Thanks for engaging. I appreciate that we can have a fairly object-level disagreement over this issue; itâs not personal, one way or another.
Meta point to start: We do not make any of these criticisms of EA Funds lightly, and when we do, itâs against our own interests, because we ourselves are potentially dependent on EAIF for future funding.
To address the points brought up, generally in the order that you raised them:
(1) On the fundamental matter of publication. I would like to flag out that, from checking the email chain plus our own conversation notes (both verbatim and cleaned-up), there was no request that this not be publicized.
For all our interviews, whenever someone flagged out that X data or Y document or indeed the conversation in general shouldnât be publicized, we respected this and did not do so. In the public version of the report, this is most evident in our spreadsheet where a whole bunch of grant details have been redacted; but more generally, anyone with the âtrueâ version of the report shared with the MCF leadership will also be able to spot differences. We also redacted all qualitative feedback from the community survey, and by default anonymized all expert interviewees who gave criticisms of large grantmakers, to protect them from backlash.
I would also note that we generally attributed views to, and discussed, âEA Leadershipâ in the abstract, both because we didnât want to make this a personal criticism, and also because it afforded a degree of anonymity.
At the end of the day, I apologize if the publication was not in line with what EA Funds would have wantedâI agree itâs probably a difference in norms. In a professional context, Iâm generally comfortable with people relaying that I said X in private, unless there was an explicit request not to share (e.g. I was talking to a UK-based donor yesterday, and I shared a bunch of my grantmaking views. If he wrote a post on the forum summarizing the conversations he had with a bunch of research organizations and donor advisory orgs, including our own, I wouldnât object). More generally, I think if we have some degree of public influence (including by the money we control) it would be difficult from the perspective of public accountability if âinsidersâ such as ourselves were unwilling to share with the public what we think or know.
(2) For the issue of CEA stepping in: In our previous conversation, you relayed that you asked a senior person at CEA and they in turn said that âtheyâre aware of some things that might make the statement technically true but misleading, and they are not aware of anything that would make the statement non-misleading, although this isnât authoritative since many thing happened at CEAâ. For the record, Iâm happy to remove this since the help/âassistance, if any, doesnât seem too material one way or another.
(3) For whether itâs fair to characterize EAIFâs grant timelines as unreasonably long. As previously discussed, I think the relevant metric is EAIFâs own declared timetable (âThe Animal Welfare Fund, Long-Term Future Fund and EA Infrastructure Fund aim to respond to all applications in 2 months and most applications in 3 weeks.â). This is because organizations and individuals make plans based on when they expect to get an answerâwhen to begin applying; whether to start or stop projects; whether to go find another job; whether to hire or fire; whether to reach out to another grantmaker who isnât going to support you until and unless you have already exhausted the primary avenues of potential funding.
(4) The issue of the major donor we relayed was frustrated/âturned off. You flag out that youâre keeping tabs on all the major donors, and so donât think the person in question is major. While I agree that itâs somewhat subjectiveâitâs also true that this is a HNWI who, beyond their own giving, is also sitting on the legal or advisory boards many other significant grantmakers and philanthropic outfits. Also, knowledgeable EAs in the space have generally characterized this person as an important meta funder to me (in the context of my own organization then thinking of fundraising, and being advised as to whom to approach). So even if they arenât major in the sense that OP (or EA Funds are), they could reasonably be considered fairly significant. In any case, the discussion is backwards, I thinkâI agree that they donât play as significant a role in the community right now (and so you assessment of them as non-major is reasonable), but that would be because of the frustration they have had with EA Funds (and, to be fair, the EA community in general, I understand). So perhaps itâs best to understand this as potentially vs currently major.
