Thanks for this discussion. I appreciate the thoughtful engagement even though I haven't had the capacity to follow the full back-and-forth in detail. I wanted to offer a few points from the grantmaker perspective that might be useful.
On the marginal cost-effectiveness question: most of the effective giving organizations we fund are running very lean, and their costs are primarily staffing. So when we think about marginal funding, we're often not thinking about abstract diminishing returns on a smooth curve, we're thinking about specific roles and what they'd unlock. For example, if an org is going from two to four FTE, the additional hires might be an ultra-high-net-worth advisor who opens up a whole new donor segment, or a marketing hire who can meaningfully expand reach. In cases like these, the marginal dollar can be highly cost-effective (sometimes more so than earlier spending) because it's funding a function the org simply couldn't perform before.
We try to do this kind of holistic (and sometimes hire-by-hire) assessment where we can, though we can't do it for every grantee at every funding level.
One further point: the theoretical argument that orgs should already be spending on their highest-priority items first, so marginal funding should by definition go to lower-priority uses, doesn't always hold in practice. Lean orgs often underspend on things like marketing or growth capacity, not because those aren't high-value, but because they're harder to justify from scarce operating budgets, especially when the payoff is uncertain. Additional funding can unlock spending that should have been happening but wasn't.
On average vs. marginal assessment: as I mentioned above, we tend to rely on average cost-effectiveness in our evaluations. I recognize that might be a limitation. In practice, we represent a large share of many grantees' funding, idealistically around 50%, but realistically 70–100% for many newer grantees. When we're that dominant a funder, the distinction between average and marginal matters less. Where we've been a significantly smaller share of an org's funding, we have done more explicit marginal analysis, and we expect to move further in that direction, particularly when we represent a smaller share or when a grantee is requesting a substantial increase in funding. We want to make sure the additional funding makes sense. That said, we believe most organizations in our portfolio are cost-effective enough and able to absorb more funding at this stage, and that filling a 10–50% gap is cost-effective enough that more granular marginal analysis hasn't been a top priority.
On why we're not funding effective giving orgs even more: in many cases, we are increasing grant sizes for successful grantees, and part of our 2026 strategy is actively pushing high-performers to absorb more funding where we see opportunity. But our portfolio spans more than effective giving, we also want to grow in areas like effective careers, where organizations typically have fewer alternative funding sources than EG orgs, which can tap tipping functions and individual donors more readily. We also think of ourselves as providing sustained, long-term support. As we expand and take on more renewable grants, which naturally grow over time with inflation and organizational costs, an increasing share of our budget might go to renewals. Committing to be the sole or near-sole funder for most of these organizations would be irresponsible, both for our portfolio flexibility and for their long-term resilience.
You're right that we often cap our funding at a share of an organization's budget, and that this is a deliberate choice aimed at encouraging funding diversification and long-term sustainability. That said, if we're funding an organization, even below its full budget, you can assume we believe they are above our bar at their full projected budget. We use their full projected expenses when estimating the giving multiplier, so a partial grant from us is not a signal that we think the marginal dollar is low-value.
We have a policy of not publishing our individual grantee assessments. However, we've discussed specific grantees with interested donors many times and are always happy to do so. If you know people who are considering donating to effective giving organizations and would find it helpful to hear our perspective, please don't hesitate to connect them with us!
The non-renewable default comes from a couple of things: (1) we see these RFP grants as more experimental and hits-based than our standard portfolio. We're casting a wider net to find promising new efforts, and by nature not all of them will work out. (2) we don't want to tie up most of our budget in renewal commitments, since that would limit our flexibility to respond to new opportunities.
That said, this isn't a hard rule. For organizations with a solid track record that we can see fitting really well into our portfolio on an ongoing basis, we'd definitely consider making renewable grants. And for orgs we seed through this RFP that end up doing well, we'd likely consider bringing them into our portfolio on a more ongoing basis further down the line.
Thanks for your question! As a first pass, your assumption is correct in that, since our 1x benchmark is against GW charities (and charities of similar expected cost-effectiveness), an adjusted ROI of 6x is in expectation ~60x cash. That being said, we think the real number is likely lower than that, which is why we hold our EG grantees to a bar of at least 2x (and higher for more established efforts). Specifically, we think a 2x multiplier bar seems justified because (i) "meta" funding opportunities that are more distant from impact seem more likely to overestimate cost-effectiveness by failing to adequately account for additional efforts required by other actors to achieve impact, and (ii) intuitively, we aren't excited about supporting opportunities that could spend an additional $1 to generate only slightly more than that for high impact charities, even after a counterfactual adjustment. Supporting these opportunities would mean small errors in our calculations could result in negative impact, and risks falling into a meta-trap.
