Why donate 1% immediately? There’s huge risk of value drift—that when you get old, you will spend the money rather than donating it. By donating some amount every year, you make charity a big part of your life, and this increases the odds that you’ll donate later. 

I don't care for this argument when I see it. Waiting to donate gives you option value. The opposite is also true - if you give now and your older self's values drift and you look back and regret giving so much to EA causes early in life, isn't that also bad?  

SUPER excited to see this! 

Agree with your assessment of the DAF360 job. I also generally agree with your overall points.

I've said (in like 5 comments now) that a very high impact opportunity is to influence grantmakers of large private foundations. 

I've long thought one of the most impactful ways to drive money toward EA causes is to train grantmakers and get them working at private foundations that are not EA affiliated. Program officers have a lot of influence! Even just having grantmakers that are exposed to EA ideas around cost effectiveness could have a massive positive impact on the world (even if they aren't going to EA orgs).

I think it makes sense from a strategic point of view. CN is dependent on funding to survive, and by funding CN, EA funds can influence the work that CN does. While this is a somewhat cynical way to look at it, it is a simple fact that funders can influence of the work of charities. And CN plays a significant role in directing charitable donations.

I really like this post and agree with the message.

I think this problem is exacerbated by the problem that it seems that AI safety does not have a larger ecosystem of which EA is a part. What % of AI safety funding/work is EA affiliated? I would guess a very large number. Contrasted with GHD, which has a much larger ecosystem of funders/orgs/thought leadership of which EA is just a part. It is easier to think of EA as a valuable contributor to GHD, while it feels like AI safety is JUST EA. A natural consequence of this is that the choice to prioritize AI safety is viewed as "radical", seeing as no one else seems to really agree with EAs about it (not that I think EA is wrong, but I think this affects perceptions). 

Say you had a random person who is concerned with the world and wants to have a positive impact, but has little in the way of priors about what causes should be prioritized. If we were to rank different EA causes in order by how "believable" they are (1 being most believable), I think it would look something like:

1. Global Health and Development
2. Animal Welfare
3. Global Catastrophic Risks (not AI Safety)
4. GCR - AI Safety

When the community puts the least believable/most radical cause area front and center (again, not necessarily disagreeing with the analysis that leads to this), it becomes more difficult to bring people into the movement.

When I talk to people about EA as it relates to GHD and Animal Welfare, people tend to be somewhat willing to agree with the points. I haven't had any luck at all talking about longtermism/AI safety.

This all leads to a point I've considered lately - I think EA as a whole would benefit from AI safety/longtermism "spinning" off into its own thing which EA still contributes to. I know that this isn't really a thing that can be decided - the only way this gets accomplished is if AI safety can attract non-EA funding/support/attention, which is of course a very difficult task!

As one of the trustees at CEEALAR, I just want to add that we are very excited to employ a full time ED! This ED will have the chance to really take CEEALAR to the next level, and will get a ton of experience with fundraising and impact assessment especially. 

If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me or the other trustees.

This isn't really a comment regarding the content of your post, but it made me think of it. I think EAs who write good forum posts should consider submitting them to large philanthropy magazines such as Stanford Social Innovation Review and the Chronicle of Philanthropy.

I think you make an interesting argument here but I can't help but feel you are preaching to the choir. It is important to make this argument to the people in philanthropy that complain that EA doesn't address root causes! And those people don't read the EA forum, they read SSIR and the Chronicle.

I do think the article would need some work and probably toned down a bit, but I don't think it's too much of a stretch that posts like this can be published in these other outlets. And more articles that defend EA principles in these other outlets can influence the exact people EA should be trying to influence.

I think it's great that EAIF is not funding constrained. 

Here's a random idea I had recently if anyone is interested and has the time:

An org that organizes a common application for nonprofits applying to foundations. There is enormous economic inefficiency and inequality in matching PF grants to grantees. PF application processes are extremely opaque and burdensome. Attempts to make common applications have largely been unsuccessful, I believe mostly because they tend to be for a specific geographic region. Instead, I think it would be interesting to create different common applications by cause area. A key part of the common application could be incorporating outcome reporting specific to each cause area, which I believe would cause PF to make more impact-focused grants, making EAs happy.

I joined the audit committee of the Berkeley Existential Risk Initiative, who found me through the EA Good Governance Project. As someone who wants to get more experience serving on boards, I am looking for opportunities, but the EA Good Governance Project made it possible! 

I'd encourage people interested in serving on boards to join as a candidate and for organizations to use it as a tool for finding board members.