This is an online portal with information on donations that were announced publicly (or have been shared with permission) that were of interest to Vipul Naik. The git repository with the code for this portal, as well as all the underlying data, is available on GitHub. All payment amounts are in current United States dollars (USD). The repository of donations is being seeded with an initial collation by Issa Rice as well as continued contributions from him (see his commits and the contract work page listing all financially compensated contributions to the site) but all responsibility for errors and inaccuracies belongs to Vipul Naik. Current data is preliminary and has not been completely vetted and normalized; if sharing a link to this site or any page on this site, please include the caveat that the data is preliminary (if you want to share without including caveats, please check with Vipul Naik). We expect to have completed the first round of development by the end of July 2024. See the about page for more details. Also of interest: pageview data on analytics.vipulnaik.com, tutorial in README, request for feedback to EA Forum.
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Affiliated organizations (current or former; restricted to potential donees or others relevant to donation decisions) | GiveWell Good Ventures |
| Best overview URL | https://causeprioritization.org/Open%20Philanthropy%20Project |
| Facebook username | openphilanthropy |
| Website | https://www.openphilanthropy.org/ |
| Donations URL | https://www.openphilanthropy.org/giving/grants |
| Twitter username | open_phil |
| PredictionBook username | OpenPhilUnofficial |
| Page on philosophy informing donations | https://www.openphilanthropy.org/about/vision-and-values |
| Grant application process page | https://www.openphilanthropy.org/giving/guide-for-grant-seekers |
| Regularity with which donor updates donations data | continuous updates |
| Regularity with which Donations List Website updates donations data (after donor update) | continuous updates |
| Lag with which donor updates donations data | months |
| Lag with which Donations List Website updates donations data (after donor update) | days |
| Data entry method on Donations List Website | Manual (no scripts used) |
| Org Watch page | https://orgwatch.issarice.com/?organization=Open+Philanthropy |
Brief history: Open Philanthropy (Open Phil for short) spun off from GiveWell, starting as GiveWell Labs in 2011, beginning to make strong progress in 2013, and formally separating from GiveWell as the "Open Philanthropy Project" in June 2017. In 2020, it started going by "Open Philanthropy" dropping the "Project" word.
Brief notes on broad donor philosophy and major focus areas: Open Philanthropy is focused on openness in two ways: open to ideas about cause selection, and open in explaining what they are doing. It has endorsed "hits-based giving" and is working on areas of AI risk, biosecurity and pandemic preparedness, and other global catastrophic risks, criminal justice reform (United States), animal welfare, and some other areas.
Notes on grant decision logistics: See https://www.openphilanthropy.org/blog/our-grantmaking-so-far-approach-and-process for the general grantmaking process and https://www.openphilanthropy.org/blog/questions-we-ask-ourselves-making-grant for more questions that grant investigators are encouraged to consider. Every grant has a grant investigator that we call the influencer here on Donations List Website; for focus areas that have Program Officers, the grant investigator is usually the Program Officer. The grant investigator has been included in grants published since around July 2017. Grants usually need approval from an executive; however, some grant investigators have leeway to make "discretionary grants" where the approval process is short-circuited; see https://www.openphilanthropy.org/giving/grants/discretionary-grants for more. Note that the term "discretionary grant" means something different for them compared to government agencies, see https://www.facebook.com/vipulnaik.r/posts/10213483361534364 for more.
Notes on grant publication logistics: Every publicly disclosed grant has a writeup published at the time of public disclosure, but the writeups vary significantly in length. Grant writeups are usually written by somebody other than the grant investigator, but approved by the grant investigator as well as the grantee. Grants have three dates associated with them: an internal grant decision date (that is not publicly revealed but is used in some statistics on total grant amounts decided by year), a grant date (which we call donation date; this is the date of the formal grant commitment, which is the published grant date), and a grant announcement date (which we call donation announcement date; the date the grant is announced to the mailing list and the grant page made publicly visible). Lags are a few months between decision and grant, and a few months between grant and announcement, due to time spent with grant writeup approval.
