Tl;dr: I was to date judging the funds by the cause area rather than the fund managers tastes and this has left me a bit surprised. I think in future I will judge more based on the fund mangers tastes.
Thank you Ben – I agree with all of this
Maybe I was just confused by the fund scope.
The fund scope is broad and that is good. The webpage says the scope includes: “Raise funds or otherwise support other highly-effective projects” which basically means everything! And I do think it needs to be broad – for example to support EAs bringing EA ideas into new cause areas.
But maybe in my mind I had classed it as something like “EA meta” or as “everything that is EA aligned that would not be better covered by one of the other 3 funds” or similar. But maybe that was me reading too much into things and the scope is just “anything and everything that is EA aligned”.
It is not bad that it has a broader scope than I had realised, and maybe the fault is mine, but I guess my reaction to seeing the scope is different to what I realised is to take a step back and reconsider if my giving to date is going where I expect.
To date I have been judging the EAIF as the easy option when I am not sure where to give and have been judging the fund mostly by the cause area it gives too.
I think taking a step back will likely involve spending an hour or two going though all of the things given in recent fund rounds and thinking about how much I agree with each one then deciding if I think the EAIF is the best place for me to give, and if I think I can do better giving to one of the existing EA meta orgs that takes donations. (Probably I should have been doing this already so maybe a good nudge).
Does that make sense / answer your query?
– –
If the EAIF had a slightly more well defined narrower scope that could make givers slightly more confident in where their funds will go but has a cost in terms of admin time and flexibility for the Funds. So there is a trade-off.
My gut feel is that in the long run the trade-off is worth it but maybe feedback from other donors would say otherwise.
Tl;dr: I was to date judging the funds by the cause area rather than the fund managers tastes and this has left me a bit surprised. I think in future I will judge more based on the fund mangers tastes.
Thank you Ben – I agree with all of this
Maybe I was just confused by the fund scope.
The fund scope is broad and that is good. The webpage says the scope includes: “Raise funds or otherwise support other highly-effective projects” which basically means everything! And I do think it needs to be broad – for example to support EAs bringing EA ideas into new cause areas.
But maybe in my mind I had classed it as something like “EA meta” or as “everything that is EA aligned that would not be better covered by one of the other 3 funds” or similar. But maybe that was me reading too much into things and the scope is just “anything and everything that is EA aligned”.
It is not bad that it has a broader scope than I had realised, and maybe the fault is mine, but I guess my reaction to seeing the scope is different to what I realised is to take a step back and reconsider if my giving to date is going where I expect.
To date I have been judging the EAIF as the easy option when I am not sure where to give and have been judging the fund mostly by the cause area it gives too.
I think taking a step back will likely involve spending an hour or two going though all of the things given in recent fund rounds and thinking about how much I agree with each one then deciding if I think the EAIF is the best place for me to give, and if I think I can do better giving to one of the existing EA meta orgs that takes donations. (Probably I should have been doing this already so maybe a good nudge).
Does that make sense / answer your query?
– –
If the EAIF had a slightly more well defined narrower scope that could make givers slightly more confident in where their funds will go but has a cost in terms of admin time and flexibility for the Funds. So there is a trade-off.
My gut feel is that in the long run the trade-off is worth it but maybe feedback from other donors would say otherwise.