(5) On whether itâs fair to characterize EA Funds leadership as being strongly dismissive of cause prioritization. We agree that grants have been made to RP; so the question is cause prioritization outside OP and OP-funded RP. Our assessment of EA Fundâs general scepticism of prioritization was based, among other things, on what we reported in the previous section âThey believe cause prioritization is an area that is talent constrained, and there arenât a lot of people they feel great giving to, and itâs not clear what their natural pay would be. They do not think of RP as doing cause prioritization, and though in their view RP could absorb more people/âmoney in a moderately cost-effective way, they would consider less than half of what they do cause prioritization. In general, they donât think that other funders outside of OP need to do work on prioritization, and are in general sceptical of such work.â In your comment, you dispute that the bolded part in particular is true, saying âAFAIK nobody at EA Funds believes this.â
We have both verbatim and cleaned up/âorganized notes on this (n.b. we shared both with you privately). So it appears we have a fundamental disagreement here (and also elsewhere) as to whether what we noted down/âtranscribed is an accurate record of what was actually said.
TLDR: Fundamentally, I stand by the accuracy of our conversation notes.
(a) Epistemically, itâs more likely that one doesnât remember what one said previously vs the interviewer (if in good faith) catastrophically misunderstanding and recording down something that wholesale wasnât said at all (as opposed to a more minor errorâwe agree that that can totally happen; see below)
(b) From my own personal perspectiveâI used to work in government and in consulting (for governments). It was standard practice to have notes of meeting, as made by junior staffers and then submitted to more senior staff for edits and approval. Nothing resembling this happened to either me or anyone else (i.e. just total misunderstanding tantamount to fabrication, in saying that that XYZ was said when nothing of the sort took place).
(c) My word does not need to be taken for this. We interviewed other people, and Iâm beginning to reach out to them again to check that our notes matched what they said. One has already responded (the person we labelled Expert 5 on Page 34 of the report); they said âThis is all broadly correctâ but requested we made some minor edits to the following paragraphs (changes indicated by bold and strikethrough)
Expert 5: Reports both substantive and communications-related concerns about EA Funds leadership.
For the latter, the expert reports both himself and others finding communications with EA Funds leadership difficult and the conversations confusing.
For the substantive concerns â beyond the long wait times EAIF imposes on grantees, the expert was primarily worried that EA Funds leadership has been unreceptive to new ideas and that they are unjustifiably confident that EA Funds is fundamentally correct in its grantmaking decisions. In particular, it appears to the expert that EA Funds leadership does not believe that additional sources of meta funding would be useful for non-EAIF grants [phrase added] â they believe that projects unfunded by EAIF do not deserve funding at all (rather than some projects perhaps not being the right fit for the EAIF, but potentially worth funding by other funders with different ethical worldviews, risk aversion or epistemics). Critically, the expert reports that another major meta donor found EA Funds leadership frustrating to work with, and so ended up disengaging from further meta grantmaking coordinationand this likely is one reason they ended up disengagement from further meta grantmaking coordination [replaced].
My even handed interpretation of this overall situation (trying to be generous to everyone) is that what was reported here (âIn general, they donât think that other funders outside of OP need to do work on prioritizationâ) was something the EA Funds interviewee said relatively casually (not necessarily a deep and abiding view, and so not something worth remembering) - perhaps indicative of scepticism of a lot of cause prioritization work but not literally thinking nothing outside OP/âRP is worth funding. (We actually do agree with this scepticism, up to an extent).
(6) On whether our statement that âEA Funds leadership doesnât believe that there is more uncertainty now with EA Fundâs funding compared to other points in timeâ is accurate. You say that this is clearly false. Again, I stand by the accuracy of our conversation notes. And in fact, I actually do personally and distinctively remember this particular exchange, because it stood out, as did the exchange that immediately followed, on whether OPâs use of the fund-matching mechanism creates more uncertainty.
My generous interpretation of this situation is, again, some things may be said relatively casually, but may not be indicative of deep, abiding views.
(8) For the various semantic disagreements. Some of it we discussed above (e.g. the OP cause prioritization stuff); for the rest -
On whether this part is accurate: âââLeadership is of the view that the current funding landscape isnât more difficult for community buildersâ. Again, we do hold that this was said, based on the transcripts. And again, to be even handed, I think your interpretation (b) is rightâprobably your team is thinking of the baseline as 2019, while we were thinking mainly of 2021-now.
