Grantmaking is the process by which a government or an organization gives non-repayable funds or products for a particular purpose or project.
Grantmaking focused on top cause areas is one of 80,000 hours “priority paths”—the most promising career opportunities the organization is currently aware of.[1] Their medium-depth profile rates grantmaking an option with high career capital, job satisfaction, direct impact and advocacy potential.[2]
Further reading
Alexander, Scott (2022) So you want to run a microgrants program, Astral Codex Ten, February 9.
Karnofsky, Holden (2013) Challenges of passive funding, The GiveWell Blog, April 18.[3]
Probaby Good (2021) Grantmaking, Probably Good.
Wiblin, Robert (2017) You want to do as much good as possible and have billions of dollars. What do you do?, 80,000 Hours, October 11.
Wiblin, Robert & Keiran Harris (2018) The world’s most intellectual foundation is hiring. Holden Karnofsky, founder of GiveWell, on how philanthropy can have maximum impact by taking big risks, 80,000 Hours, February 27.
Related entries
donation choice | donor lotteries | effective altruism funding | effective giving
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80,000 Hours (2021) Our list of high-impact careers, 80,000 Hours.
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Duda, Roman (2015) Foundation grantmaker, 80,000 Hours, July.
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There are many additional relevant posts in Open Philanthropy’s and GiveWell’s blogs.
This page might be worth linking to and/or drawing on: https://www.probablygood.org/profile-grantmaking
I haven’t read it, though
Random notes on / wishlist for this entry:
This entry could briefly discuss things like how useful grantmaking is, how to test fit for it, best practices for grantmaking, what people/orgs are involved in grantmaking on EA-related areas
I think it should probably list a bunch of grantmaking bodies, like EA Funds, with internal links to their EA Wiki entries where relevant
It’s possible that those links should also be included in Related entries, but I think there’s a weak policy against including an org tag in a Related entries section unless there’s an unusually good reason (though I can’t remember for sure)
And I do think that that might “clog up” the Related entries section unnecessarily
The tag could also cover posts on those things
I’m not sure if this tag should cover posts that just report on a specific instance of grantmaking, or that just discuss whether specific funding opportunities should receive grants?
I weakly lean against
I think the entries for donation writeup and donation choice may be sufficient for that?
If and when an entry on vetting constraints is made, that should be added to Related entries here and vice versa