Focused on efficient giving, GHD, climate; GWWC since 2018, Co-founder Science Foundation (https://science-foundation.org)
vsrinivas
Karma: 153
Just shy of $120k, roughly double 2024; something like 40-45% of income. GWWC since 2018.
55% GiveWell, almost all to All Grants, in the shadow of USAID cuts.
25% to basic science (Science Foundation—nonprofit I helped start; ARCS; specific labs)
18% towards climate orgs (Fresh Energy, Silverlining, Clean Air Task Force, Carbon Mapper)
Remainder to Center for Arms Control & Nonproliferation and rounding errors.
This podcast highlights one specific (very valuable!) data-gathering project formerly funded by USAID, the Demographic/Health Survey. There were/are other data projects at risk—FEWS NET is the first that comes to mind; I hope (if appropriate) GiveWell + partners are able to find a way to support core parts of this infrastructure through 2030.
This episode, along w/ “Malaria Funding at a Crossroads” hints at the breadth of health/development infrastructure that needs to be thought about… We’re always in triage, but sure hurts to have a whole new set of tags to hand out.
Podcast: “When Foreign Aid Gets Zeroed Out Overnight”
Giving Green’s 2024 recommendations
Top-line, gave ~25% of my income—primarily to Global Health and Climate causes. This year I focused on a smaller # of organizations at higher levels than in 2022, based on feedback on last year’s thread.
26k to GiveWell Top Charities Fund; add’l 11k to Against Malaria Fund
35k to climate organizations - (EA-ish): Silverlining, Clean Air Task Force; (non-EA—focused on a US state-level organization, data organization, and industry-focused organizations): Fresh Energy, Carbonplan, IREC, InnerSpace
Balance to Nuclear Threat Initiative, University of Washington’s Virology & Epidemiology Funds
Happy holidays!
I’ve been looking for an answer to exactly this, in light of the Vox article; best answers I’ve come up w/ so far:
* Nuclear Threat Initiative* Center for Arms Control and Non-proliferation
* Arms Control Association
All of these organizations are primarily advocacy-based; but they’ve also served as a kind of “government-employee-waiting/training-area”, for when US Administrations were not amenable to movement on arms control.I’ve also looked at the Nuclear Weapons Policy Fund, but have had trouble figuring out who/what it grants to and its theory of change; I’d appreciate any material folks have found!
- Has anyone found out where Longview’s Nuclear Weapons Policy Fund grants to? I’m having trouble get a good picture of their grants, evaluation process, and of the larger space.
- Related, how do folks think about / evaluate organizations in this space? Like, how do you compare Nuclear Threat Initiative vs Center for Arms Control & Nonproliferation vs Arms Control Association?; the best I’ve got is a backwards-looking “have there been many/any alums of this organization going into government”?
- Unrelated—https://erictopol.substack.com/p/long-covid-mitochondria-the-big-miss—the author makes the case that the RECOVER Long Covid grants didn’t fund worthwhile work and there’s unlikely to be more funding. Is this a space for a ‘Fast Grants’-type structure or other backstopping?
vsrinivas’s Quick takes
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/amdReARfSvgf5PpKK/phil-trammell-philanthropy-timing-and-the-hinge-of-history for notes on the linked talk.
Is anyone acting on this at the individual-funder level?; if you believe that giving in the present is substantially better than in the future (for any of the four reasons in the talk, say), should you take on debt to do so? At what rate? Anyone trying this?
Hey, welcome to the forum and thanks for posting this! (And for Kelly’s interview on Volts—it seems complementary to this report).
Some observations and questions -
. There is an interesting parallel between the “portfolio approach” discussed in the interview (as to the role of SRM) and Johannes Ackva’s line of thought re: “hedges” in his interview on Volts.
. It seems to me that the report’s audience / approach is to advocate for increased federal funding of very specific science program areas.What roles do you see, if any, for private philanthropy to fill gaps until federal funding is available?
