EA Forum note: I've cleared with the Forum team that I can offer free 20-minute calls as a 'thank you' for the first 10 people that leave thoughtful and engaging private or public comments. These short calls can be mini-sessions, coaching AMA, a catchup, or used any other way you'd like! 

Thanks to Seb and others for putting in the effort to get clarity in this area for the community. 

Very briefly before I circle back for a more substantive round of commenting – noting that I haven't dug into all of the studies that these quantitative estimates are predicated upon, I wasn't able to find mention of staff "turnover / churn " or anything of the sort in this report. 

If it's the case that estimates within this report, and/or quantitative estimates within studies that this report draws from, do not include an approximation of costs from... (read more)

Just applied for TBCT! Incredibly happy to see this get set up. What a gift for this community it could be

I was just thinking this

My pleasure and thanks for saying that. Happy to add more popular questions to that section as they come

Can confirm that Luke was a huge proponent of this from our interactions from ~2016 – ~2019. It's one of the primary reasons Rethink Charity created and maintained our governance structure, which I thought was only moderately good but likely above average relative to what I've seen and heard about in the community

I've got a similar feeling to Khorton. Happy to have been pre-empted there. 

It could be helpful to consider what it is that legibility in the grant application process (for which post-application feedback is only one sort) is meant to achieve. Depending on the grant maker's aims, this can non-exhaustively include developing and nurturing talent, helping future applicants self-select, orienting projects on whether they are doing a good job, being a beacon and marketing instrument, clarifying and staking out an epistemic position, serving an orientation... (read more)

 why it’s at least a non-obvious decision

Will we provide feedback to rejected applicants in the future? Possibly, but I think this involves complex tradeoffs and isn't a no-brainer

 So I don’t think we should be doing this now, but I’m not saying that we won’t try to find ways to give more feedback in the future (see below).

Very much appreciate the considerate engagement with this. Wanted to flag that my primary response to your initial comment can be found here. 

All this makes a lot of sense to me. I suspect some people got value out of the ... (read more)

Okay, upon review, that was a little bit too much of a rhetorical flourish at the end. Basically, I think there's something seriously important to consider here about how process can negatively affect community health and alignment, which I believe to be important for this community in achieving the plurality of ambitious goals we're shooting for. I believe FTX could definitely affect in a very positive way if they wanted to

an opportunity cost to providing feedback

huge mistake for Future Fund to provide substantial feedback except in rare cases.

Yep, I'd imagine what makes sense is between 'highly involved and coordinated attempt to provide feedback at scale' and 'zero'. I think it's tempting to look away from how harmful 'zero' can be at scale

> That could change in future if their other streams of successful applicants dry up and improving the projects of people who were previously rejected becomes the best way to find new things they want to fund.

Agreed – this seems... (read more)

Related thread that Sam and Nick are speaking on: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/hDK9CZJwH2Cqc9n9J/some-clarifications-on-the-future-fund-s-approach-to?commentId=JLDaxyk8uxdwcYNye#comments

Thanks to Sam and Nick for getting to this. I think it's very cool that you two are taking the time to engage. In light of the high esteem that I regard both of you and the value of your time, I'll try to close the loop of this interaction by leaving you with one main idea. 

I was pointing at something different than what I think was addressed. To distill what I was saying: >> Were FTX to encounter a strong case for non-negligible harms/externalities to community health that could result from the grant making process, what would your response to ... (read more)

Also not trying to lay this all at FTX's doorstep. Hoping that raising this will fold into some of the discussions about community effects behind closed doors over there

Thanks for writing this up, Nick. It seems like a pretty good first step in communicating about what I imagine is a hugely complex project to deploy that much funding in a responsible manner. Something for FTX to consider within the context of community health and the responsibilities that you can choose to acknowledge as a major funding player: 

– How could a grant making process have significant effects on community health? What responsibilities would be virtuous for a major funding player to acknowledge and address? – 

I've picked up on lot... (read more)

Yeah. On the face of it, I could see how this feels like an easy ask, but I intentionally constructed this post in such a way as to have my work stand up and be evaluated on its own, without being associated with (or positioned against) other programs, coaches, or theoretical paradigms for now. I'll have to spend a bit more time thinking through the differences between displaying in terms of 'highlighting', 'promoting', 'recommending' and 'publicly outing'. What to look out for in both positive and negative senses sounds like something that actually could ... (read more)

Replaceability v. 'Contextualized Worthiness'

I'll take help recoining the term 'Contextualized Worthiness'. Curious for thoughts, feelings, criticisms!
More on my coaching trials with a dozen EA leaders here

My guess is that 80K is likely unaware of this, but the concept of 'replaceability', ^[1] or at least as my clients almost exclusively seem to interpret it,^[2] seems to wreak havoc as a mental model on people's self-approximations around whether they should be taking on/staying in a given role. I see lots of evidence that it can even ... (read more)

I'm struck by the effects reported after just around 4 sessions ~ 7 hours. I can't help but question whether these effects will last for more than a month after the coaching. When did they fill in the survey relative to the coaching? For how long do you predict that the effects will last?