Notes on grant financing: See https://www.openphilanthropy.org/giving/guide-for-grant-seekers or https://www.openphilanthropy.org/about/who-we-are for more information. Grants generally come from the Open Philanthropy Fund, a donor-advised fund managed by the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, with most of its money coming from Good Ventures. Some grants are made directly by Good Ventures, and political grants may be made by the Open Philanthropy Action Fund. At least one grant https://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/us-policy/criminal-justice-reform/working-families-party-prosecutor-reforms-new-york was made by Cari Tuna personally. The majority of grants are financed by the Open Philanthropy Project Fund; however, the source of financing of a grant is not always explicitly specified, so it cannot be confidently assumed that a grant with no explicit listed financing is financed through the Open Philanthropy Project Fund; see the comment https://www.openphilanthropy.org/blog/october-2017-open-thread?page=2#comment-462 for more information. Funding for multi-year grants is usually disbursed annually, and the amounts are often equal across years, but not always. The fact that a grant is multi-year, or the distribution of the grant amount across years, are not always explicitly stated on the grant page; see https://www.openphilanthropy.org/blog/october-2017-open-thread?page=2#comment-462 for more information. Some grants to universities are labeled "gifts" but this is a donee classification, based on different levels of bureaucratic overhead and funder control between grants and gifts; see https://www.openphilanthropy.org/blog/october-2017-open-thread?page=2#comment-462 for more information.
Miscellaneous notes: Most GiveWell-recommended grants made by Good Ventures and listed in the Open Philanthropy database are not listed on Donations List Website as being under Open Philanthropy. Specifically, GiveWell Incubation Grants are not included (these are listed at https://donations.vipulnaik.com/donor.php?donor=GiveWell+Incubation+Grants with donor GiveWell Incubation Grants), and grants made by Good Ventures to GiveWell top and standout charities are also not included (these are listed at https://donations.vipulnaik.com/donor.php?donor=Good+Ventures%2FGiveWell+top+and+standout+charities with donor Good Ventures/GiveWell top and standout charities). Grants to support GiveWell operations are not included here; they can be found at https://donations.vipulnaik.com/donor.php?donor=Good+Ventures%2FGiveWell+support with donor "Good Ventures/GiveWell support".The investment https://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/us-policy/farm-animal-welfare/impossible-foods in Impossible Foods is not included because it does not fit our criteria for a donation, and also because no amount was included. All other grants publicly disclosed by open philanthropy that are not GiveWell Incubation Grants or GiveWell top and standout charity grants should be included. Grants disclosed by grantees but not yet disclosed by Open Philanthropy are not included; some of them may be listed at https://issarice.com/open-philanthropy-project-non-grant-funding
Full donor page for donor Open Philanthropy
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Country | |
| Wikipedia page | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_Popular_Democracy |
Full donee page for donee Center for Popular Democracy
| Item | Value |
|---|
| Cause area | Count | Median | Mean | Minimum | 10th percentile | 20th percentile | 30th percentile | 40th percentile | 50th percentile | 60th percentile | 70th percentile | 80th percentile | 90th percentile | Maximum |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 7 | 750,000 | 806,286 | 100,000 | 100,000 | 465,000 | 600,000 | 600,000 | 750,000 | 1,100,000 | 1,100,000 | 1,200,000 | 1,429,000 | 1,429,000 |
| Macroeconomic stabilization policy | 7 | 750,000 | 806,286 | 100,000 | 100,000 | 465,000 | 600,000 | 600,000 | 750,000 | 1,100,000 | 1,100,000 | 1,200,000 | 1,429,000 | 1,429,000 |
If you hover over a cell for a given cause area and year, you will get a tooltip with the number of donees and the number of donations.
