Some things I noticed while LARPing as a grantmaker

In a detailed post on LessWrong titled 'Some things I noticed while LARPing as a grantmaker,' researcher Zach Stein-Perlman provides a quantitative framework for maximizing philanthropic impact. The central argument flips traditional grantmaking on its head: instead of meticulously discriminating between applications that hover around a minimum acceptable return (the 'bar'), the greatest value is generated by proactively seeking or creating opportunities that are orders of magnitude better. Stein-Perlman uses a clear mathematical example: causing a $1 million donation to go to a project that is 10x your bar (instead of a 1x project) creates $9 million in surplus value. In contrast, causing a $1 million donation to shift between a 1.5x and a 0.5x project only creates $500,000 in value—making the proactive approach 18 times more effective.

This shifts the ideal grantmaker's role from evaluator to entrepreneurial researcher and networker. The post advises focusing on 'buckets' where 'nobody's on the ball and amazing opportunities get dropped,' emphasizing that most great ideas come from one's network, not solitary brainstorming. It also delves into critical practical challenges, warning of 'adverse selection' and the 'winner's curse'—where the fact that others passed on a project is a negative signal. The solution involves consulting other experts while accepting some risk of being 'mugged by the world' to avoid missing transformative opportunities. Ultimately, Stein-Perlman frames grantmaking as high-stakes prioritization research, where resolving key uncertainties (e.g., spending $1M now to inform a future $10M decision) can be one of the highest-return activities.