On whether this part is accurate: âThe EA Funds chair has clarified that EAIF would only really coordinate with OP, since theyâre reliably around; only if the [Meta-Charity Funders] was around for some time, would EA Funds find it worth factoring into their plans. â I donât think we disagree too much, if we agree that EA Fundâs position is that coordination is only worthwhile if the counterpart is around for a bit. Otherwise, itâs just some subjective disagreement on what what coordination is or what significant degrees of it amount to.
On this statement: â[EA funds believes] âso if EA groups struggle to raise money, itâs simply because there are more compelling opportunities available instead.â
In our discussion, I asked about the community building funding landscape being worse; the interviewee disagreed with this characterization, and started discussing how itâs more that standards have risen (which we agree is a factor). The issue is that the other factor of objectively less funding being available was not brought up, even though it is, in our view, the dominant factor (and if you asked community builders this will be all they talk about). I think our disagreement here is partly subjectiveâover what a bad funding landscape is, and also the right degree of emphasis to put on rising standards vs less funding.
(9) EA Funds not posting reports or having public metrics of successes. Per our internal back-and-forth, weâve clarified that we mean reports of success or having public metrics of success. We didnât view reports on payouts to be evidence of success, since payouts are a cost, and not the desired end goal in itself. This contrasts with reports on output (e.g. a community building grant actually leading to increased engagement on XYZ engagement metrics) or much more preferably, report on impact (e.g. and those XYZ engagement metrics leading to actual money donated to GiveWell, from which we can infer that X lives were saved). Like, speaking for my own organization, I donât think the people funding our regranting budgets would be happy if I reported the mere spending as evidence of success.
(OVERALL) For what itâs worth, Iâm happy to agree to disagree, and call it a day. Both your team and mine are busy with our actual work of research/âgrantmaking/âetc, and Iâm not sure if further back and forth will be particularly productive, or a good use of my time or yours.
Iâm going to butt in with some quick comments, mostly because:
I think itâs pretty important to make sure the report isnât causing serious misunderstandings
and because I think it can be quite stressful for people to respond to (potentially incorrect) criticisms of their projects â or to content that seem to misrepresent their project(s) â and I think it can help if someone else helps disentangle/âclarify things a bit. (To be clear, I havenât run this past Linch and donât know if heâs actually finding this stressful or the like. And I donât want to discourage critical content or suggest that itâs inherently harmful; I just think external people can help in this kind of discussion.)
Iâm sharing comments and suggestions below, using your (Joelâs) numbering. (In general, Iâm not sharing my overall views on EA Funds or the report. Iâm just trying to clarify some confusions that seem resolvable, based on the above discussion, and suggest changes that I hope would make the report more useful.)
(2) Given that apparently the claim that âCEA has had to step in and provide supportâ EA Funds is likely âtechnically misleadingâ, it seems good to in fact remove it from the report (or keep it in but immediately and explicitly flag that this seems likely misleading and link Linchâs comment) â you said youâre happy to do this, and Iâd be glad to see it actually removed.
(3) The report currently concludes that would-be grantees âwait an unreasonable amount of time before knowing their grant application results.â Linch points out that other grantmakers tend to have similar or longer timelines, and you donât seem to disagree (but argue that itâs important to compare the timelines to what EA Funds sets as the expectation for applicants, instead of comparing them to other grantmakersâ timelines).
Given that, Iâd suggest replacing âunreasonably longâ (which implies a criticism of the length itself) with something like âlonger than what the website/âcommunications with applicants suggestâ (which seems like what you actually believe) everywhere in the report.
(9) The report currently states (or suggests) that EA Funds doesnât post reports publicly. Linch points out that they âdo post publicpayout reports.â It seems like youâre mostly disagreeing about the kind of reports that should be shared.[3]
Given that this is the case, I think you should clarify this in the report (which currently seems to mislead readers into believing that EA Funds doesnât actually post any public reports), e.g. by replacing âEA Funds [doesnât post] reports or [have] public metrics of successâ with âEA Funds posts public payout reports like this, but doesnât have public reports about successes achieved by their grantees.â
(5), (6), (8) (and (1)) There are a bunch of disagreements about whether whatâs described as views of âEA Funds leadershipâ in the report is an accurate representation of the views.