Good questions – I think the set of claims that I'm more comfortable standing behind are that the coaching seems to be quite valuable and important during the period that the coachee is engaged, rather than trying to predict what the consequent effects will be after a pre-... (read more)

it's worth high-lighting that there are other promising "audiences" who can benefit massively from coaching even though they're currently less impactful.

Couldn't agree more. There were a set of strategic and tactical reasons why I felt it would be more compelling to make the case with leaders first. It seemed to me like a more straightforward way to cleanly demonstrate value in multiple ways. Others might disagree. Curious about your take. 

As an example, in the case where a broader community-talent-enrichment-focused project needs to receive funding s... (read more)

Cool to see your path to this Sebastian. Some great tips here. What's both tricky and exhilarating about navigating this space is how free-form it is. I have lots of respect for people who are this damn resourceful. 

I'd call your "alternative strategy" instead a "potential pathway" to gaining skill as a coach. What I outlined was more like a scaffolding set of considerations for thinking about how to gain skill and become a coach, within which innumerable pathways could be pursued. But I did like that you provided a personal example. It's probably a l... (read more)

In other words, if this is as good as it seems, one should prioritize providing this kind of coaching (or something similarly valuable) to all leaders within EA. 

I wouldn't disagree with this! Another way to say this, even if it's half as good as it seems, like if you slashed all of the metrics by which I calculated value here by 50% (e.g. quantitative monetary evaluations, productivity, # of people who had a notably good experience, # and quality of testimonials, # of people who continued on in a paid arrangement after the trial) it's still worth devoting far more attention and resources to this from within the community. 

Getting back to this comment might take a bit longer than usual for me to dig up exemplars of each category and even decide whether I think it's a good idea to promote coaching types of a certain category (i.e. I'd rather be quite selective of what I choose to promote, rather than highlighting less good things in an attempt to be comprehensive.) 

Also this from above!  "I wouldn’t say I’ve exhaustively canvassed what’s out there, so if anyone reading this has any suggestions for high-quality credentialing programs, particularly ones that encourage the integration of multiple methods and paradigms, I’d be curious to hear about them!" 

This was arrestingly sweet of you, Peter. Thank you. It's one of the best things that's come out of writing this post. I hope these types of comments get normalized in the community more broadly! 

 

Heartened to see that you enjoyed it! And great prompts/questions. Lovely to hear that this post could go some way in nudging you toward coaching. I have lots of thoughts on how to find a coach that might turn into another post, but some about getting the vibe right and trialing with more than one coach I mention here in this post. Hope it helps

There’s a lot to say about how coaching can improve the metabolization of stressors. In many cases, I’m pairing remedial efforts (working through emotional fallout and imprints) with methods that often have the... (read more)

Very grateful for this post. Personalizing to contextualize, it's amazing to see Vaidehi, Christina, Jack (and others I apologize for not remembering/knowing about) for consistently advocating for things that I gave up pursuing after hitting brick walls for years in the community starting in 2015. It takes courage (and almost certainly, tact) that I didn't have at the time when I was running multiple projects in this space. Maybe someday I'll say more about that if people would be interested

On the 'coaching for co-founders of organizations', Training For G... (read more)

Welcome Lizka! Hope the role is enjoyable for you for quite some time

Thanks Michelle! Hey Alex, happy to chat with you more about how I can help. Much of how I've helped others (including EAs) in the past regarding career transitions has revolved around the deliberate discovery, examination, articulation and refinement of your perceptions surrounding the many dimensions of the potential transition. (I say 'potential' because changing jobs isn't always the desired result). 

I'd contrast my approach to content– or landscape-specific type of information/model sharing, in the way that other career coaches might offer. For e... (read more)

Hey Brendon, in 2020 Rethink Charity pivoted to provide fiscal sponsorships to select value-aligned projects in EA and adjacent communities. As many might know, we helped kickstart Rethink Priorities with a more in-house FS arrangement. We've just completed our first external FS arrangement with Dao Foods. For you or anyone who has seen this post, please do let me know if you know of any projects who could use this service!

Lauren, I'd like to echo Niel's sentiment here. Concerted efforts at cultivating EA-aligned talent (via training and launching projects) has always been something Rethink Charity has advocated for. Great to see you taking real strides in addressing this. Please reach out if RC and I can be of any help

FYI Rethink Charity and associated projects were also not invited, including Rethink Priorities and LEAN. We were also invited to forums in previous years

It’s great to see more efforts to evaluate and promote top giving opportunities. Rethink Grants seems promising and I’m interested in seeing where it goes.

Hey Eric, we appreciate the kind words and thank you for taking the time to bring some of these things to our attention.

How do donors know if they are fully funded?

Great question - were RG to continue on, the idea was for us to be quite involved in the fundraising process for recommended projects. If Donational were interested in continuing with the CAP, we would likely engage in a joint fundraising effo... (read more)

Hey Jonas, apologies about the delay in replying here. Much will depend on whether we move forward with the program based on our own internal assessment of its potential and feedback we received from the community, especially those with an interest in grant making and community building via funding projects.

