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.
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.