the importance of the funds being mutually exclusive in terms of remit.
I lean (as you might guess) towards the funds being mutually exclusive. The basic principle is that In general the more narrow the scope of each fund then the more control donors have about where their funds go.
If the Fund that seemed more appropriate pays out for any thing where there is overlap then you would expect:
More satisfied donors. You would expect the average amount of grants that donors strongly approve to go up.
More donations. As well as the above satisfaction point, if donors know more precisely how their money will be spent then they would have more confident that giving to the fund makes sense comapred to some other option.
Theoretically better donations? If you think donors wishes are a good measure of expected impact it can arguably improve the targeting of funds to ensure amounts moved are closer to donors wishes (although maybe it makes the relationship between donors and specific fund managers weaker as there might be crossover with fund mangers moving money across multiple of the Funds).
None of these are big improvements, so maybe not a priority, but the cost is also small. (I cannot speak for CEA but as a charity trustee we regularly go out our way to make sure we are meeting donors wishes, regranting money hither and thither and it has not been a big time cost).
OTOH my impression is that the Funds aren’t very funding-constrained, so it might not make sense to heavily weigh your first two reasons (though all else equal donor satisfaction and increased donation quantity seems good).
I also think there are just a lot of grants that legitimately have both a strong meta/infrastructure and also object-level benefit and it seems kind of unfair to grantees that provide multiple kinds of value that they still can only be considered from one funding perspective/with focus on one value proposition. If a grantee is both producing some kind of non-meta research and also doing movement-building, I think it deserves the chance to maybe get funded based on the merits of either of those value adds.
Yeah, I agree with Dicentra. Basically I’m fine if donors don’t donate to the EA Funds for these reasons; I think it’s not worth bothering (time cost is small, but benefit even smaller).
There’s also a whole host of other issues; Max Daniel is planning to post a comment reply to Larks’ above comment that mentions those as well. Basically it’s not really possible to clearly define the scope in a mutually exclusive way.
Basically it’s not really possible to clearly define the scope in a mutually exclusive way.
Maybe we are talking past each other but I was imagining something easy like: just defining the scope as mutually exclusive. You write: we aim for the funds to be mutually exclusive. If multiple funds would fund the same project we make the grant from whichever of the Funds seems most appropriate to the project in question.
Then before you grant money you look over and see if any stuff passed by one fund looks to you like it is more for another fund. If so (unless the fund mangers of the second fund veto the switch) you fund the project with money from the second fund.
Sure it might be a very minor admin hassle but it helps make sure donor’s wishes are met and avoids the confusion of donors saying – hold on a min why am I funding this I didn’t expect that.
This is not a huge issue so maybe not the top of your to do list. And you are the expert on how much of an admin burden something like this is and if it is worth it, but from the outside it seems very easy and the kind of action I would just naturally expect of a fund / charity.
I lean (as you might guess) towards the funds being mutually exclusive. The basic principle is that In general the more narrow the scope of each fund then the more control donors have about where their funds go.
If the Fund that seemed more appropriate pays out for any thing where there is overlap then you would expect:
More satisfied donors. You would expect the average amount of grants that donors strongly approve to go up.
More donations. As well as the above satisfaction point, if donors know more precisely how their money will be spent then they would have more confident that giving to the fund makes sense comapred to some other option.
Theoretically better donations? If you think donors wishes are a good measure of expected impact it can arguably improve the targeting of funds to ensure amounts moved are closer to donors wishes (although maybe it makes the relationship between donors and specific fund managers weaker as there might be crossover with fund mangers moving money across multiple of the Funds).
None of these are big improvements, so maybe not a priority, but the cost is also small. (I cannot speak for CEA but as a charity trustee we regularly go out our way to make sure we are meeting donors wishes, regranting money hither and thither and it has not been a big time cost).
OTOH my impression is that the Funds aren’t very funding-constrained, so it might not make sense to heavily weigh your first two reasons (though all else equal donor satisfaction and increased donation quantity seems good).
I also think there are just a lot of grants that legitimately have both a strong meta/infrastructure and also object-level benefit and it seems kind of unfair to grantees that provide multiple kinds of value that they still can only be considered from one funding perspective/with focus on one value proposition. If a grantee is both producing some kind of non-meta research and also doing movement-building, I think it deserves the chance to maybe get funded based on the merits of either of those value adds.
Yeah, I agree with Dicentra. Basically I’m fine if donors don’t donate to the EA Funds for these reasons; I think it’s not worth bothering (time cost is small, but benefit even smaller).
There’s also a whole host of other issues; Max Daniel is planning to post a comment reply to Larks’ above comment that mentions those as well. Basically it’s not really possible to clearly define the scope in a mutually exclusive way.
Maybe we are talking past each other but I was imagining something easy like: just defining the scope as mutually exclusive. You write: we aim for the funds to be mutually exclusive. If multiple funds would fund the same project we make the grant from whichever of the Funds seems most appropriate to the project in question.
Then before you grant money you look over and see if any stuff passed by one fund looks to you like it is more for another fund. If so (unless the fund mangers of the second fund veto the switch) you fund the project with money from the second fund.
Sure it might be a very minor admin hassle but it helps make sure donor’s wishes are met and avoids the confusion of donors saying – hold on a min why am I funding this I didn’t expect that.
This is not a huge issue so maybe not the top of your to do list. And you are the expert on how much of an admin burden something like this is and if it is worth it, but from the outside it seems very easy and the kind of action I would just naturally expect of a fund / charity.
[minor edits]
It also makes it easier for applicants to know what fund to apply to (or apply to first).