Have you identified any areas in the Appendix’s recommendations that are more or less “shovel ready”? Any labs/PIs already ready?
If you had to prioritize, which areas would you fund first?
Concretely, how do you think about funding your recommendations vs. additional funding for mitigation (as measured by reduced climate damages)? “2x more effective up to a point and then stops?”, “8x in an RCP3.4 world, 1x in RCP1.9″? something else? Or do you evaluate your recommendations differently?
Thanks!
Coming back to this—I made a transcript of this conversation for folks who’d like to read it / prefer text—https://ops101.org/archives/000353.html
I found this conversation pretty enlightening - +1 to the takeaways above; many of them are applicable to any problem where technical solutions need to both be developed and deployed.
It’s pretty important to remember the marginal utility of dollars is not constant (contrast GiveWell’s health interventions); that damage can be highly non-linear (again contrast health interventions); and that small but smart philanthropy can have outside impacts by considering time/intervening early (contrast patient philanthropy).
FWIW—running an instance requires a lot of resources (operator time, care/feeding of services, moderation); I’d encourage only going down that route if enough folks are lined up to help run it!
- Top line, donate ~25% of income, matching 2021 in nominal (not inflation-adjusted, which I should start doing) dollars. 83% of the way there.
- Took GWWC in 2018, so there’s a 10% floor for EA organizations.
So far, Clean Air Task Force, GiveWell, and Against Malaria Foundation,
split roughly 4:3:3. The thinking here --
1) GiveWell and AMF are pretty high on effectiveness lists and have been consistently so. It’s easy to understand what they’re doing and they’re solid defaults.
2) Clean Air Task Force is a new thing for me, an EA-ish organization that takes on policy interventions and lobbying even. I do sometimes find it hard to figure out what they’re doing as distinct from RMI or RFF, say; but they’re well regarded in climate circles and recently in EA lists, so it was worth adding this year.
3) I’ve found it easier to start with donations where I can understand the impact. I’d like to build up ambition—both on the giving-amount and being-comfortable-with-failure axes, but have slowly done only the former. Would like to do the latter, Ackva’s writing on this has been a good “do better” call for me.Open questions −
1) Giving Green recommended Evergreen Collective (the 501c3) but didn’t take a position on the 501c4, Evergreen Action. What do folks think about them?
2) How do you begin to evaluate lobbying for specific legislation or rule-making? First order effects are easy, but often what passes through a process only vaguely resembles what was advocated-for; there’s a kind of “put the ball in play” effect I’m interested in capturing w/ this question.
3) In the past I’ve given to Nuclear Threat Initiative and associated organizations (Arms Control Association, Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation, …), but I did so for reasons that had nothing to do with X-risk. How do you evaluate or compare anything in this space?- I’m just a baby EA, so I do a lot of giving outside of EA. Remainder is primarily to US state-level climate policy organizations, roughly weighted by − 1) a state’s grid emissions intensity; 2) organization’s
capacity to intervene in regulatory proceedings (evidenced by prior interventions); 3) my ability to evaluate the organization. Primarily focused on Fresh Energy (MN), Climate Solutions (WA), Montana Renewable Energy Association (MT), Western Resources Advocates (intermountain west). Two national organizations—Carbonplan and Union of Concerned Scientists. Former because the quality of the data they produce has caused some rethinking, latter for legacy reasons.
Takeaway from EA Global—If you’re running a nonprofit or fiscally-sponsored project and are trying to fundraise from the public:
- Make sure you’re registered on Benevity (https://benevity.com/), both to ease payroll donations and for corporate matching. If you’re fiscally sponsored, your sponsor can list you as a ‘project’.
- Make sure you’re listed on large DAF platforms (Fidelity Charitable, Schwab); some folks prefer to do most/all their giving through DAFs.
- Please post your legal name and/or EIN on your website, someplace! (If you’re sponsored—your sponsor)
Thanks!