(1) In general, Linch â who has first-hand knowledge â points out that these positions are from ânotes taken from a single informal call with the EA Funds project leadâ and that the person in question disagrees with âthe characterization of almost all of their comments.â (Apparently the phrase âEA Funds leadershipâ was used to avoid criticizing someone personally and to preserve anonymity.)
You refer to the notes a lot, explaining that the views in the report are backed by the notes from the call and arguing that one should generally trust notes like this more than someoneâs recollection of a conversation.[1] Whether or not the notes are more accurate than the project leadâs recollection of the call, it seems pretty odd to view the notes as a stronger authority on the views of EA Funds than what someone from EA Funds is explicitly saying now, personally and explicitly. (I.e. what matters is whether a statement is true, not whether it was said in a call.)
You might think that (A) Linch is mistaken about what the project lead thinks (in which case I think the project lead will probably clarify), or (B) that (some?) people at EA Funds have views that they disclosed in the call (maybe because the call was informal and they were more open with their views) but are trying to hide or cover up now â or that what was said in the call is indirect evidence for the views (that are now being disavowed). If (B) is what you believe, I think you should be explicit about that. If not, I think you should basically defer to Linch here.
As a general rule, I suggest at least replacing any instance of âEA Funds leadership [believes]â with something like âour notes from a call with someone involved in running EA Funds imply that they think...â and linking Linchâs comment for a counterpoint.
Specific examples:
(5) Seems like Linch explicitly disagrees with the idea that EA Funds dismisses the value of prioritization research, and points out that EAIF has given large grants to relevant work from Rethink Priorities.
Given this, I think you should rewrite statements in the report that are misleading. I also think you should probably clarify that EA Funds has given funding to Rethink Priorities.[2]
Also, Iâm not as confident here, but it might be good to flag the potential for ~unconscious bias in the discussions of the value of cause prio research (due to the fact that CEARCH is working on cause prioritization research).
(6) Whatever was said in the conversation notes, it seems that EA Funds [leadership] does in fact believe that âthere is more uncertainty now with [their] funding compared to other points in time.â Seems like this should be corrected in the report.
(8) Again, what matters isnât what was said, but what is true (and whether the report is misleading about the truth). Linch seems to think that e.g. the statement about coordination is misleading.
I also want to say that I appreciate the work that has gone into the report and got value from e.g. the breakdown of quantitative data about funding â thanks for putting that together.
And I want to note potential COIs: Iâm at CEA (although to be clear I donât know if people at CEA agree with my comment here), briefly helped evaluate LTFF grants in early 2022, and Linch was my manager when I was a fellow at Rethink Priorities in 2021.
We have both verbatim and cleaned up/âorganized notes on this (n.b. we shared both with you privately). So it appears we have a fundamental disagreement here (and also elsewhere) as to whether what we noted down/âtranscribed is an accurate record of what was actually said.
TLDR: Fundamentally, I stand by the accuracy of our conversation notes.
Epistemically, itâs more likely that one doesnât remember what one said previously vs the interviewer (if in good faith) catastrophically misunderstanding and recording down something that wholesale wasnât said at all (as opposed to a more minor errorâwe agree that that can totally happen; see below) âŚ
In relation to this claim: âThey do not think of RP as doing cause prioritization, and though in their view RP could absorb more people/âmoney in a moderately cost-effective way, they would consider less than half of what they do cause prioritization.â
âł...we mean reports of success or having public metrics of success. We didnât view reports on payouts to be evidence of success, since payouts are a cost, and not the desired end goal in itself. This contrasts with reports on output (e.g. a community building grant actually leading to increased engagement on XYZ engagement metrics) or much more preferably, report on impact (e.g. and those XYZ engagement metrics leading to actual money donated to GiveWell, from which we can infer that X lives were saved).â
At the end of the day, I apologize if the publication was not in line with what EA Funds would have wantedâI agree itâs probably a difference in norms. In a professional context, Iâm generally comfortable with people relaying that I said X in private, unless there was an explicit request not to share
It is clear from Linchâs comment that he would have liked to see a draft of the report before it was published. Did you underestimate the interest of EA Funds in reviewing the report before its publication, or did you think their interest in reviewing the report was not too relevant? I hope the former.