Note: Cause area classification used here may not match that used by donor for all cases.
| Cause area | Number of donations | Total | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2015 | 2014 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Macroeconomic stabilization policy (filter this donor) | 7 | 5,644,000.00 | 465,000.00 | 600,000.00 | 1,200,000.00 | 1,100,000.00 | 2,179,000.00 | 100,000.00 |
| Total | 7 | 5,644,000.00 | 465,000.00 | 600,000.00 | 1,200,000.00 | 1,100,000.00 | 2,179,000.00 | 100,000.00 |
Graph of spending by cause area and year (incremental, not cumulative)
Graph of spending by cause area and year (cumulative)
| Title (URL linked) | Publication date | Author | Publisher | Affected donors | Affected donees | Affected influencers | Document scope | Cause area | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Suggestions for individual donors from Open Philanthropy Project staff | 2015-12-23 | Holden Karnofsky | Open Philanthropy | Chloe Cockburn Lewis Bollard Alexander Berger Nick Beckstead Howie Lempel | Alliance for Safety and Justice Bronx Freedom Fund The Humane League The Humane Society of the United States Center for Global Development Center for Popular Democracy Ploughshares Fund | Donation suggestion list | Criminal justice reform|Animal welfare|Global health | Open Philanthropy Project staff describe suggestions for best donation opportunities for individual donors in their specific areas. The post was originally published to the GiveWell blog. |
Graph of all donations (with known year of donation), showing the timeframe of donations
| Amount (current USD) | Amount rank (out of 7) | Donation date | Cause area | URL | Influencer | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 465,000.00 | 6 | Macroeconomic stabilization policy | https://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/us-policy/macroeconomic-policy/center-popular-democracy-fed-up-campaign-2020 | Alexander Berger | Intended use of funds (category): Direct project expenses Intended use of funds: Grant "to support the “Fed Up” campaign. The campaign aims to encourage more accommodative monetary policies and greater transparency and public engagement in the governance of the Federal Reserve. Fed Up plans to use this funding to build up grassroots support for policies that prioritize full employment during and following the current economic crisis." Donor reason for selecting the donee: The grant page does not discuss reasons, but a reasonable inference based on the information on the page as well as the previous grant page https://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/us-policy/macroeconomic-policy/center-popular-democracy-fed-up-campaign-2019 is that the recession caused by the COVID-19 pandemic motivated the grant. A goal of the Fed Up campaign is to make the Fed care more about unemployment, and the COVID-19-induced recession is a time when this concern becomes particularly salient. Donor reason for donating at this time (rather than earlier or later): This is not a renewal grant; the time period for the preceding two-year grant https://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/us-policy/macroeconomic-policy/center-popular-democracy-fed-up-campaign-2019 (2019-11) is still ongoing. Based on the grant description, the timing of this grant seems to be due to the COVID-19-induced economic recession; the grant is made about three months after the COVID-19-induced decline in economic activity. Other notes: Affected countries: United States. |
|
| 600,000.00 | 5 | Macroeconomic stabilization policy | https://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/us-policy/macroeconomic-policy/center-popular-democracy-fed-up-campaign-2019 | Alexander Berger | Intended use of funds (category): Direct project expenses Intended use of funds: Grant "to support the “Fed Up” campaign. The campaign aims to encourage more accommodative monetary policies and greater transparency and public engagement in the governance of the Federal Reserve." Donor reason for selecting the donee: The grant page says: "As labor market conditions have improved, we’ve become less confident about the appropriate short term stance of monetary policy, but we continue to believe it to be worthwhile to support the campaign through the next recession, when its advocacy might be especially useful and when we could better evaluate its impact." Donor reason for donating that amount (rather than a bigger or smaller amount): The amount, this time for two years, is significantly less than the amounts of previous one-year grants in 2016, 2017, and 2018 (over $1 million each). Donor reason for donating at this time (rather than earlier or later): The grant is made after the end of the 2018 grant, but not immediately afterward; it is made in late 2019. The reasons for the gap in timing are unclear. Intended funding timeframe in months: 24 Donor thoughts on making further donations to the donee: The grant page notes that the next recession would be an occasion to better evaluate the impact of the Fed Up campaign. Donor retrospective of the donation: The followup grant https://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/us-policy/macroeconomic-policy/center-popular-democracy-fed-up-campaign-2020 (2020-06) is made in light of the recession induced by the COVID-19 pandemic. Other notes: Unlike the two preceding grants to CPD, this grant is not accompanied by any (publicly announced) grant to CPD Action. Affected countries: United States. |
