The problem with impact markets is that: a) Most of the work funded won’t be counterfactual. b) There isn’t much of an incentive if people aren’t certain that good work actually will be funded.
Three solutions: a) Reducing the scope of the impact market (ie. only grads of a particular fellowship) b) Maybe a funder could just offer additional funding to top performing grantees to use however they wish. c) For projects with high EV, allow generous retrospective funding (ie. funding for large amounts of work completed before the application)?
a) seems pretty reasonable, though at some point it devolves into a prize. There’s nothing wrong with scoped prizes; but another hope I have for impact markets is to eventually develop a grand unified system for assessing and awarding impact across all EA (and, other!) cause areas. (Perhaps, the way that the global economy is one grand unified market where dollars can flow anywhere)
b) is also reasonable and what I think cG is doing more of at the moment—giving huge amounts to orgs like Resolution and Redwood, some to do whatever they want with. I think this gets at many of the benefits of impact markets, though ideally early funders would also get repaid.
c) is also very reasonable! We haven’t historically done really large retro funding (here’s a small example), but if someone with money was excited to try to do this, we would be excited to help! (Manifund does not have a lot of discretionary money to spend, fwiw; we’re mostly a platform for donors and projects to meet.)
The problem with impact markets is that:
a) Most of the work funded won’t be counterfactual.
b) There isn’t much of an incentive if people aren’t certain that good work actually will be funded.
Three solutions:
a) Reducing the scope of the impact market (ie. only grads of a particular fellowship)
b) Maybe a funder could just offer additional funding to top performing grantees to use however they wish.
c) For projects with high EV, allow generous retrospective funding (ie. funding for large amounts of work completed before the application)?
Have you considered any of these options?
Out of your solutions:
a) seems pretty reasonable, though at some point it devolves into a prize. There’s nothing wrong with scoped prizes; but another hope I have for impact markets is to eventually develop a grand unified system for assessing and awarding impact across all EA (and, other!) cause areas. (Perhaps, the way that the global economy is one grand unified market where dollars can flow anywhere)
b) is also reasonable and what I think cG is doing more of at the moment—giving huge amounts to orgs like Resolution and Redwood, some to do whatever they want with. I think this gets at many of the benefits of impact markets, though ideally early funders would also get repaid.
c) is also very reasonable! We haven’t historically done really large retro funding (here’s a small example), but if someone with money was excited to try to do this, we would be excited to help! (Manifund does not have a lot of discretionary money to spend, fwiw; we’re mostly a platform for donors and projects to meet.)
The perfect is the enemy of the good. I suspect making this idea with requires compromise.