More Meta Funding Thoughts |
December 11th, 2016 |
| ea, metacharities |
While my research in previous years was also less detailed than I would have liked, I'm much more concerned about it this year. Specifically, I'm pretty worried that it's bad for the EA movement if people can generally get funding to do meta things as long as their plan sounds plausible, especially when this funding doesn't come with any checking up. Two main reasons:
Vulnerability to fraud, charlatans, abuse. If EA becomes known as a place where all you need is a good story we'll get lots of good storytellers. Without outside investigation there's not really a check on this, and donors are the natural people for it.
I'm generally skeptical of people's ability to make progress without good feedback loops. Attentive and involved funders want information that will let them to tell how things are going, which sets up minimal loop. This isn't ideal or enough, but I think having external people paying attention to your output gets most people to produce better work.
One potential option here would be to fund Nick Beckstead's "EA Giving Group" donor-advised fund (see Nick Beckstead's section of the GiveWell staff personal donations post:
One of my side projects has been working with a private individual (who has provided the vast majority of the funds and prefers to remain anonymous) to make donations to organizations working in the effective altruism space and organizations working on mitigating global catastrophic risks (especially potential risks from advanced AI). We meet every three weeks to discuss potential donation opportunities and make decisions, and we both keep up with activities in the space through relationships we've built up over time. The DAF is jointly controlled by me and this partner. ...Another option would be to not make any "meta" donations this year, and only make "direct" donations. This would mean basically all our 2016 donations would be to the Against Malaria Foundation).
I'm not sure what I'm going to do yet, and mostly am frustrated with myself for not putting more work into keeping up with the various organizations working in this space.
Disclosure: my wife, Julia, works at a metacharity (CEA) and is on the board of GiveWell (which recommends the Against Malaria Foundation).
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Are there RCTs on any metacharity intervention, or credible plans to run such a trial? It seems odd to contemplate funding an effective altruism activity unless there's evidence of effectiveness.
@David German The sorts of things metacharities are doing are generally not a good fit for RCTs. For example, how would you set up an RCT evaluate GiveWell? Or how would you use an RCT to evaluate the efforts of a metacharity that tries to keep the ideas behind the EA movement from getting diluted as it grows?
Not being able to get good evidence definitely makes me less optimistic about funding this sort of organization, but on the other hand there's a potential for much larger benefit which may or may not be enough to counterbalance that.
Well, exactly. If the rationale for giving isn't evidence-based, what's the difference between EA and any other kind of charity?
I do give some to GiveWell, in payment for the education they give me. I don't know whether it does good on the margin or not.
@David German Strength of evidence matters, but it's not the only thing that matters. What we actually care about is having a large (positive) impact, and things like RCTs are useful only in that they make this more likely.
> What we actually care about is having a large (positive) impact...
That may not be totally uncontroversial, but I think most people giving to charity would agree. Consider the arguments people make for supporting a local food pantry or homeless shelter. Beliefs about effectiveness are a major factor.
That's why I feel like measurement is a necessary principle, not just a means to an end. There is a continuum from weak to strong measured effectiveness, and a continuum from poor guesses to good guesses about effectiveness, but they're not the same continuum.