It seems plausible that donations right now could actually cause counterfactual matching
Can you elaborate on what you mean by this?
These matching funds are intended to be counterfactual, and I think they are pretty counterfactual.
If MIRI don’t fundraise to match the SFF matching dollars, the the SFF matching dollars set aside for MIRI is just returned to Jaan.
There’s a more complicated question about how much SFF would have donated to MIRI if MIRI had not requested matching funds. My personal guess is “less, but not a lot less”, for this round (though this will probably be different in future rounds—SFF, as an institution, wants to set up a system that rewards applicants for asking for matching funds, because that allows it to partially defer to the judgement of other funders, and to invest in a stronger more diversified funding ecosystem.)
Also, I think that the negative signal of people being uninterested in supporting MIRI will tend to make SFF less enthusiastic about granting to MIRI in the future, though the size of that effect is unclear.
Yeah, all I meant was that it seems like MIRI is not that close to reaching $1.6 million in donations. If they were going to make $1.6 million anyway, then a marginal donation would not cause SFF to donate more
I work part time for SFF.
Can you elaborate on what you mean by this?
These matching funds are intended to be counterfactual, and I think they are pretty counterfactual.
If MIRI don’t fundraise to match the SFF matching dollars, the the SFF matching dollars set aside for MIRI is just returned to Jaan.
There’s a more complicated question about how much SFF would have donated to MIRI if MIRI had not requested matching funds. My personal guess is “less, but not a lot less”, for this round (though this will probably be different in future rounds—SFF, as an institution, wants to set up a system that rewards applicants for asking for matching funds, because that allows it to partially defer to the judgement of other funders, and to invest in a stronger more diversified funding ecosystem.)
Also, I think that the negative signal of people being uninterested in supporting MIRI will tend to make SFF less enthusiastic about granting to MIRI in the future, though the size of that effect is unclear.
Yeah, all I meant was that it seems like MIRI is not that close to reaching $1.6 million in donations. If they were going to make $1.6 million anyway, then a marginal donation would not cause SFF to donate more
Looks like you cut off a part of the sentence.
Thanks, fixed.