Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Should the main text of the write-ups of Open Philanthropy's large grants be longer than 1 paragraph?, published by Vasco Grilo on March 31, 2024 on The Effective Altruism Forum.
On 17 February 2024, the mean length of the main text of the write-ups of Open Philanthropy's largest
grants in each of its 30 focus areas was only 2.50 paragraphs, whereas the mean amount was 14.2 M 2022-$[1]. For 23 of the 30 largest grants, it was just 1 paragraph. The calculations and information about the grants is in
this Sheet.
Should the main text of the write-ups of Open Philanthropy's large grants (e.g. at least 1 M$) be longer than 1 paragraph? I think greater
reasoning transparency would be good, so I would like it if Open Philanthropy had longer write-ups.
In terms of other grantmakers aligned with effective altruism[2]:
Charity Entrepreneurship (
CE) produces an in-depth report for each organisation it incubates (see
CE's research).
Effective Altruism Funds has write-ups of 1 sentence for the vast majority of the
grants of its 4 funds.
Founders Pledge has write-ups of 1 sentence for the vast majority of the
grants of its 4
funds.
Future of Life Institute's
grants have write-ups roughly as long as Open Philanthropy.
Longview Philanthropy's
grants have write-ups roughly as long as Open Philanthropy.
Survival and Flourishing Fund has write-ups of a few words for the vast majority of its
grants.
I encourage all of the above except for CE to have longer write-ups. I focussed on Open Philanthropy in this post given it accounts for the vast majority of the grants aligned with effective altruism. Relatedly, you may want to check
this discussion.
^
Open Philanthropy
has 17 broad focus areas, 9 under global health and wellbeing, 4 under global catastrophic risks (
GCRs), and 4 under other areas. However, its grants are associated with 30 areas.
I define main text as that besides headings, and not including paragraphs of the type:
"Grant investigator: [name]".
"This page was reviewed but not written by the grant investigator. [Organisation] staff also reviewed this page prior to publication".
"This follows our [dates with links to previous grants to the organisation] support, and falls within our focus area of [area]".
"The grant amount was updated in [date(s)]".
"See [organisation's] page on this grant for more details".
"This grant is part of our Regranting Challenge. See the Regranting Challenge website for more details on this grant".
"This is a discretionary grant".
I count lists of bullets as 1 paragraph.
^
The grantmakers are ordered alphabetically.
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