Please note that if your project relates to community building for local, regional, or national groups, you should apply to CEA’s Community Building Grants (CBG) programme.
CEA’s Community Building Grants page currently says applications are closed. When the closing was announced (August 2020), applications were expected to reopen in January. Do you know when applications are now expected to reopen? If it will be a long time and/or if CEA will only fund a narrow set of groups through CBG (which sounds like it may be the case), would the fund managers reconsider accepting applications from groups that don’t have access to CBG?
That’s a great suggestion, thank you. It will take me a few days to figure this out, so I expect to reply in a week or so. (Edited Sat 27 Feb: Still need a bit longer, sorry.)
After looking more into this, we’ve decided not to evaluate applications for Community Building Grants during this grant application cycle. This is because we think CEA has a comparative advantage here due to their existing know-how, and they’re still taking some exceptional or easy-to-evaluate grant applications, so some of the most valuable work will still be funded. It’s currently unclear when CBG applications will reopen, but CEA is thinking carefully about this question and I’ll be coordinating with them.
That said, we’re interested in receiving applications from EA groups that aren’t typical community-building activities – e.g., new experiments, international community-building, spin-offs of local groups, etc. If you’re unsure whether your project qualifies, just send me a brief email.
I’m aware this isn’t the news you and others may have been hoping for, so I personally want to contribute to resolving this gap in the funding ecosystem long-term.
Edit: Huh, some people downvoted. If you have concerns about this comment or decision, please leave a comment or send me a PM.
I didn’t downvote your comment, though I am disappointed you won’t be considering applications this cycle. I hope that if CEA does choose to restrict CBG applications going forward (which seems to be under consideration per Harri) that the EAIF will fill the gap. FWIW I’d like to see EAIF funding this space even if CEA does open up applications, as I’d value diversifying funder perspectives more than any comparative advantage CEA might have.
Hi, sorry for not responding to this comment sooner.
It’s taking us longer than we expected to decide on our plans for reopening applications. For context, some of the options of the programme that we’re considering: 1. Continue to accept applications for funding group organizers from any EA group 2. Only accept new applications from a subset of groups
We will give an update on this by June 1st latest (~2 weeks before the deadline for the next application deadline for EA Infrastructure Fund), and either let people know when they will be able to apply for CBG funding or recommending that they should apply for EAIF funding.
We’re chatting about the above with the EAIF, though it’s ultimately up to them what they choose to accept applications for (so this comment shouldn’t be seen as me speaking on their behalf)
CEA’s Community Building Grants page currently says applications are closed. When the closing was announced (August 2020), applications were expected to reopen in January. Do you know when applications are now expected to reopen? If it will be a long time and/or if CEA will only fund a narrow set of groups through CBG (which sounds like it may be the case), would the fund managers reconsider accepting applications from groups that don’t have access to CBG?
That’s a great suggestion, thank you. It will take me a few days to figure this out, so I expect to reply in a week or so. (Edited Sat 27 Feb: Still need a bit longer, sorry.)
Thanks for investigating Jonas!
After looking more into this, we’ve decided not to evaluate applications for Community Building Grants during this grant application cycle. This is because we think CEA has a comparative advantage here due to their existing know-how, and they’re still taking some exceptional or easy-to-evaluate grant applications, so some of the most valuable work will still be funded. It’s currently unclear when CBG applications will reopen, but CEA is thinking carefully about this question and I’ll be coordinating with them.
That said, we’re interested in receiving applications from EA groups that aren’t typical community-building activities – e.g., new experiments, international community-building, spin-offs of local groups, etc. If you’re unsure whether your project qualifies, just send me a brief email.
I’m aware this isn’t the news you and others may have been hoping for, so I personally want to contribute to resolving this gap in the funding ecosystem long-term.
Edit: Huh, some people downvoted. If you have concerns about this comment or decision, please leave a comment or send me a PM.
I didn’t downvote your comment, though I am disappointed you won’t be considering applications this cycle. I hope that if CEA does choose to restrict CBG applications going forward (which seems to be under consideration per Harri) that the EAIF will fill the gap. FWIW I’d like to see EAIF funding this space even if CEA does open up applications, as I’d value diversifying funder perspectives more than any comparative advantage CEA might have.
Hi, sorry for not responding to this comment sooner.
It’s taking us longer than we expected to decide on our plans for reopening applications. For context, some of the options of the programme that we’re considering:
1. Continue to accept applications for funding group organizers from any EA group
2. Only accept new applications from a subset of groups
We will give an update on this by June 1st latest (~2 weeks before the deadline for the next application deadline for EA Infrastructure Fund), and either let people know when they will be able to apply for CBG funding or recommending that they should apply for EAIF funding.
We’re chatting about the above with the EAIF, though it’s ultimately up to them what they choose to accept applications for (so this comment shouldn’t be seen as me speaking on their behalf)
Thanks for the update Harri. I’d suggest putting this info on the main CBG page so applicants have an up to date picture.
Thanks, we’ve now updated the page.