We are giving $10k as forecasting micro-grants

[Misha_Yagudin]

(Cross-posted from the Forecasting Newsletter.)

After the apparent success of ACX grants (a), we received $10k from an anonymous donor to give out as micro-grants through Nuño’s Forecasting newsletter.

Some examples of projects we’d be excited to fund might be:

• Open-source software and tooling to automate forecasting. Bonus points if Metaculus users or other forecasters start using it.

• Giving a shot at forecasting or making models of a difficult yet useful and decision-relevant area. Think of Rootclaim (a) analyzing the lab-escape story of Omicron.

• Pieces similar in quality to the ones mentioned in “best pieces on forecasting from 2021 (a)”, in Forecasting Prize Results (a), or in some possible research areas (a).

• Trying to estimate many uncertain parameters, e.g., the quality of all US or UN organizations, quality of academic fields, whether a large list of organizations will fail, enlightened willingness to pay for many products, the accuracy of many public figures, etc.

• Create a microcovid (a) or foodimpacts (a) but for other areas, like micro-marriages, micro-insights, micro-dooms, etc. Do this in a way that easily allows the creation of many of these calculators.

• Improve metaforecast (a) (which is open source (a)) in some interesting way, e.g., improve the estimates of forecast quality.

The application form is HERE (a). Feel free to apply for more than $10k: we don’t anticipate having much difficulty getting more funding for promising applications, and we may refer these to other funders (e.g., the EA Infrastructure Fund (a)) if we can’t.

We will be accepting applications until March 15, though we may extend this period if we don’t receive enough high-quality submissions. We preliminarily plan to make decisions by April the 1st.

Otherwise, Luke Muehlhauser comments (a) that forecasting related projects might be a good fit for the EA Infrastructure Fund (a). Jonas Vollmer, who runs EA Funds, confirms this (a)

For larger projects, the Survival and Flourishing Fund, backed by philanthropists Jaan Tallinn and Jed McCaleb, is organizing the distribution of around $6M-$10M in grants (a) this June, with applications due on Feb 21. They generally only accept applications from registered charities, but speculation grants (a) might be a good fit for smaller projects (40%).

[Peter Wildeford]

Let me know if you or anyone else has ideas about how to scalably get money in the hands of forecasters so they can forecast with adequate compensation and not burn out. I’d also be interested in ideas about what amount and method of compensation would be useful.

I’m also interested in helping fund other forecasting ideas.

I’m on the EA Infrastructure Fund and I can help you apply for your ideas. You can reach me at [e-mail].

[Misha_Yagudin]

Finally, an anonymous benefactor increased the size of this newsletter’s microgrants program (a), so if you have a forecasting or epistemics-related project you’d be keen to implement, consider applying. We recently gave our first $5k grant to Clay Graubard, for work related to his quantified journalism (a) on the Ukraine invasion.

via https://​​forum.effectivealtruism.org/​​posts/​​xpkpXq57mXmLbgkSC/​​forecasting-newsletter-february-2022#Forecasting_Job_Board

[elifland]

They generally only accept applications from registered charities, but speculation grants (a) might be a good fit for smaller projects (40%).

My read is that speculation grants are a way for projects applying to SFF to get funding more quickly, rather than a way for projects that aren’t eligible for SFF to get funding (I believe SFP serves this purpose).

[NunoSempere]

I agree that this is what it says on the page, but I think that for a promising enough project, rules could be twisted.

[Linda Linsefors]

Rethink can help with charity status https://​​rethink.charity/​​fiscal-sponsorship