Hi Linch,
Thanks for engaging. I appreciate that we can have a fairly object-level disagreement over this issue; itâs not personal, one way or another.
Meta point to start: We do not make any of these criticisms of EA Funds lightly, and when we do, itâs against our own interests, because we ourselves are potentially dependent on EAIF for future funding.
To address the points brought up, generally in the order that you raised them:
(1) On the fundamental matter of publication. I would like to flag out that, from checking the email chain plus our own conversation notes (both verbatim and cleaned-up), there was no request that this not be publicized.
For all our interviews, whenever someone flagged out that X data or Y document or indeed the conversation in general shouldnât be publicized, we respected this and did not do so. In the public version of the report, this is most evident in our spreadsheet where a whole bunch of grant details have been redacted; but more generally, anyone with the âtrueâ version of the report shared with the MCF leadership will also be able to spot differences. We also redacted all qualitative feedback from the community survey, and by default anonymized all expert interviewees who gave criticisms of large grantmakers, to protect them from backlash.
I would also note that we generally attributed views to, and discussed, âEA Leadershipâ in the abstract, both because we didnât want to make this a personal criticism, and also because it afforded a degree of anonymity.
At the end of the day, I apologize if the publication was not in line with what EA Funds would have wantedâI agree itâs probably a difference in norms. In a professional context, Iâm generally comfortable with people relaying that I said X in private, unless there was an explicit request not to share (e.g. I was talking to a UK-based donor yesterday, and I shared a bunch of my grantmaking views. If he wrote a post on the forum summarizing the conversations he had with a bunch of research organizations and donor advisory orgs, including our own, I wouldnât object). More generally, I think if we have some degree of public influence (including by the money we control) it would be difficult from the perspective of public accountability if âinsidersâ such as ourselves were unwilling to share with the public what we think or know.
(2) For the issue of CEA stepping in: In our previous conversation, you relayed that you asked a senior person at CEA and they in turn said that âtheyâre aware of some things that might make the statement technically true but misleading, and they are not aware of anything that would make the statement non-misleading, although this isnât authoritative since many thing happened at CEAâ. For the record, Iâm happy to remove this since the help/âassistance, if any, doesnât seem too material one way or another.
(3) For whether itâs fair to characterize EAIFâs grant timelines as unreasonably long. As previously discussed, I think the relevant metric is EAIFâs own declared timetable (âThe Animal Welfare Fund, Long-Term Future Fund and EA Infrastructure Fund aim to respond to all applications in 2 months and most applications in 3 weeks.â). This is because organizations and individuals make plans based on when they expect to get an answerâwhen to begin applying; whether to start or stop projects; whether to go find another job; whether to hire or fire; whether to reach out to another grantmaker who isnât going to support you until and unless you have already exhausted the primary avenues of potential funding.
(4) The issue of the major donor we relayed was frustrated/âturned off. You flag out that youâre keeping tabs on all the major donors, and so donât think the person in question is major. While I agree that itâs somewhat subjectiveâitâs also true that this is a HNWI who, beyond their own giving, is also sitting on the legal or advisory boards many other significant grantmakers and philanthropic outfits. Also, knowledgeable EAs in the space have generally characterized this person as an important meta funder to me (in the context of my own organization then thinking of fundraising, and being advised as to whom to approach). So even if they arenât major in the sense that OP (or EA Funds are), they could reasonably be considered fairly significant. In any case, the discussion is backwards, I thinkâI agree that they donât play as significant a role in the community right now (and so you assessment of them as non-major is reasonable), but that would be because of the frustration they have had with EA Funds (and, to be fair, the EA community in general, I understand). So perhaps itâs best to understand this as potentially vs currently major.
