I think based on my EA Funds experience so far, I’m less optimistic that the cost would be incredibly small. E.g., I would expect less correlation between “EAIF managers think something is good to fund from a longtermist perspective” and “LTFF managers think something is good to fund from a longtermist perspective” (and vice versa for ‘meta’ grants) than you seem to expect.
This is because grantmaking decisions in these areas rely a lot on judgment calls that different people might make differently even if they’re aligned on broad “EA principes” and other fundamental views. I have this view both because of some cases I’ve seen where we actually discussed (aspects of) grants across both the EAIF and LTFF managers and because within the EAIF committee large disagreements are not uncommon (and I have no reasons to believe that disagreements would be smaller between LTFF and EAIF managers than just within EAIF managers).
Thanks for writing up this detailed response. I agree with your intuition here that ‘review, refer, and review again’ could be quite time consuming.
However, I think it’s worth considering why this is the case. Do we think that the EAIF evaluators are similarly qualified to judge primarily-longtermist activities as the LTFF people, and the differences of views is basically noise? If so, it seems plausible to me that the EAIF evaluators should be able to unilaterally make disbursements from the LTFF money. In this setup, the specific fund you apply to is really about your choice of evaluator, not about your choice of donor, and the fund you donate to is about your choice of cause area, not your choice of evaluator-delegate.
In contrast, if the EAIF people are not as qualified to judge primarily-longtermist (or primarily animal rights, etc.) projects as the specialised funds’ evaluators, then they should probably refer the application early on in the process, prior to doing detailed due diligence etc.
Thanks for writing up this detailed response. I agree with your intuition here that ‘review, refer, and review again’ could be quite time consuming.
However, I think it’s worth considering why this is the case. Do we think that the EAIF evaluators are similarly qualified to judge primarily-longtermist activities as the LTFF people, and the differences of views is basically noise? If so, it seems plausible to me that the EAIF evaluators should be able to unilaterally make disbursements from the LTFF money. In this setup, the specific fund you apply to is really about your choice of evaluator, not about your choice of donor, and the fund you donate to is about your choice of cause area, not your choice of evaluator-delegate.
In contrast, if the EAIF people are not as qualified to judge primarily-longtermist (or primarily animal rights, etc.) projects as the specialised funds’ evaluators, then they should probably refer the application early on in the process, prior to doing detailed due diligence etc.