Episode Details
Back to Episodes“When you donate can matter more than where” by Carol N, Austin
Description
And why our 2023 regrant to Timaeus was goated
We think the for-profit funding ecosystem has some cool properties. Different funders naturally come in at different stages, from angel investors who are good at spotting early opportunities to large funds who might invest in late-stage startups to public market traders. Funders race to back promising projects. And the more they get right, the more they’re rewarded with more money to invest in the future.
It would be great if more of those properties existed in nonprofit funding as well. We think that the flow from “person makes great early donation” → “person has more influence” is too weak. And as opposed to the VC world, where investors compete against each other to invest in something quickly, nonprofit funding is beset by “funder chicken,” in which a funder waits for other funders to fill an opportunity, each trying to preserve their capital. This makes fundraising a slog.
What if donating to nonprofits worked more like investing in companies? Impact markets have been talked about in EA for a while. At Manifund, we dream of bringing impact markets to the AI safety funding ecosystem. And at the very least, we want [...]
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Outline:
(01:28) Timaeus: a case study in charitable ROI
(03:44) Donate early, donate fast
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First published:
July 31st, 2026
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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.