(5) On whether itâs fair to characterize EA Funds leadership as being strongly dismissive of cause prioritization. We agree that grants have been made to RP; so the question is cause prioritization outside OP and OP-funded RP. Our assessment of EA Fundâs general scepticism of prioritization was based, among other things, on what we reported in the previous section âThey believe cause prioritization is an area that is talent constrained, and there arenât a lot of people they feel great giving to, and itâs not clear what their natural pay would be. They do not think of RP as doing cause prioritization, and though in their view RP could absorb more people/âmoney in a moderately cost-effective way, they would consider less than half of what they do cause prioritization. In general, they donât think that other funders outside of OP need to do work on prioritization, and are in general sceptical of such work.â In your comment, you dispute that the bolded part in particular is true, saying âAFAIK nobody at EA Funds believes this.â
We have both verbatim and cleaned up/âorganized notes on this (n.b. we shared both with you privately). So it appears we have a fundamental disagreement here (and also elsewhere) as to whether what we noted down/âtranscribed is an accurate record of what was actually said.
TLDR: Fundamentally, I stand by the accuracy of our conversation notes.
(a) Epistemically, itâs more likely that one doesnât remember what one said previously vs the interviewer (if in good faith) catastrophically misunderstanding and recording down something that wholesale wasnât said at all (as opposed to a more minor errorâwe agree that that can totally happen; see below)
(b) From my own personal perspectiveâI used to work in government and in consulting (for governments). It was standard practice to have notes of meeting, as made by junior staffers and then submitted to more senior staff for edits and approval. Nothing resembling this happened to either me or anyone else (i.e. just total misunderstanding tantamount to fabrication, in saying that that XYZ was said when nothing of the sort took place).
(c) My word does not need to be taken for this. We interviewed other people, and Iâm beginning to reach out to them again to check that our notes matched what they said. One has already responded (the person we labelled Expert 5 on Page 34 of the report); they said âThis is all broadly correctâ but requested we made some minor edits to the following paragraphs (changes indicated by bold and
strikethrough)Expert 5: Reports both substantive and communications-related concerns about EA Funds leadership.
For the latter, the expert reports both himself and others finding communications with EA Funds leadership difficult and the conversations confusing.
For the substantive concerns â beyond the long wait times EAIF imposes on grantees, the expert was primarily worried that EA Funds leadership has been unreceptive to new ideas and that they are unjustifiably confident that EA Funds is fundamentally correct in its grantmaking decisions. In particular, it appears to the expert that EA Funds leadership does not believe that additional sources of meta funding would be useful for non-EAIF grants [phrase added] â they believe that projects unfunded by EAIF do not deserve funding at all (rather than some projects perhaps not being the right fit for the EAIF, but potentially worth funding by other funders with different ethical worldviews, risk aversion or epistemics). Critically, the expert reports that another major meta donor found EA Funds leadership frustrating to work with,
and so ended up disengaging from further meta grantmaking coordinationand this likely is one reason they ended up disengagement from further meta grantmaking coordination [replaced].My even handed interpretation of this overall situation (trying to be generous to everyone) is that what was reported here (âIn general, they donât think that other funders outside of OP need to do work on prioritizationâ) was something the EA Funds interviewee said relatively casually (not necessarily a deep and abiding view, and so not something worth remembering) - perhaps indicative of scepticism of a lot of cause prioritization work but not literally thinking nothing outside OP/âRP is worth funding. (We actually do agree with this scepticism, up to an extent).
(6) On whether our statement that âEA Funds leadership doesnât believe that there is more uncertainty now with EA Fundâs funding compared to other points in timeâ is accurate. You say that this is clearly false. Again, I stand by the accuracy of our conversation notes. And in fact, I actually do personally and distinctively remember this particular exchange, because it stood out, as did the exchange that immediately followed, on whether OPâs use of the fund-matching mechanism creates more uncertainty.
My generous interpretation of this situation is, again, some things may be said relatively casually, but may not be indicative of deep, abiding views.
