Of course, it is not impossible that the reformers could find significant donors who agree with their democratic grantmaking philosophy.
As far as EA Funds, I support empowering EAs by giving them options. You could give to the current funds (with some moderate reforms), or you could give to a fund in each cause area with strongly democratic processes. “I want to defer to expert fund managers rather than to a democratic process” is a valid donor preference, as is the converse.
Yes! If you want a democratic EA fund, why not start one? I’m pretty sure this would get funding from the EAIF. Generally, I think it’s a much healthier ecosystem when people compete by doing different things rather than by lobbying some “authoritative” party to get them to make changes.
If anyone is interested: it would be more efficient to house at least the back end of the new fund(s) somewhere in EVF for ops reasons, if all parties were willing. A democratic fund has some similarities to the donor lottery, which is housed in GWWC—so it doesn’t seem EVF has any theoretical objections to disbursing funds based on a non-EVF entity’s recommendations. I am predicting that the democratic fund(s) would be fairly small, at least at first, and that the need to duplicate back-end ops already present in the larger EA Funds would make them rather inefficient.
Of course, it is not impossible that the reformers could find significant donors who agree with their democratic grantmaking philosophy.
As far as EA Funds, I support empowering EAs by giving them options. You could give to the current funds (with some moderate reforms), or you could give to a fund in each cause area with strongly democratic processes. “I want to defer to expert fund managers rather than to a democratic process” is a valid donor preference, as is the converse.
Yes! If you want a democratic EA fund, why not start one? I’m pretty sure this would get funding from the EAIF. Generally, I think it’s a much healthier ecosystem when people compete by doing different things rather than by lobbying some “authoritative” party to get them to make changes.
If anyone is interested: it would be more efficient to house at least the back end of the new fund(s) somewhere in EVF for ops reasons, if all parties were willing. A democratic fund has some similarities to the donor lottery, which is housed in GWWC—so it doesn’t seem EVF has any theoretical objections to disbursing funds based on a non-EVF entity’s recommendations. I am predicting that the democratic fund(s) would be fairly small, at least at first, and that the need to duplicate back-end ops already present in the larger EA Funds would make them rather inefficient.