|
| 1,200,000.00 | 2 | Macroeconomic stabilization policy | https://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/us-policy/macroeconomic-policy/center-popular-democracy-fed-campaign-2018 | Alexander Berger | Intended use of funds (category): Direct project expenses Intended use of funds: Grant "to support the “Fed Up” campaign. The campaign aims to encourage more accommodative monetary policies and greater transparency and public engagement in the governance of the Federal Reserve." Donor reason for selecting the donee: The grant page says: "As labor market conditions have improved, we’ve become less confident about the appropriate short term stance of monetary policy, but we continue to believe it to be worthwhile to support the campaign through the next recession, when its advocacy might be especially useful and when we could better evaluate its impact." Donor reason for donating that amount (rather than a bigger or smaller amount): No specific reasons are given for the amount, but it roughly matches the amounts of the previous years: $1,100,000 for 2017 and $1,429,000 for 2016. Donor reason for donating at this time (rather than earlier or later): The previous grant https://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/us-policy/macroeconomic-policy/center-popular-democracy-fed-campaign-2017 was for the 2017 year, so with the end of the year, funds are needed for 2017's Fed Up campaign. Intended funding timeframe in months: 12 Donor thoughts on making further donations to the donee: The grant page notes that the next recession would be an occasion to better evaluate the impact of the Fed Up campaign. Donor retrospective of the donation: Followup grants include https://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/us-policy/macroeconomic-policy/center-popular-democracy-fed-up-campaign-2019 (2019-11) and https://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/us-policy/macroeconomic-policy/center-popular-democracy-fed-up-campaign-2020 (2020-06). The latter grant is made in light of the recession induced by the COVID-19 pandemic. Other notes: An associated grant https://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/us-policy/macroeconomic-policy/center-popular-democracy-action-fund-fed-campaign-2018 is made to the CPD Action Fund by the Open Philanthropy Action Fund. Affected countries: United States; announced: 2018-03-23. |
|
| 1,100,000.00 | 3 | Macroeconomic stabilization policy | https://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/us-policy/macroeconomic-policy/center-popular-democracy-fed-campaign-2017 | Alexander Berger | Donation process: This renewal grant for CPD's Fed Up campaign is based on a review of the campaign's performance so far as well as changes to the political and economic environment. Intended use of funds (category): Direct project expenses Intended use of funds: Grant "to support the “Fed Up” campaign. The campaign aims to encourage more accommodative monetary policies and greater transparency and public engagement in the governance of the Federal Reserve, and specifically in the selection of regional Federal Reserve Bank presidents and leaders. [...] CPD expects to use this funding toward campaign expenses such as salaries, travel, sub-grants, and overhead." Donor reason for selecting the donee: The grant page says: "We decided to renew our support based primarily on CPD’s continued success drawing attention for its agenda from the press, Congress, and the Fed; ongoing opportunities to potentially influence the appointment or priorities of new Federal Reserve governors and regional Fed presidents; and our intention to provide the campaign with enough sustainable funding to last through the next recession, when CPD’s advocacy might be especially useful and when we could better evaluate its performance. [...] However, our primary reason for continuing to support the campaign is that we believe it may be able to potentially prevent extraordinary harm during the next recession, when we think it will be more likely to have a meaningful short-term influence (as compared to the current gradual tightening cycle)." Donor reason for donating that amount (rather than a bigger or smaller amount): No specific reasons are given for the amount; it is less than the $1,429,000 given the previous year. Donor reason for donating at this time (rather than earlier or later): The previous grant https://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/us-policy/macroeconomic-policy/center-popular-democracy-fed-campaign-2016 