We loosely outline our remit and purpose in the introduction section and our current plan is to help potentially promising projects that would clearly benefit from the “early-stage planning, facilitating networking opportunities, and other as-needed ef... (read more)

Hey Oli, thanks for taking the time to come up with these points, and going out of your way to say, “...I think evaluations like this are quite important and a core part of what I think of as EA’s value proposition...and would like to see more people trying similar things in the future.” This is exactly the type of attitude toward agency and attempting to do good that I’d like to have encouraged more in EA.

Point-by-point, I think Derek covered a lot. I also mention in a comment how I was thinking about this evaluation in terms of a contribution to grant ev... (read more)

Thank you to those who had a look at this report. Our team put a lot into this as you might imagine. I’ve been anticipating some commentary in this evaluation along the lines of “this is far too complex/quantitative for a $40,000 grant recommendation.” We’d agree. We gesture at this in the “The future of Rethink Grants” section at the end of the Executive Summary.

This could have perhaps been communicated better, but my hope is that readers will come to interpret this report, and the methods employed therein, as additional tools to consider when evaluating... (read more)

Same for Rethink. Definitely appreciate this post and tried to make the application process swift and yet as informative as possible on both ends

Hey Jonas, RC might be interested in touching base with you about this soon!

I do also think that it's very valuable for some pots of funding to not be very public as there are some bad incentives and restrictions caused by public work.

Yep, I think that's right. We (entities within the community) can improve from historical examples of simply not declaring anything on this front or the reasoning behind it.

E.g., I'm (currently) quite happy currently that EA Grants doesn't have to justify each grant publicly.

+1 though our post-decision feedback could be better in some ways.

Will things like Donation Data trends play into the committees decision-making?

(e.g. CEA received ~4x the donations of any other charity due to an individual donor, yet they received a sizable grant from this group. I realize that this fact doesn't automatically disqualify them as a valuable donation target.)

Manifold reasons for full disclosure - I contract for CEA, run a meta org that is a candidate for funding from the fund, have received funding from some individual members of the committee, biased toward resourcing valuable smaller projects etc.

Hey Alex, as I wrote to Jamie with the AWF AMA, I don't have a directed question but I deeply appreciate this level of transparency and hope it exerts pressure to raise the water level on grant making transparency more broadly

I would imagine this should play into it: "£13.3m boost for Future of Humanity Institute" https://www.fhi.ox.ac.uk/grant-announcement/

Hey Jamie, I don't have a directed question on AWF per say, but I deeply appreciate this level of transparency and hope it exerts pressure to raise the water level on grant making transparency more broadly

An example is that EA Yale will likely be helping Rethink with reporting on the EA survey. Also see a lot of what EA NTNU has been up to. Richenda will have to forgive me because my memory is fuzzy on this, but I remember hearing of a university group that pressured a college make their annual donations to effective charities. All of these seem high-value to me and are not mutually exclusive with pledges, career changes etc.

In response to the comment that was deleted below, we do not intend to ignore this issue.

I interested Tee Barnett and Peter Hurford in adding sexual violence questions to the survey. Therefore sexual violence definitions need to be created.

Thanks for your dedication to this issue. I'm compelled to point out that that briefly speaking about a particular issue in an informal manner should not be seen as an endorsement on behalf of myself or Rethink Charity.

Ben West asked this question in the EA Facebook group late last year, and I believe EA Funds has updated since then: https://www.facebook.com/groups/effective.altruists/permalink/1606722932717391/

It's not clear what the optimal amount of funding for resurrecting LW should be, but according to the EA survey (run by Rethink), LW had been a top source for introducing people to EA until recently: http://effective-altruism.com/ea/1h5/ea_survey_2017_series_how_do_people_get_into_ea/

Qualifying this by clarifying that I'm the ED of Development for Rethink Charity ... (read more)

Thanks for asking Ervin. Were we to scale this project according to our estimates, we would need additional funding. There are also some small gaps in Rethink Charity operations that we'd like to fill. Talks are ongoing with CEA about additional funding either through their Grants or Funds programs

Absolutely - but re-Richenda's point about deliberations at a higher level, the Hub is one of many resources we provide, and we want to make sure every donation we receive is most impactful.

Even an earmarked donation for this purpose is not a straightforward proposition. Take the decision to potentially integrate with the CEA platform as a hypothetical. If we were to spend $300 - $1k tweaking the Hub, and then had to double back (likely to change the coding language) once we decided that linking up with the CEA platform is most effective for the community, we may have wasted considerable resources.

Richenda will have more insight on this than me, but my understanding is that when the qualitative report comes out, we will see that some of those who do have a website find it incredibly useful and it would absolutely be a disservice to pull the plug on that.

We're erring on the side of a 'targeted revision' of what we provide so that our services only go to those who are most effectively using them

I agree, this is something we acknowledge multiple times in the post, and many times throughout the series. The level of rigor it would take to bypass this issue is difficult to reach.

This is also why the section where we see some overlap with Julia's survey is helpful.

Additional data on EA shifts in cause area preference: http://effective-altruism.com/ea/1fi/have_ea_priorities_changed_over_time/

I've also updated the relevant passage to reflect the Bay Area as an outlier in terms of support for AI, not AI an outlier as a cause area