My two cents about why people may be concerned about the decision-making process without having concrete details: For instance, the initially advertised decision timeline of 2 weeks. While I appreciate the fast pace and the benefits that come with it, a complex system of review and decision-making is almost impossible to achieve at that timeline, especially given the interest in the program.
Moreover, that deadline was not met for all projects which is both good because clearly more time was needed and also bad because applicants’ expectations were not met and they needed to potentially change their plans for the projects because of the dealy. Additionally, it signals FTX’s poor understanding of either its capacity or the complexity of the grant-making process. Lack of either doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence.
Thanks for the thoughts, Irena! It’s true that there are some proposals that did not receive decisions in 14 days and perhaps we should have communicated more carefully.
That said, I think if you look at the text on the website and compare it with what’s happening, it actually matches pretty closely.
We wrote:
“We aim to arrive at decisions on most proposals within 14 days (though in more complex cases, we might need more time).
If your grant request is under $1 million, we understand it, we like it, and we don’t see potential for major downsides, it’ll probably get approved within a week.
Sometimes, we won’t see an easy path to finding a strong fit, and you’ll get a quick negative decision.
Sometimes we’re just missing a little bit of information, and we’ll need to have a call with you to see if there’s a fit.
Larger grants and grants that affect whole communities require more attention, and will have a customized process.
We try to avoid processes that take months and leave grantees unclear on when they’re going to reach a decision.”
It’s true that we made decisions on the vast majority of proposals on roughly this timeline, and then some of the more complicated / expensive proposals took more time (and got indications from us about when they were supposed to hear back next).
We try to avoid processes that take months and leave grantees unclear on when they’re going to reach a decision.”
It’s true that we made decisions on the vast majority of proposals on roughly this timeline, and then some of the more complicated / expensive proposals took more time (and got indications from us about when they were supposed to hear back next).
The indication I got said that FTX would reach out “within two weeks”, which meant by April 20. I haven’t heard back since, though. I reached out eight days ago to ensure that my application or relevant e-mails haven’t been lost, but I haven’t received an answer. :(
(I get that this is probably not on purpose, and that grant decisions take as long as they need to, but if I see an explicit policy of “we are going to reach out even if we haven’t made a decision yet” then I’m left wondering if something has broken down somewhere and about what to do. It seems a good choice to try to reach out myself… and comment under this thread to provide a data point.)
My two cents about why people may be concerned about the decision-making process without having concrete details:
For instance, the initially advertised decision timeline of 2 weeks. While I appreciate the fast pace and the benefits that come with it, a complex system of review and decision-making is almost impossible to achieve at that timeline, especially given the interest in the program.
Moreover, that deadline was not met for all projects which is both good because clearly more time was needed and also bad because applicants’ expectations were not met and they needed to potentially change their plans for the projects because of the dealy. Additionally, it signals FTX’s poor understanding of either its capacity or the complexity of the grant-making process. Lack of either doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence.
Thanks for the thoughts, Irena! It’s true that there are some proposals that did not receive decisions in 14 days and perhaps we should have communicated more carefully.
That said, I think if you look at the text on the website and compare it with what’s happening, it actually matches pretty closely.
We wrote:
“We aim to arrive at decisions on most proposals within 14 days (though in more complex cases, we might need more time).
If your grant request is under $1 million, we understand it, we like it, and we don’t see potential for major downsides, it’ll probably get approved within a week.
Sometimes, we won’t see an easy path to finding a strong fit, and you’ll get a quick negative decision.
Sometimes we’re just missing a little bit of information, and we’ll need to have a call with you to see if there’s a fit.
Larger grants and grants that affect whole communities require more attention, and will have a customized process.
We try to avoid processes that take months and leave grantees unclear on when they’re going to reach a decision.”
It’s true that we made decisions on the vast majority of proposals on roughly this timeline, and then some of the more complicated / expensive proposals took more time (and got indications from us about when they were supposed to hear back next).
The indication I got said that FTX would reach out “within two weeks”, which meant by April 20. I haven’t heard back since, though. I reached out eight days ago to ensure that my application or relevant e-mails haven’t been lost, but I haven’t received an answer. :(
(I get that this is probably not on purpose, and that grant decisions take as long as they need to, but if I see an explicit policy of “we are going to reach out even if we haven’t made a decision yet” then I’m left wondering if something has broken down somewhere and about what to do. It seems a good choice to try to reach out myself… and comment under this thread to provide a data point.)
Hi, thanks for raising this—could you send me a DM so I can try to figure out what’s going on?
I think I have figured out the situation with OP (and have responded to them), but if anyone else is in a similar situation, please DM me!
I confirm that this resolved. Thanks for the e-mail response!
I’ve heard this story from two of my friends as well, both of who received answers a few weeks after they proactively reached out