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.
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]