was for the 2016 year, so with the end of the year, funds are needed for 2017's Fed Up campaign. Intended funding timeframe in months: 12 Donor retrospective of the donation: A followup grant https://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/us-policy/macroeconomic-policy/center-popular-democracy-fed-campaign-2018 suggests continued satisfaction with the grantee, though it notes: "As labor market conditions have improved, we’ve become less confident about the appropriate short term stance of monetary policy." There are further followup grants in 2019 and 2020. Other notes: The grant page says: "Since our last grant, one new area of uncertainty introduced for the campaign is the degree to which the Trump administration and a unified Republican Congress might support policies that reduce the need for expansionary monetary policy. Additionally, as unemployment rates have declined, we have become less confident in the appropriate short-term stance of monetary policy, and could imagine disagreeing with the Fed Up campaign about the appropriate direction for interest rates to move." An associated grant https://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/us-policy/macroeconomic-policy/center-popular-democracy-action-fund-fed-campaign-2017 is made to the CPD Action Fund by the Open Philanthropy Action Fund. Affected countries: United States; announced: 2017-12-28. |
|
| 1,429,000.00 | 1 | Macroeconomic stabilization policy | https://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/us-policy/macroeconomic-policy/center-popular-democracy-fed-campaign-2016 | Alexander Berger | Donation process: The grant page says: "We monitored the campaign throughout 2015 and had conversations with Ady Barkan of CPD about the campaign’s plans and progress. We followed the media surrounding Fed Up and its interactions with policymakers. Karl Smith, who worked with us in 2015 as a consultant, attended the Jackson Hole Symposium and reviewed some of the campaign’s 2015 activities with us." Elsewhere, it says: "The initial 2016 budget given to us by Fed Up was for $4 million, but we also requested budgets for $2 million and $3 million" Intended use of funds (category): Direct project expenses Intended use of funds: Grant supports about half the cost of the Fed Up campaign for 2016. https://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/us-policy/macroeconomic-policy/center-popular-democracy-fed-campaign-2016#Budget_and_proposed_activities says: "We expect Fed Up would spend a $3 million budget approximately as follows: $1.5 million regranted to local partners, $650,000 for national staff, $250,000 to national partners, $600,000 for other costs, including events, polling, lobbying, and overhead." Donor reason for selecting the donee: https://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/us-policy/macroeconomic-policy/center-popular-democracy-fed-campaign-2016#Case_for_this_grant describes reasons for the grant, centered mostly around the Federal Reserve's heavy focus on reducing inflation in the inflation-unemployment tradeoff, and the desire to shift to having it care more about unemployment. It also talks about the benefits of increasing transparency and accountability in the regional Federal Reserve Banks, one of the other areas the Fed Up campaign focuses on. Donor reason for donating that amount (rather than a bigger or smaller amount): The amount is about half of the planned $3 million budget for the campaign in 2016. https://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/us-policy/macroeconomic-policy/center-popular-democracy-fed-campaign-2016#Budget_and_proposed_activities says: "The initial 2016 budget given to us by Fed Up was for $4 million, but we also requested budgets for $2 million and $3 million. Each of these budgets would be a substantial increase from 2015. [...] After discussion with CPD, we don’t believe the support from these funders is likely to dramatically increase in the near future." Donor reason for donating at this time (rather than earlier or later): The previous grant https://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/us-policy/macroeconomic-policy/center-popular-democracy-fed-campaign-2015 was for the 2015 year, so with the end of the year, funds are needed for 2016's Fed Up campaign. Intended funding timeframe in months: 12 Donor thoughts on making further donations to the donee: https://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/us-policy/macroeconomic-policy/center-popular-democracy-fed-campaign-2016#Plans_for_learning_and_follow-up lists follow-up questions, and says: "When the next recession occurs, we plan to attempt a more holistic and detailed evaluation of the grant’s performance. We may check the transcripts of 2016 FOMC meetings after they are released in 2022 to see whether any of the FOMC members discuss meetings with workers that inform their perspectives on policy." Donor retrospective of the donation: Followup conversations with Ady