I assume each of the AMA, APA, and IEEE have substantial barriers to entry (e.g., professional education and/or licensing) that serve the screening-for-investment function Julia describes. 

I also would not assume these organizations do a good job at representing their populations -- e.g., about 75 percent of US physicians aren't members of the AMA, which isn't a big vote of confidence. 

Does anyone know roughly what this would cost, either financially or in terms of what the people involved would be doing counterfactually?

(Obviously the amount would depend on the precise scope of work, but given that funding seems to be the bottleneck, throwing a range out there might sharpen the discussion.)

[vote comment, very shallow take waiting for train] Moderate depopulation isn't bad, at least not right now. The limiting factor on climate change is more likely political will / willingness to make financial sacrifices, not a lack of people in 25-30 years to propose and execute new ideas. Lowering the percentage of the population that consists of productive workers (and thus increasing pressure on those workers) seems likely to increase resistance to making the economic sacrifices necessary for addressing climate change. 

On the flip side, I would assume that the persistence of reduced fertility rates is the result of the continuance of the factors that led to them in the first place, rather than an irreversible consequence of rates dipping below replacement value. Therefore, it seems this issue can be deferred until we see improvement on climate.

It's understandable for a donor to have that concern. However, I submit that this goes both ways -- it's also reasonable for smaller donors to be concerned that the big donors will adjust their own funding levels to account for smaller donations, reducing the big donor's incentives to donate. It's not obvious to me which of these concerns predominates, although my starting assumption is that the big donors are more capable of adjusting than a large number of smaller donors.

Much electronic ink has been spilled over the need for more diversification of funding control. Given that, I'd be hesitant to endorse anything that gives even more influence over funding levels to the entities that already have a lot of it. Unless paired with something else, I worry that embracing matching campaigns would worsen the problem of funding influence being too concentrated.

1. A Portfolio Approach: We should consider formally splitting funding into distinct portfolios. For example, a fund might allocate 70% of its resources to proven, highly measurable interventions, while dedicating 30% to a "high-risk, high-reward" fund for systemic change. This would allow us to continue supporting reliable interventions while also creating space for potentially transformative work.

EAs may only control a small fraction of resources in most cause areas (depending on exactly how one defines the cause area). If the portfolio approach is correct, I submit that the hypothetical fund should care about improving the total allocation of resources between the two approaches, not making its own allocation match what would be ideal for the charitable sector as a whole to do. Unless the charitable sector already has the balance between portfolios in a cause area approximately correct, it seems that a fund whose objective was to improve the overall sector balance between the two approaches would be close to all-in on one or the other.^[1] 

1. ^{^}

   There are reasons this might not be the case -- for instance, you might think other funders were not going a very good job funding either proven, highly measurable interventions or high-risk / high-reward systemic interventions.

I saw an ad on Reddit for CN promoting cost-effective orgs, and the listed charities include AMF etc. Not sure every org listed would be endorsed by EAs, but many clearly are.

 https://www.charitynavigator.org/discover-charities/best-charities/cost-effective-organizations/

Filing cases is often free for volunteer-run charities due to fee waivers

The filing fee isn't the issue -- getting to a proper complaint in an impact-litigation case generally requires a lot of resources. Consider, for instance, LIC's 58-page complaint in the Costco case. 

I think it was sufficiently clear in context what SPI meant by "pending cases." Their response disclosed that they were running on volunteer labor with a shoestring budget. So I'd start with an assumption that any of their cases were in the very early stages, and I would assume as a litigator that their cases would need significant investigation and development prior to filing.

Moreover, the reference to a desire for confidentiality strongly implies that the referenced cases were at the pre-filing stage of the litigation process. Civil actions are almost always a matter of public record, and the case-initiating documents (a summons and complaint) are generally served on the defendant(s) soon after being filed with the court. And presumably the goal of confidentiality would be that the intended target and/or the broader industry not find out until the case is filed and served. (It's really unlikely that either the plaintiff or defendant in a case involving (e.g.) widespread pesticide use would be allowed to proceed under a pseudonym, at least in US courts.)

I doubt "EA USA" would be the most practical expansion of this model. The prototype is a country of about 5.5MM people, about the size of New Mexico (although the bulk of the population is more concentrated than that might imply). The organization has a few hundred members and a budget in the low/mid six-figures. My hunch is that EA Norway's membership and program size may be fairly close to ideal for this model.

Rather, I think the more viable expansion in larger countries would be subnational (e.g., EA Mid-Atlantic would have ~ an OOM larger population in range, with NYC and DC being within a few hours of Philly). Even that might be too big.

You'd have to tweak the model for more geographically diffuse areas, possibly with some sort of federalism / representative governance  (e.g., EA Flyover States?) Having local units elect delegates is common (e.g., for associations of congregationist churches).

Thanks. May I ask what the current status of your monthly, quarterly, and similar giving programs are?

(As an aside, you'll often get questions like this by potential EA/EA-adjacent donors because we're looking at local fundraising ability as a proxy for the local community's assessment of your organization, its programs, and its proposals. For various reasons, we have a poor ability to assess certain things that are important, particularly relating to ability to execute, whether the proposal is a good fit for a local community thousands of miles away from us, etc. So looking for evidence of how people who have the cultural and geographical background to assess is fairly common practice. At least for me, the gross amount raised per se is less important than the breadth of community support. Although the answer is also relevant to assessing how viable the sustainability model is.)