(8) For the various semantic disagreements. Some of it we discussed above (e.g. the OP cause prioritization stuff); for the rest -
On whether this part is accurate: âââLeadership is of the view that the current funding landscape isnât more difficult for community buildersâ. Again, we do hold that this was said, based on the transcripts. And again, to be even handed, I think your interpretation (b) is rightâprobably your team is thinking of the baseline as 2019, while we were thinking mainly of 2021-now.
On whether this part is accurate: âThe EA Funds chair has clarified that EAIF would only really coordinate with OP, since theyâre reliably around; only if the [Meta-Charity Funders] was around for some time, would EA Funds find it worth factoring into their plans. â I donât think we disagree too much, if we agree that EA Fundâs position is that coordination is only worthwhile if the counterpart is around for a bit. Otherwise, itâs just some subjective disagreement on what what coordination is or what significant degrees of it amount to.
On this statement: â[EA funds believes] âso if EA groups struggle to raise money, itâs simply because there are more compelling opportunities available instead.â
In our discussion, I asked about the community building funding landscape being worse; the interviewee disagreed with this characterization, and started discussing how itâs more that standards have risen (which we agree is a factor). The issue is that the other factor of objectively less funding being available was not brought up, even though it is, in our view, the dominant factor (and if you asked community builders this will be all they talk about). I think our disagreement here is partly subjectiveâover what a bad funding landscape is, and also the right degree of emphasis to put on rising standards vs less funding.
(9) EA Funds not posting reports or having public metrics of successes. Per our internal back-and-forth, weâve clarified that we mean reports of success or having public metrics of success. We didnât view reports on payouts to be evidence of success, since payouts are a cost, and not the desired end goal in itself. This contrasts with reports on output (e.g. a community building grant actually leading to increased engagement on XYZ engagement metrics) or much more preferably, report on impact (e.g. and those XYZ engagement metrics leading to actual money donated to GiveWell, from which we can infer that X lives were saved). Like, speaking for my own organization, I donât think the people funding our regranting budgets would be happy if I reported the mere spending as evidence of success.
(OVERALL) For what itâs worth, Iâm happy to agree to disagree, and call it a day. Both your team and mine are busy with our actual work of research/âgrantmaking/âetc, and Iâm not sure if further back and forth will be particularly productive, or a good use of my time or yours.
Iâm going to butt in with some quick comments, mostly because:
I think itâs pretty important to make sure the report isnât causing serious misunderstandings
and because I think it can be quite stressful for people to respond to (potentially incorrect) criticisms of their projects â or to content that seem to misrepresent their project(s) â and I think it can help if someone else helps disentangle/âclarify things a bit. (To be clear, I havenât run this past Linch and donât know if heâs actually finding this stressful or the like. And I donât want to discourage critical content or suggest that itâs inherently harmful; I just think external people can help in this kind of discussion.)
Iâm sharing comments and suggestions below, using your (Joelâs) numbering. (In general, Iâm not sharing my overall views on EA Funds or the report. Iâm just trying to clarify some confusions that seem resolvable, based on the above discussion, and suggest changes that I hope would make the report more useful.)
(2) Given that apparently the claim that âCEA has had to step in and provide supportâ EA Funds is likely âtechnically misleadingâ, it seems good to in fact remove it from the report (or keep it in but immediately and explicitly flag that this seems likely misleading and link Linchâs comment) â you said youâre happy to do this, and Iâd be glad to see it actually removed.
(3) The report currently concludes that would-be grantees âwait an unreasonable amount of time before knowing their grant application results.â Linch points out that other grantmakers tend to have similar or longer timelines, and you donât seem to disagree (but argue that itâs important to compare the timelines to what EA Funds sets as the expectation for applicants, instead of comparing them to other grantmakersâ timelines).
Given that, Iâd suggest replacing âunreasonably longâ (which implies a criticism of the length itself) with something like âlonger than what the website/âcommunications with applicants suggestâ (which seems like what you actually believe) everywhere in the report.