Barkan and Shawn Sebastian of grantee organization at https://www.openphilanthropy.org/sites/default/files/Fed_Up_07-14-16_and_08_31_16_and_09_02_16_%28public%29.pdf on 2016-07-14, 2016-08-31, and 2016-09-02. A followup grant https://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/us-policy/macroeconomic-policy/center-popular-democracy-fed-campaign-2017 (2017) and further grants in later years suggest continued satisfaction with the grantee, though these followup grant writeups reflect more reservations as a result of further improvements in labor market conditions. Other notes: Conversation with Ady Barkman of grantee organization around the time of the grant allocation at https://www.openphilanthropy.org/sites/default/files/Ady_Barkan_12-8-15_%28public%29.pdf on 2015-12-08. Affected countries: United States; announced: 2016-04-06. |
|
| 750,000.00 | 4 | Macroeconomic stabilization policy | https://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/us-policy/macroeconomic-policy/center-popular-democracy-fed-campaign-2015 | Alexander Berger | Donation process: https://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/us-policy/macroeconomic-policy/center-popular-democracy-fed-campaign-2015#Our_process refers to the previous grant https://www.openphilanthropy.org/giving/grants/center-popular-democracy-federal-reserve-campaign that helped the Fed Up campaign get started. It says: "Prior to deciding about this grant, we had a number of further conversations with Ady Barkan of CPD about the campaign’s plans, followed the initial progress of the campaign in drawing press attention, and looked more deeply into research on monetary policy." https://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/us-policy/macroeconomic-policy/center-popular-democracy-fed-campaign-2015#Process_for_forming_and_vetting_views_on_monetary_policy includes some of the influences in Open Phil's formation of views on monetary policy. Intended use of funds (category): Direct project expenses Intended use of funds: Grant for the "campaign (“Fed Up”) that aims to prevent premature tightening of monetary policy and encourage greater transparency and public engagement in the governance of the Federal Reserve." It supports 75% of the campaign's 1-year $1 million budget. Donor reason for selecting the donee: https://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/us-policy/macroeconomic-policy/center-popular-democracy-fed-campaign-2015#Case_for_this_grant gives three parts to the case for the grant: (1) "A slim probability of moving monetary policy in a marginally more dovish (i.e., lower unemployment, higher inflation) direction." (2) "A reasonable chance of achieving some of the campaign’s procedural goals, including raising the level of transparency around how regional Fed presidents and board member are selected." (3) "Enabling CPD to experiment with an advocacy campaign in this area, potentially laying the groundwork for future advocacy efforts in the area, and testing our hypothesis that advocacy around macroeconomic policy is a promising and relatively neglected philanthropic area." The first consideration dominates the decision to make the grant. Donor reason for donating that amount (rather than a bigger or smaller amount): The grant page says: "We anticipate that this grant will make up roughly 75% of the campaign’s overall funding for the year." https://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/us-policy/macroeconomic-policy/center-popular-democracy-fed-campaign-2015#Room_for_more_funding_and_fungibility says: "The initial budget we saw projected expenses of around $1.5 million, and we decided to contribute roughly half that amount. [...] We take the fact that the budget was revised downward [to $1 million] after our commitment to support the notion that CPD wouldn’t be able to find the amount of funding that we’ve contributed from other sources, and that accordingly our contribution is largely non-fungible. Donor reason for donating at this time (rather than earlier or later): The timing seems largely determined by the initial seed funding grant https://www.openphilanthropy.org/giving/grants/center-popular-democracy-federal-reserve-campaign running out and the need to finance the continuation of the campaign. Intended funding timeframe in months: 12 Donor thoughts on making further donations to the donee: https://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/us-policy/macroeconomic-policy/center-popular-democracy-fed-campaign-2015#Plans_for_learning_and_follow-up lists follow-up questions and says: "Towards the end of the duration of the grant, we plan to attempt a more holistic and detailed evaluation of the grant’s performance, aiming to answer the questions above. As mentioned above, we may check the transcripts of 2015 FOMC meetings after they are released in 2021 to see whether any of the FOMC members discuss meetings with workers that inform their perspectives on policy." Donor retrospective of the donation: Continued funding