Will the project "Rethink Priorities (Survey Team)" receive any funding from the Clearer Thinking Regranting program run by ClearerThinking.org?

Remember, betting in this market is not the only way you can have a shot at winning part of the $13,000 in cash prizes! As explained here, you can also win money by sharing information or arguments that change our mind about which projects to fund or how much to fund them. If you have an argument or public information for or against this project, share it as a comment below. If you have private information or information that has the potential to harm anyone, please send it to clearerthinkingregrants@gmail.com instead.

Below, you can find some selected quotes from the public copy of the application. The text beneath each heading was written by the applicant. Alternatively, you can click here to see the entire public portion of their application.

Why the applicant thinks we should fund this project

Actors in the effective altruist and longtermist space face significant uncertainties such as how to frame EA and longtermism to be most effective in convincing key players, policymakers, or new segments of the general public. Rethink Priorities’ Survey Team can help with those questions by conducting timely and accurate polls, surveys and messaging studies. Being able to talk about our movement in a way that is more aware of how the public will perceive it will allow us to better grow and shape the movement going forward, especially in the face of a lot of new media growth.

We face broad strategic questions affecting the movement as a whole (e.g. “What are the implications of associating ‘effective altruism’ and ‘longtermism’?”, or “What are the costs and benefits of developing separate brands such as ‘global priorities research’?”) that we don’t have good answers to yet. Our research will help with that. Our work can also reduce significant downside risks for the movement and potentially reduce the risk of negative and unexpected PR backlash.

Here's the mechanism by which the applicant expects their project will achieve positive outcomes.

Our research will help identify which messages, arguments and framings can be expected to perform better or worse, as well as what generally leads to different approaches performing better or worse with specific audiences. EA and longtermist organizations can then optimize their outreach based on these insights. EA and longtermist actors can likewise mitigate the risk of harm to the movement by avoiding messages which might seem reasonable to EAs, but which provoke negative reactions from other groups.

Our work can also identify potential harms to the movement by providing an early warning where EA or longtermism and their associated ideas are perceived negatively (for example, by identifying public misconceptions), allowing decision-makers to take ameliorative action (for example, by working to correct or avoid these misconceptions). 

Our research could also inform decision-makers’ actions regarding concrete initiatives. For example, decision-makers might be reluctant to support an initiative due to concern that it will be seen as ‘weird’ by the public. Yet empirical research might show that this concern is misplaced (and, conversely, initiatives which decision-makers believed to be innocuous, might be perceived negatively).

To sum up, Rethink Priorities produces insights which help effective altruists better understand how the lay public thinks about EA and longtermism, which helps to better position EA for future growth, potentially reallocating resources, shifting programs, or proposing successful policies.

How much funding are they requesting?

$ 457,950

What would they do with the amount just specified?

We would make sure the current Surveys Team is funded reliably so that they can work on the projects they deem most high-impact rather than only chasing contracts or doing pro bono work for organizations.

We would pay salaries, including all taxes and benefits, for 3 FTE researchers. 

We would spend another $11,200 on directly project-related research supplies, equipment, technology, and travel.

Employing these three staff to work on this project also creates administrative costs (HR, communications, finance, development, etc.), which is necessary to sustain the research and enable the work of the team going forward. However, we understand if your fund cannot cover these operating expenses.

Here you can review the entire public portion of the application (which contains a lot more information about the applicant and their project):

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1a1HJqU20IuM5RHH63MRPfwWfhaYIMxhYxRU4ZzUA0pM

Sep 20, 3:43pm: