Nonprofit accounting researcher. I mostly study private foundations and how donors use accounting information in their giving decision-making. My agenda aligns strongly with the effective giving topic.
Trustee at CEEALAR
Nonprofit accounting researcher. I mostly study private foundations and how donors use accounting information in their giving decision-making. My agenda aligns strongly with the effective giving topic.
Trustee at CEEALAR
I’m going to be annoying and not really answer your question.
I think you should focus on yourself and your mental health. Go to therapy, build some skills, and ultimately help yourself before you try to help others.
I firmly believe IQ really does not matter. In my view, different people simply have different strengths and weaknesses. There are aspects of me that made it possible for me to complete a PhD, but those same aspects (and others) made me a poor worker in a traditional work environment. It is critical that you identify the things you like and are good at. Every person has something to offer, you just have to figure out what that thing is. There is a career that makes sense for you.
Below you say you are really useless, I can assure you that you are not.
I think this is key. I get the impression (and others do as well) that EA is all-or-nothing. Either you give 100% to AMF or you are not EA.
A private foundation that is focused on the state of New York can use EA principles in trying to identify the biggest impact they can have, within their constraints, and that is still EA. I think even the cause area constraints that are the least EA (say, the arts), can still find ways to improve their impact using EA principles. Though of course that would be more difficult.
I appreciate this post and agree with your points. Especially that of having some outside-EA board members. I am an academic and my research is EA-adjacent, but I have no ties to any EA org/cause area, which would reduce perceived conflicts of interest (which I have seen discussed on the forum). I also believe there is a lot that an EA org could learn (especially related to governance/transparency best practices) from a board member that has a lot of experience in traditional nonprofit work (especially at a large organization).
I would add that it would be very desirable for prominent EA organizations to also create junior boards (or just have a few designated junior board members). Junior boards have a lot of benefits:
Younger professionals may be able to invest more time than more senior/prominent professionals
It creates a pipeline of board talent in the EA community
There are a TON of early-career EAs who are passionate about advancing their career and a junior board is an excellent opportunity for them to do so
For me personally, I am a relatively-early career professional (not working at an EA org) who wants to give back to the community as a board member, but frankly I don’t believe I quite have the experience to join a big-time board (for example, I applied for the EV open call, but really have 0 expectation that I qualify for a short list). The alternative is to find a smaller org to join, but that is also quite challenging.
There certainly was a perception among who we spoke with that EA was very “white/tech bro/elitist”, so I think you are correct in that assessment.
Your point about PF accountability is well-taken as well. There is functionally 0 accountability in regards to effectiveness.
It’s pretty clear to me that these constraints are bad (and to me core EA is partially about breaking the self-imposed constraints of giving) but the simple reality is that private foundations are legally required to follow their charter. If the board wanted to radically change their charter, in most instances they could (my understanding), but boards tend to be extremely deferential to the founder’s original intent. They begin with a fundamental assumption: “We will focus our giving on X cause area or Y geographic area” and then they have the power to make decisions beyond that.
The concern I have is that EA has basically written off all private foundations that are not already EA-aligned as a lost cause.
Hi Ben, thanks for the note. It does appear these two orgs are doing something fairly similar, primarily offering bespoke consulting for large donors.
I’d agree these two aren’t taking a systematic approach, which is really what I had in mind. I think I’ll reach out to both to figure out their scope.
The grantmaker training program I think may be the best intervention in this space. Training grantmakers and getting them hired at major US private foundations, where they will ultimately have great influence on where funds are directed, has massive potential.
I think it would be very cool if you could find a way to pay for the credit card fees for donors. It seems donors really love these “100% model” approaches where they pay for 0 overhead. And I think they may like the idea that $10 given is $10 donated.
Though I’m not sure there is really any logistical way for you to do so? If it all happens on their end?
Project Idea:
While completing the EA intro course, I was thinking about how private foundations give $60b a year, largely to ineffective charities. I was wondering if that may present an opportunity for a small organization that works to redirect PF grants to effective charities.
I see two potential angles of attack:
Lobby/consult with PF on making effective grants. Givewell does the hard job of evaluating charities, but a more boutique solution could be useful to private foundations.
I have a large dataset of electronically filed 990-PFs, and I thought it may be useful to try to identify PF that are more likely to be persuaded by this sort of lobbying. For example, foundations that are younger, already give to international charities, and give to a large number of charities (there’s a lot of interesting criteria that could be used). A list could be generated for PF that are more likely to redirect funds which could be targeted.
Target grantmakers by offering training, attending conferences, etc. on effective grantmaking. (maybe some other EA aligned org is doing this?)
Givewell says they have directed ~$1b in effective gifts since 2011. Even if only a small number of foundations could be persuaded, the total dollars driven could be pretty large. And for a pretty small investment I think.
Short introduction: My name is Kyle Smith, I am an assistant professor of accounting at Mississippi State University. My research is mostly on how donors use accounting reports in their giving decisions. I have done some archival research examining how private foundations use accounting information, and am starting up a qualitative study where we are going to interview grantmakers to understand how they use accounting information in their grantmaking process.
Does anyone know of any orgs specifically working on this problem?
I study US private foundations, and I’ve observed two things: EA has made virtually no progress in influencing grantmaking, while trust based philanthropy (TBP) has had massive adoption. I think that many believe that EA and TBP are in conflict with one another, but I don’t think that is necessarily the case. I am thinking about writing a post/research paper that makes the case these two movements are compatible with one another.
I generally agree with this critique.
A while back I wrote about an idea for an org that focuses on redirecting US private foundation grants toward more effective causes. Got a lot of feedback, and the consensus was that existing private foundations just aren’t tractable. And I tend to agree with that.
But I have been working on a research paper where we interview private foundation grantmakers to try to better understand how they operate and the information used in their decision making. One of the takeaways is that trust-based philanthropy has had HUGE influence on private foundation grantmaking, despite being very new (every participant we interviewed indicated their foundation had implemented at least some trust based philanthropy practices).
This got me thinking—has EA had any influence? Not a single participant indicated that EA had influenced their grantmaking, and I would say that 75% were neutral and 25% were openly hostile to the idea of EA influencing their grantmaking.
I think EA would benefit from conversations around how to sell EA ideas to these other groups. I think it would require what some would view as “watering down”[1] of EA principles, but could substantially increase the overall impact of EA. Definitely interesting to think about what aspects of EA could be compromised before it ceases to be EA at all.
For example, most US private foundations are severely constrained by the original founder’s intent, such as spending funds in X geographic area. Could these foundations be persuaded and made more effective through a version of EA that encourages effective giving, given existing foundation constraints?
That’s fair. I’ll revise a bit—I think in the current EA landscape, boards should at least consider bringing on some board members that are more junior. Or we should find ways to allow junior professionals the chance to gain the experience necessary to be effective board members.
I think it depends a lot on the org and their needs. In an EA context, I think it makes sense for junior boards to possibly take on a larger share of the board work, while taking a smaller share of the decision making. Then eventually they can move into more senior board positions when they have more experience.
My experience is with university young alumni boards, which do a few things differently than the main board:
The junior board is pretty large, and a big purpose is to bring in the successful early career alumni to cultivate them as future board members/donors.
Junior boards do a lot of committee/active work with students/departments. In part this is good because they are more relatable than big time CEOs in their 50s, and in part it keeps them engaged for point 1 above.
They have pretty much no decision making authority, other than their own internal board rules/membership. Though my experience is with college-level boards, where even the main board has no real power/authority.
That’s fair. Though I would counter that GiveWell says that they have directed $2 billion over 10+ years to effective charities. Private Foundations in the US give collectively around $100 billion a year. So there is a lot of money out there with potential to be influenced.
As someone who has been a huge believer in CE and the theory of change, I’m honestly just not really seeing it for this.
A few thoughts:
I am a buyer that a group (CE) can identify numerous very high value and high-impact nonprofit organization ideas (because there is not really a robust “market” for doing so), and I think that this is the major innovation of CE. But I am very skeptical that the same can be said of for-profit ideas. If you are expecting participants to bring their own ideas, I’m not sure the value proposition is really there for the program.
I’m skeptical that investing resources into trying to create successful entrepreneurs that are EA-aligned is more effective than just trying to convince existing successful entrepreneurs to become EAs.
Your assumption that the “average chance of a graduate of the Founding to Give program getting into YC of 40%” feels WILDLY optimistic to me. YC and this program may bring in very strong applicants along many dimensions, but I actually think the overlap between those interested in EA and founding unicorns is weak. In addition, the “not funding a company that will make the world worse” constraint on this program likely makes unicorn status substantially less likely, and YC doesn’t really have that constraint. I think it would be helpful to re-estimate the model with a much lower % on this (5%,10%?).
All that said, I am rooting for you!