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JaySwartz comments on GiveWell and the Centre for Effective Altruism are recruiting - Less Wrong
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As I noted on the 80,000 Hours thread, intermediaries are nearly always an added expense on the distribution side. In this case, distribution of donations. The immediate impact is that fewer donation dollars (or whatever currency) find their way to the target organizations. The exception is if an intermediate organization facilitates a 100% pass-through, due to other funding or altruistic efforts.
The intermediary here is mostly notional. CEA is the only entity with legal existence, but on a practical level nearly all employees are effectively GWWC, 80k employees etc., with the CEA employees mainly being for shared services such as operations. So there isn't really much of overhead or anything.
My understanding is that CEA exists in order to simplify the paperwork of multiple projects. For example, Effective Animal Activism is not its own charity; instead, you donate to CEA and transfer the money to EAA. As bryjnar said, there's not really any overhead in doing this. Using CEA as an umbrella much simpler than trying to get 501(c)(3) status for EAA on its own, which would be painstaking process.
I am disappointed that my realistic and fact based observation generated a down vote.
At the risk of an additional down vote, but in the interest of transparent honest exchange, I am pointing out a verifiable fact, however unsavory it may be interpreted.
If over time the time cost of intermediaries (additional handling and overhead costs) remains below the cost of the steps to eliminate intermediaries (the investment required to establish a 501(c)(3)) then I stand corrected. While an improbable situation, it could well be possible.
As the person who runs the central CEA Ops division, I can promise you that it saves time and money costs, and doesn't impose any significant such costs that I can think of. Registering as a UK charity and a 501(c)3 (and a company that can have employees, interns and an office) has taken a lot of work, and I'm glad that GWWC, 80k, Effective Animal Actisism and The Life You Can Save haven't had to duplicate (or quadruple) that work.
PS: Despite this view, I promise it wasn't me who downvoted you :)
Don't worry too much about solitary downvotes.
Given the costs of regulatory compliance - getting IRS approval of a 501(c)(3) and such - I'm not sure when the relative costs of charitable intermediaries do and don't exceed their benefits.
A good source that backs you up on this is Fiennes's book " It Ain’t What You Give, It’s the Way That You Give It: Making Charitable Donations That Get Results" (which I strongly recommend for anyone interesting in the issues of rational charity giving).