I agree that there will likely be some benefits beyond the grant period (which is 1-2 years depending on the grant). Those will especially be felt in cases in which the grant helped seed an org that might not get started or might get started many years later otherwise. That wasn't the case for many of the grants though, in general we're providing ops support for 1-2 y for an existing org.
Even though I made most of these grants non-renewable, in our core effective giving portfolio we're a stable funder for most organizations, which means that I'll reassess them every 2y or so to determine if we should renew funding, and at what level. We then use every grant period to look at (adjusted) money moved and how that compares to the orgs costs. This is a simplified view and I think we'll need to adjust it in some cases, e.g. now that a lot of the organizations are forming partnerships with GWWC, some of the wins they land in a given grant period through pledges will be seen for many years, so we should consider that, but avoid double counting in future periods.
Ozzie, to your point of expecting the area to be able to absorb more money, I think that's true. We did discuss with some orgs if it was worth them scaling further, but most are being cautious and want to hit certain milestones/make sure they're on a sustainable growth path before doing so, which I appreciate. The two ways in which I currently imagine the ecosystem could absorb more funds is: (1) by seeding new efforts (there are still many gaps, so I'm excited to see other orgs get started), (2) by scaling existing efforts if some marketing strategy really pays off and/or if they tap into a new segment and need more, or dedicated, staff (e.g. for national chapters that start doing more (U)HNW advising). I should also state that the amount of funding that we're able to provide for the ecosystem will vary depending on the year, considering my program's budget and other grants on the table (both funding tied to existing grantees, and other potential opportunities).
On the margin, our commissioned reports cost ~$7,000-$30,000 depending on the scope (this particular report being on the lower end of that spectrum). That being said, we don't take in every commissioned work that comes our way and only have the capacity to take on a few projects at this price because: (1) we have longer term agreements with a couple of organizations for which we do a lot of work, (2) we want our team to have the capacity to pursue independent projects we think are promising.
That being said, you're always welcome to reach out if there are specific projects you are interested in. We always welcome new ideas and look forward to connecting with new individuals/organizations :)
Thanks for your comment Ariel. We haven’t attempted to assess the value of different population ethics views, or how those would affect the (cost-)effectiveness of FEM’s work. We believe that that is a highly complex topic that would take more time than the short period we had to conduct this research. Work on this would benefit from the Worldview Investigations Team at Rethink Priorities, which could explore family planning topics in the future. I'm sorry we neglected to add that to the editorial note and disclaimer. I will edit it to reflect this.
Hi Vasco, I apologize for the delayed response. Because of capacity constraints, we can’t always address all comments, so we prioritize them based on relevance/importance and upvotes. To answer your question, we don’t currently address the effects of the interventions on animals. As we mention in the post, most of our work to date has been commissioned. Because of this, the questions we seek to answer and the scope associated with those questions are often decided by the client (though we only work with value-aligned clients, in topics we think are relevant and could be impactful). So far, our clients haven’t wanted us to assess the effect of potential interventions on animals, and we haven’t done so. If we encountered prospective clients interested in this topic, or if RP was interested in conducting internal research on this topic, this is something that would likely fall under the new Worldview Investigations Team, since because of their mission and expertise they are better positioned to tackle this question. I encourage you to stay tuned to their future research and invite you to join our newsletter in case WIT publishes topics of interest to you! Thank you for your interest and for sharing your estimates.
How do you select projects and how are you funded?
We work a lot with Open Philanthropy. We believe in their mission and see a clear path to impact through them. We are value aligned, and are usually also aligned in terms of topics of interest/topics we think could be impactful to look into. We have a long-term arrangement with them and they commission projects from us. We also work with other clients, usually on a project-basis. For these other clients, the projects have been a mix of either them asking for a specific project, us pitching a specific project, or a combination (e.g. each party shares a list of projects). We decide to move forward with a commissioned project if we think it could be impactful (either because we are aligned with the funder and see the path to impact through their decision-making, because we think the topic is important and it could be impactful to publish research on it, or usually both of those).
Do you do commissioned work or pro-bono work or both? Our team mostly does commissioned work, though we have started doing some internal research which is self-driven but hopes to be helpful for the community. We would like to do more of it, but need more unrestricted funds to do so.
Are you a business or an NGO?
We are an NGO
What would be the (ballpark) cost of a 6-week project?
This depends on the size of the organization commissioning the project, and whether it's a standalone project or we have a longer term contract with them.
