Good question! Relatedly, are there common characteristics among people/organizations who you think would make promising applicants but often don’t apply? Put another way, who would you encourage to apply who likely hasn’t considered applying?
A common case is people who are just shy to apply for funding. I think a lot of people feel awkward about asking for money. This makes sense in some contexts—asking your friends for cash could have negative consequences! And I think EAs often put additional pressure on themselves: “Am I really the best use of this $X?” But of course as a funder we love to see more applications: it’s our job to give out money, and the more applications we have, the better grants we can make.
Another case is people (wrongly) assuming they’re not good enough. I think a lot of people underestimate their abilities, especially in this community. So I’d encourage people to just apply, even if you don’t think you’ll get it.
Do you feel that someone who had applied, unsuccessfully, and then re-applied for a similar project (but perhaps having gathered more evidence), would be more likely, less likely, or equally likely to get funding than someone submitting an identical application to the second case, but not having been rejected once before, having chosen to not apply?
It feels easy to get into the mindset of “Once I’ve done XYZ, my application will be stronger, so I should do those things before applying”, and if that’s a bad line of reasoning to use (which I suspect it might be), some explicit reassurance might result in more applications.
Another one is that people assume we are inflexible in some way (e.g., constrained by maximum grant sizes or fixed application deadlines), but we can often be very flexible in working around those constraints, and have done that in the past.
Good question! Relatedly, are there common characteristics among people/organizations who you think would make promising applicants but often don’t apply? Put another way, who would you encourage to apply who likely hasn’t considered applying?
A common case is people who are just shy to apply for funding. I think a lot of people feel awkward about asking for money. This makes sense in some contexts—asking your friends for cash could have negative consequences! And I think EAs often put additional pressure on themselves: “Am I really the best use of this $X?” But of course as a funder we love to see more applications: it’s our job to give out money, and the more applications we have, the better grants we can make.
Another case is people (wrongly) assuming they’re not good enough. I think a lot of people underestimate their abilities, especially in this community. So I’d encourage people to just apply, even if you don’t think you’ll get it.
Do you feel that someone who had applied, unsuccessfully, and then re-applied for a similar project (but perhaps having gathered more evidence), would be more likely, less likely, or equally likely to get funding than someone submitting an identical application to the second case, but not having been rejected once before, having chosen to not apply?
It feels easy to get into the mindset of “Once I’ve done XYZ, my application will be stronger, so I should do those things before applying”, and if that’s a bad line of reasoning to use (which I suspect it might be), some explicit reassurance might result in more applications.
I think definitely more or equally likely. :) Please apply!
Another one is that people assume we are inflexible in some way (e.g., constrained by maximum grant sizes or fixed application deadlines), but we can often be very flexible in working around those constraints, and have done that in the past.