by Open Phil of the Fed Up campaign in the later years, starting with https://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/us-policy/macroeconomic-policy/center-popular-democracy-fed-campaign-2016 (2015-12) suggests continued satisfaction with the grantee. Other notes: The grant page says: "Unlike much of our other output, the complexity of the debates in this area has made it impractical for other GiveWell staff to construct and check a complete trail of evidence and counterarguments for each claim in this review." It also lists https://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/us-policy/macroeconomic-policy/center-popular-democracy-fed-campaign-2015#Process_for_forming_and_vetting_views_on_monetary_policy lists the following economists whose blogs influenced Open Phil's initial impressions on the issue: Paul Krugman, Brad DeLong, Tim Duy, Scott Sumner, and Tyler Cowen. Affected countries: United States; announced: 2015-02-27. |
|
| 100,000.00 | 7 | Macroeconomic stabilization policy | https://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/us-policy/macroeconomic-policy/center-popular-democracy-federal-reserve-campaign | Alexander Berger | Donation process: Grantee submitted a proposal at https://files.givewell.org/files/labs/macroeconomic-policy/CPD%20Federal%20Reserve%20Campaign%20Paper%20v2.pdf for the Fed Up Campaign, and Open Philanthropy reviewed it and ultimately decided to provide funds to help kickstart the campaign. Intended use of funds (category): Direct project expenses Intended use of funds: Grant "to launch a campaign to educate the public about monetary policy and encourage the Federal Reserve to give more attention to the full employment portion of its mandate." The campaign would later become known as the Fed Up campaign. The stated rimary goals of the campaign are: (1) Ensure that monetary policy contributes to sustained growth and prosperity. (2) Engage Fed officials in a discussion of the meaning of its “dual mandate.” (3) Ensure that the American public is properly represented on the Boards of Directors of the regional Feds. Donor reason for selecting the donee: The grant page gives reasons for supporting a shift toward focus on unemployment, also called a "dovish" stance compared to the "hawkish" stance of caring primarily about inflation. It gives two reasons: (a) this stance is better suited to the state of the economy, and (b) current advocacy influencing the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) is significantly hawkish since it comes mostly from corporations and the financial industry. The grant page also is more in favor of the third primary goal of more representation of the American public: "there seems to be a strong procedural presumption in favor of a more credible, transparent selection process for regional Federal Reserve Bank board members and, in turn, presidents." The grant is also viewed as a learning grant for Open Philanthropy's exploration of macroeconomic stabilization policy. Donor reason for donating that amount (rather than a bigger or smaller amount): The grant amount seems to have been chosen on the low end ($100,000) and the grant page says "We’re unusually uncertain about this grant" suggesting that this uncertainty was a reason for not making a larger upfront commitment to the campaign. Donor reason for donating at this time (rather than earlier or later): The timing seems to have been determined by a mix of the grantee shopping the grant proposal around and Open Phil becoming interested in grantmaking in the macroeconomic stabilization policy space. Donor thoughts on making further donations to the donee: The grant page says: "we’re planning to investigate the considerations above in more depth in the coming months (conditional on retaining macroeconomic policy as a high-priority cause) to reach a decision about whether to contribute a more significant portion of the campaign’s overall budget." Donor retrospective of the donation: A followup conversation https://files.givewell.org/files/conversations/Brian%20Kettenring%2010-16-14%20(public).pdf is published with Brian Kettenring of the grantee organization. Open Phil ultimately decides to fund the Fed Up Campaign at a much larger level starting 2015 with https://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/us-policy/macroeconomic-policy/center-popular-democracy-fed-campaign-2015 (2015-01, $750,000) and writes at https://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/us-policy/macroeconomic-policy/center-popular-democracy-fed-campaign-2015#Campaign_progress_to_date about the campaign progress. Open Phil continues with this funding for several years. Other notes: The grant was made and the grant page published before the launch of the Open Philanthropy website, and was originally written on the GiveWell website. It includes extensive discussion of the grant and links to several sources that informed the thinking behind the grant. Affected countries: United States; announced: 2014-09-25. |