Thanks for this discussion. I appreciate the thoughtful engagement even though I haven't had the capacity to follow the full back-and-forth in detail. I wanted to offer a few points from the grantmaker perspective that might be useful.
On the marginal cost-effectiveness question: most of the effective giving organizations we fund are running very lean, and their costs are primarily staffing. So when we think about marginal funding, we're often not thinking about abstract diminishing returns on a smooth curve, we're thinking about specific roles and what they'd unlock. For example, if an org is going from two to four FTE, the additional hires might be an ultra-high-net-worth advisor who opens up a whole new donor segment, or a marketing hire who can meaningfully expand reach. In cases like these, the marginal dollar can be highly cost-effective (sometimes more so than earlier spending) because it's funding a function the org simply couldn't perform before.
We try to do this kind of holistic (and sometimes hire-by-hire) assessment where we can, though we can't do it for every grantee at every funding level.
One further point: the theoretical argument that orgs should already be spending on their highest-priority items first, so marginal funding should by definition go to lower-priority uses, doesn't always hold in practice. Lean orgs often underspend on things like marketing or growth capacity, not because those aren't high-value, but because they're harder to justify from scarce operating budgets, especially when the payoff is uncertain. Additional funding can unlock spending that should have been happening but wasn't.
On average vs. marginal assessment: as I mentioned above, we tend to rely on average cost-effectiveness in our evaluations. I recognize that might be a limitation. In practice, we represent a large share of many grantees' funding, idealistically around 50%, but realistically 70–100% for many newer grantees. When we're that dominant a funder, the distinction between average and marginal matters less. Where we've been a significantly smaller share of an org's funding, we have done more explicit marginal analysis, and we expect to move further in that direction, particularly when we represent a smaller share or when a grantee is requesting a substantial increase in funding. We want to make sure the additional funding makes sense. That said, we believe most organizations in our portfolio are cost-effective enough and able to absorb more funding at this stage, and that filling a 10–50% gap is cost-effective enough that more granular marginal analysis hasn't been a top priority.
On why we're not funding effective giving orgs even more: in many cases, we are increasing grant sizes for successful grantees, and part of our 2026 strategy is actively pushing high-performers to absorb more funding where we see opportunity. But our portfolio spans more than effective giving, we also want to grow in areas like effective careers, where organizations typically have fewer alternative funding sources than EG orgs, which can tap tipping functions and individual donors more readily. We also think of ourselves as providing sustained, long-term support. As we expand and take on more renewable grants, which naturally grow over time with inflation and organizational costs, an increasing share of our budget might go to renewals. Committing to be the sole or near-sole funder for most of these organizations would be irresponsible, both for our portfolio flexibility and for their long-term resilience.
Thanks for the question!
You're right that we often cap our funding at a share of an organization's budget, and that this is a deliberate choice aimed at encouraging funding diversification and long-term sustainability. That said, if we're funding an organization, even below its full budget, you can assume we believe they are above our bar at their full projected budget. We use their full projected expenses when estimating the giving multiplier, so a partial grant from us is not a signal that we think the marginal dollar is low-value.
We have a policy of not publishing our individual grantee assessments. However, we've discussed specific grantees with interested donors many times and are always happy to do so. If you know people who are considering donating to effective giving organizations and would find it helpful to hear our perspective, please don't hesitate to connect them with us!
Thanks for your question pete!
The non-renewable default comes from a couple of things:
(1) we see these RFP grants as more experimental and hits-based than our standard portfolio. We're casting a wider net to find promising new efforts, and by nature not all of them will work out.
(2) we don't want to tie up most of our budget in renewal commitments, since that would limit our flexibility to respond to new opportunities.
That said, this isn't a hard rule. For organizations with a solid track record that we can see fitting really well into our portfolio on an ongoing basis, we'd definitely consider making renewable grants. And for orgs we seed through this RFP that end up doing well, we'd likely consider bringing them into our portfolio on a more ongoing basis further down the line.
Hi Ezra,
Thanks for your question! As a first pass, your assumption is correct in that, since our 1x benchmark is against GW charities (and charities of similar expected cost-effectiveness), an adjusted ROI of 6x is in expectation ~60x cash. That being said, we think the real number is likely lower than that, which is why we hold our EG grantees to a bar of at least 2x (and higher for more established efforts). Specifically, we think a 2x multiplier bar seems justified because (i) "meta" funding opportunities that are more distant from impact seem more likely to overestimate cost-effectiveness by failing to adequately account for additional efforts required by other actors to achieve impact, and (ii) intuitively, we aren't excited about supporting opportunities that could spend an additional $1 to generate only slightly more than that for high impact charities, even after a counterfactual adjustment. Supporting these opportunities would mean small errors in our calculations could result in negative impact, and risks falling into a meta-trap.
