning to try to do more good.” I think probably in their mind EA (as they define it) already had billions of dollars committed to it in 2009.
See also We need more nuance regarding funding gaps from 2022 with an estimate of the number of funding sources for different cause areas at different scales. I think for most cause areas the number of funding sources of more than ~$1M/year increased since 2022.
Note that this area might be over-represented in this table, as the main way to donate to GWWC and to Effective Altruism Infrastructure Fund is via the GWWC platform, while donations to projects in other cause areas are usually made outside of it
I agree that salaries in EA should be more in line with the rest of the non-profit sector[1], that Open Philanthropy is the main funder of many projects, that funding diversification has tradeoffs, and that members of the EA community should donate (much) more.
But I think this post exaggerates the % of effectiveness-oriented funding that comes from OpenPhil, at least for projects outside of EA community building.
I think the main reason is that most effectiveness-minded donors (including billionaires and agencies like USAID) are not part of the EA community, but still fund “causes the EA community cares about”.
Here are estimated appproximate amounts donated via the GWWC donation platform in the past year, by rough cause area. (Note, these have not been double-checked and should not be considered official numbers, and they don’t include donations reported by pledgers made outside the GWWC platform)
For donors not using the GWWC platform, I think this hinges a lot on how you define “EA donors” (see below)
I think most GWWC donors also don’t consider themselves part of the EA community[4], I don’t think this matters much in terms of our willingness to fund the most impactful projects that help improve the lives of others.
Here are some other effectiveness-oriented sources of donations:
The Life You Can Save recently announced $100M in donations since 2013.
Via Effektiv Spenden “nearly 10,000 individuals in Germany and Switzerland donated 19 million euros to highly effective organizations in 2023.”
The Founders Pledge community also donates significant amounts to high-impact projects https://www.founderspledge.com/our-impact.
All the partners of the new Lead Exposure Action Fund (and many other large philanthropists) donate very significant amounts to high-impact projects, but I think only Good Ventures ever claimed to be part of the EA community.
As you mention in a footnote, the Navigation Fund is funding the Shrimp Welfare Project, and many other high-impact projects in causes that the EA community cares about, even if (as far as I know) it’s not explicitly part of the EA community, and you don’t include it in the funding amounts in this post.
Crustacean Compassion was started in 2016 and only got funding from OpenPhil in 2021. I don’t think that only people in the EA community donate significantly to crustacean welfare.
I think it’s weird to mention “fund shrimp, wild animals, or insect welfare” as causes in a post on how OpenPhil is the main funder of many EA projects, given that OpenPhil stopped funding those.
In his 2013 TED Talk, Peter Singer claims that Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffet were “the most effective altruists in history”, and in 2023 MacAskill keeps defining EA not in terms of a specific movement/community but in terms of “using evidence and careful reasoning to try to do more good.”
I think probably in their mind EA (as they define it) already had billions of dollars committed to it in 2009.
See also We need more nuance regarding funding gaps from 2022 with an estimate of the number of funding sources for different cause areas at different scales. I think for most cause areas the number of funding sources of more than ~$1M/year increased since 2022.
Besides the Shrimp Welfare Project mentioned above, other interesting examples of non-OpenPhil funding are that Lightcone stopped receiving funding from OpenPhil but managed to raise >$1.1M in a month and that EAIF isn’t *currently* funding constrained.
I think currently EA salaries are higher for non-leadership roles and probably lower for leadership roles
Mostly this $10M donation
Note that this area might be over-represented in this table, as the main way to donate to GWWC and to Effective Altruism Infrastructure Fund is via the GWWC platform, while donations to projects in other cause areas are usually made outside of it
For what it’s worth, I also don’t consider myself part of the EA community.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:IanFoundersPledge#You_can’t_write_about_Founders_Pledge