That has never worked before. Incidentally, Ralph Merkle contributed an appendix discussing the endowment and saying something to the effect that rich people will not donate (more than they are already doing so which has kept Alcor afloat these past decades) because they see little return on their donation and that Alcor is not fiscally responsible, but follow his views on not dipping into the endowment and maybe then they will come to trust Alcor more with their money.
What prevents the organization of X number of rich donors, who spend some of their time and money soliciting pledges from other donors for an Alcor endowment, that Alcor only ever sees if it signs a contract to spend the donation on a endowment and nothing else?
Money is fungible. If you distrust Alcor that much, why do you expect Alcor to not, say, immediately cut additional funding to the endowment to a minimum or 0; or run up debts expecting to repay them from the endowment once the period expires—etc. etc. etc. This is a classic principal-agent issue and why people want to signal honesty rather than just signing detailed contracts: there are many ways to cheat or violate the spirit of an agreement.
That has never worked before. Incidentally, Ralph Merkle contributed an appendix discussing the endowment and saying something to the effect that rich people will not donate (more than they are already doing so which has kept Alcor afloat these past decades) because they see little return on their donation and that Alcor is not fiscally responsible, but follow his views on not dipping into the endowment and maybe then they will come to trust Alcor more with their money.
What prevents the organization of X number of rich donors, who spend some of their time and money soliciting pledges from other donors for an Alcor endowment, that Alcor only ever sees if it signs a contract to spend the donation on a endowment and nothing else?
Money is fungible. If you distrust Alcor that much, why do you expect Alcor to not, say, immediately cut additional funding to the endowment to a minimum or 0; or run up debts expecting to repay them from the endowment once the period expires—etc. etc. etc. This is a classic principal-agent issue and why people want to signal honesty rather than just signing detailed contracts: there are many ways to cheat or violate the spirit of an agreement.