Thanks for mentioning that the EA Meta Fund might be interested in funding things like this (“A project experimenting with novel fundraising strategies or target groups”).
The question of whether having external funding would have helped seems complicated.
I think that there was a lot more valuable work that we could have done to make this initiative an even greater success, but I don’t think that having external funding would have caused me or Avi to do more of this work. Firstly because we were capable of funding ourselves, but primarily (at least for me personally) because the challenge I was facing was how I could find the time/energy to do extra work on this project while maintaining my standing at my day job, which seemed important so I could continue working there in the future.
Due to a lack of foresight I had taken a 19-day vacation (Oct 19 - Nov 6) to Europe to attend EA Global London and then do some more traveling, which meant that I couldn’t take any more time off from my job later in November upon my return without potentially significantly affecting my standing at my company. This meant that I just had nights and weekends to do work for Giving Tuesday.
I considered that I ought to have taken the extra time off from my job anyway despite this cost, but at the time this seemed too extreme a measure given that I didn’t have any plans for what I would do come December/January had things taken a turn for the worse at my job due to my absence.
As I’m writing this now, it actually seems like I definitely should have taken more time off so I could do more work for Giving Tuesday despite the consequences of that for my day job. But my bias is to be risk-averse and not do things that seem to crazy or extreme, so it’s not surprising to me that I didn’t do this.
Perhaps external funding would have been a benefit in that it would have provided social approval for me taking more time off from my day job to work on the project. My employer probably also would have been more understanding of me doing this if I had external funding from a reputable organization to signal that what I was taking time off to do was valuable.
Actually, now that I think about it, I don’t even know for sure how my employer would have reacted to me e.g. taking the entire month of November off since I didn’t ask. I think it’s likely that I would have been let go, but I could easily be wrong, especially if I took the time to explain why I wanted to take the time off and why I wanted to come back afterward.
Thanks for the suggestion. I already had EA Grants in mind as an option, but it’s interesting to know that the EA Meta Fund lists a fundraising project as an example. As William noted, we were more time constrained rather than funding constrained this year. However, I’ll keep this in mind as an option for future years if our circumstances change, or if we can come up with effective ways to convert funding into time.
One other complication with applying for a grant is that we wont know whether there’s a worthwhile opportunity until a month or so in advance. After that, if there is a worthwhile opportunity, then we’d need to start working immediately. So we’d probably need to apply for a grant early and, if a worthwhile opportunity doesn’t materialize, then we’d need to (a) use the grant to work on something else or (b) return it.
Super impressive! If you’re looking to increase investment for next year, you could apply for funding from the EA Meta Fund
Thanks for mentioning that the EA Meta Fund might be interested in funding things like this (“A project experimenting with novel fundraising strategies or target groups”).
The question of whether having external funding would have helped seems complicated.
I think that there was a lot more valuable work that we could have done to make this initiative an even greater success, but I don’t think that having external funding would have caused me or Avi to do more of this work. Firstly because we were capable of funding ourselves, but primarily (at least for me personally) because the challenge I was facing was how I could find the time/energy to do extra work on this project while maintaining my standing at my day job, which seemed important so I could continue working there in the future.
Due to a lack of foresight I had taken a 19-day vacation (Oct 19 - Nov 6) to Europe to attend EA Global London and then do some more traveling, which meant that I couldn’t take any more time off from my job later in November upon my return without potentially significantly affecting my standing at my company. This meant that I just had nights and weekends to do work for Giving Tuesday.
I considered that I ought to have taken the extra time off from my job anyway despite this cost, but at the time this seemed too extreme a measure given that I didn’t have any plans for what I would do come December/January had things taken a turn for the worse at my job due to my absence.
As I’m writing this now, it actually seems like I definitely should have taken more time off so I could do more work for Giving Tuesday despite the consequences of that for my day job. But my bias is to be risk-averse and not do things that seem to crazy or extreme, so it’s not surprising to me that I didn’t do this.
Perhaps external funding would have been a benefit in that it would have provided social approval for me taking more time off from my day job to work on the project. My employer probably also would have been more understanding of me doing this if I had external funding from a reputable organization to signal that what I was taking time off to do was valuable.
Actually, now that I think about it, I don’t even know for sure how my employer would have reacted to me e.g. taking the entire month of November off since I didn’t ask. I think it’s likely that I would have been let go, but I could easily be wrong, especially if I took the time to explain why I wanted to take the time off and why I wanted to come back afterward.
Thanks for the suggestion. I already had EA Grants in mind as an option, but it’s interesting to know that the EA Meta Fund lists a fundraising project as an example. As William noted, we were more time constrained rather than funding constrained this year. However, I’ll keep this in mind as an option for future years if our circumstances change, or if we can come up with effective ways to convert funding into time.
One other complication with applying for a grant is that we wont know whether there’s a worthwhile opportunity until a month or so in advance. After that, if there is a worthwhile opportunity, then we’d need to start working immediately. So we’d probably need to apply for a grant early and, if a worthwhile opportunity doesn’t materialize, then we’d need to (a) use the grant to work on something else or (b) return it.