(9) The report currently states (or suggests) that EA Funds doesnât post reports publicly. Linch points out that they âdo post public payout reports.â It seems like youâre mostly disagreeing about the kind of reports that should be shared.[3]
Given that this is the case, I think you should clarify this in the report (which currently seems to mislead readers into believing that EA Funds doesnât actually post any public reports), e.g. by replacing âEA Funds [doesnât post] reports or [have] public metrics of successâ with âEA Funds posts public payout reports like this, but doesnât have public reports about successes achieved by their grantees.â
(5), (6), (8) (and (1)) There are a bunch of disagreements about whether whatâs described as views of âEA Funds leadershipâ in the report is an accurate representation of the views.
(1) In general, Linch â who has first-hand knowledge â points out that these positions are from ânotes taken from a single informal call with the EA Funds project leadâ and that the person in question disagrees with âthe characterization of almost all of their comments.â (Apparently the phrase âEA Funds leadershipâ was used to avoid criticizing someone personally and to preserve anonymity.)
You refer to the notes a lot, explaining that the views in the report are backed by the notes from the call and arguing that one should generally trust notes like this more than someoneâs recollection of a conversation.[1] Whether or not the notes are more accurate than the project leadâs recollection of the call, it seems pretty odd to view the notes as a stronger authority on the views of EA Funds than what someone from EA Funds is explicitly saying now, personally and explicitly. (I.e. what matters is whether a statement is true, not whether it was said in a call.)
You might think that (A) Linch is mistaken about what the project lead thinks (in which case I think the project lead will probably clarify), or (B) that (some?) people at EA Funds have views that they disclosed in the call (maybe because the call was informal and they were more open with their views) but are trying to hide or cover up now â or that what was said in the call is indirect evidence for the views (that are now being disavowed). If (B) is what you believe, I think you should be explicit about that. If not, I think you should basically defer to Linch here.
As a general rule, I suggest at least replacing any instance of âEA Funds leadership [believes]â with something like âour notes from a call with someone involved in running EA Funds imply that they think...â and linking Linchâs comment for a counterpoint.
Specific examples:
(5) Seems like Linch explicitly disagrees with the idea that EA Funds dismisses the value of prioritization research, and points out that EAIF has given large grants to relevant work from Rethink Priorities.
Given this, I think you should rewrite statements in the report that are misleading. I also think you should probably clarify that EA Funds has given funding to Rethink Priorities.[2]
Also, Iâm not as confident here, but it might be good to flag the potential for ~unconscious bias in the discussions of the value of cause prio research (due to the fact that CEARCH is working on cause prioritization research).
(6) Whatever was said in the conversation notes, it seems that EA Funds [leadership] does in fact believe that âthere is more uncertainty now with [their] funding compared to other points in time.â Seems like this should be corrected in the report.
(8) Again, what matters isnât what was said, but what is true (and whether the report is misleading about the truth). Linch seems to think that e.g. the statement about coordination is misleading.
I also want to say that I appreciate the work that has gone into the report and got value from e.g. the breakdown of quantitative data about funding â thanks for putting that together.
And I want to note potential COIs: Iâm at CEA (although to be clear I donât know if people at CEA agree with my comment here), briefly helped evaluate LTFF grants in early 2022, and Linch was my manager when I was a fellow at Rethink Priorities in 2021.
E.g.
In relation to this claim: âThey do not think of RP as doing cause prioritization, and though in their view RP could absorb more people/âmoney in a moderately cost-effective way, they would consider less than half of what they do cause prioritization.â
âł...we mean reports of success or having public metrics of success. We didnât view reports on payouts to be evidence of success, since payouts are a cost, and not the desired end goal in itself. This contrasts with reports on output (e.g. a community building grant actually leading to increased engagement on XYZ engagement metrics) or much more preferably, report on impact (e.g. and those XYZ engagement metrics leading to actual money donated to GiveWell, from which we can infer that X lives were saved).â
Thanks for the clarifications, Joel.
It is clear from Linchâs comment that he would have liked to see a draft of the report before it was published. Did you underestimate the interest of EA Funds in reviewing the report before its publication, or did you think their interest in reviewing the report was not too relevant? I hope the former.