Thanks Ozzie and Nick!
I agree that there will likely be some benefits beyond the grant period (which is 1-2 years depending on the grant). Those will especially be felt in cases in which the grant helped seed an org that might not get started or might get started many years later otherwise. That wasn't the case for many of the grants though, in general we're providing ops support for 1-2 y for an existing org.
Even though I made most of these grants non-renewable, in our core effective giving portfolio we're a stable funder for most organizations, which means that I'll reassess them every 2y or so to determine if we should renew funding, and at what level. We then use every grant period to look at (adjusted) money moved and how that compares to the orgs costs. This is a simplified view and I think we'll need to adjust it in some cases, e.g. now that a lot of the organizations are forming partnerships with GWWC, some of the wins they land in a given grant period through pledges will be seen for many years, so we should consider that, but avoid double counting in future periods.
Ozzie, to your point of expecting the area to be able to absorb more money, I think that's true. We did discuss with some orgs if it was worth them scaling further, but most are being cautious and want to hit certain milestones/make sure they're on a sustainable growth path before doing so, which I appreciate. The two ways in which I currently imagine the ecosystem could absorb more funds is: (1) by seeding new efforts (there are still many gaps, so I'm excited to see other orgs get started), (2) by scaling existing efforts if some marketing strategy really pays off and/or if they tap into a new segment and need more, or dedicated, staff (e.g. for national chapters that start doing more (U)HNW advising). I should also state that the amount of funding that we're able to provide for the ecosystem will vary depending on the year, considering my program's budget and other grants on the table (both funding tied to existing grantees, and other potential opportunities).
Thanks for asking Devon!
On the margin, our commissioned reports cost ~$7,000-$30,000 depending on the scope (this particular report being on the lower end of that spectrum). That being said, we don't take in every commissioned work that comes our way and only have the capacity to take on a few projects at this price because: (1) we have longer term agreements with a couple of organizations for which we do a lot of work, (2) we want our team to have the capacity to pursue independent projects we think are promising.
That being said, you're always welcome to reach out if there are specific projects you are interested in. We always welcome new ideas and look forward to connecting with new individuals/organizations :)
Thanks for your comment Ariel. We haven’t attempted to assess the value of different population ethics views, or how those would affect the (cost-)effectiveness of FEM’s work. We believe that that is a highly complex topic that would take more time than the short period we had to conduct this research. Work on this would benefit from the Worldview Investigations Team at Rethink Priorities, which could explore family planning topics in the future. I'm sorry we neglected to add that to the editorial note and disclaimer. I will edit it to reflect this.
Hi Vasco, I apologize for the delayed response. Because of capacity constraints, we can’t always address all comments, so we prioritize them based on relevance/importance and upvotes. To answer your question, we don’t currently address the effects of the interventions on animals. As we mention in the post, most of our work to date has been commissioned. Because of this, the questions we seek to answer and the scope associated with those questions are often decided by the client (though we only work with value-aligned clients, in topics we think are relevant and could be impactful). So far, our clients haven’t wanted us to assess the effect of potential interventions on animals, and we haven’t done so. If we encountered prospective clients interested in this topic, or if RP was interested in conducting internal research on this topic, this is something that would likely fall under the new Worldview Investigations Team, since because of their mission and expertise they are better positioned to tackle this question. I encourage you to stay tuned to their future research and invite you to join our newsletter in case WIT publishes topics of interest to you! Thank you for your interest and for sharing your estimates.
Hi Carl, thank you!
How do you select projects and how are you funded?
We work a lot with Open Philanthropy. We believe in their mission and see a clear path to impact through them. We are value aligned, and are usually also aligned in terms of topics of interest/topics we think could be impactful to look into. We have a long-term arrangement with them and they commission projects from us. We also work with other clients, usually on a project-basis. For these other clients, the projects have been a mix of either them asking for a specific project, us pitching a specific project, or a combination (e.g. each party shares a list of projects). We decide to move forward with a commissioned project if we think it could be impactful (either because we are aligned with the funder and see the path to impact through their decision-making, because we think the topic is important and it could be impactful to publish research on it, or usually both of those).
Do you do commissioned work or pro-bono work or both?
Our team mostly does commissioned work, though we have started doing some internal research which is self-driven but hopes to be helpful for the community. We would like to do more of it, but need more unrestricted funds to do so.
Are you a business or an NGO?
We are an NGO
What would be the (ballpark) cost of a 6-week project?
This depends on the size of the organization commissioning the project, and whether it's a standalone project or we have a longer term contract with them.