Grant sizes are typically between $5,000 and $200,000, but can be as low as $1,000 and higher than $500,000. EA Funds can make grants to individuals, non-profit organizations, academic institutions, and other entities. You do not need to be based in the US or the UK to apply for a grant. If you are unsure whether you are eligible for a grant, please simply apply.
[...]
Please aim to submit as few applications as possible. E.g., new projects should apply every 2–6 months, established organizations once a year, unless there is a significant reason for submitting multiple applications. Please think ahead about possible further expenses and consider including contingency in your budget.
I think the second of those paragraphs is in line with you suggesting that people should apply for funding for a few steps at once, rather than just for the first step. And I think that’s indeed often the best move.
That said, I’d personally prefer that people still feel that it’s fine to apply for grants of just $1k-5k, if they think that’s the best move if their case. This is because:
That can be the appropriate amount for some projects
Sometimes that just really is all someone needs for something.
Or sometimes they really should start a project with a pilot /​ initial steps that will only cost roughly 1k-5k, and should only get funding for further work after that pilot /​ those initial steps are completed or partially completed.
Small projects are still often fairly impactful
I think that, for approved grants, net positive impact will be positively correlated with grant size, but I’d guess the correlation is moderate rather than strong. Some small projects
It seems important that there’s some mechanism for funding small things, and EA Funds seems like currently one of the best mechanisms for that
There’s also mechanisms like being friends with pretty well off EAs who know your skills and plans well and are willing to donate to your work, but that will miss many people & projects that should get funded
Part of why this seems important is as a stepping stone towards more ambitious work; often a lot of the value of the small projects is giving someone a chance to test & build fit for some kind of work that they could then do more of later. If the initial steps weren’t funded, the whole journey might not happen (so to speak).
Small projects are often not very time-consuming to evaluate
There’s a (I’d say) moderate correlation between grant size applied for and time spent on evaluating the grant. I’d guess we generally move fewer dollars per hour when looking at small grants than at big grants, so small grants are in some sense less efficient as a use of fund managers time, but only moderately so.
(These are just my personal quickly written views, and I acknowledge that many of those statements are quasi-quantitative yet vague and not based on systematically looking at data—hopefully it’s useful anyway.)
Good points. I think I agree that being able to offer grants in between $1k-$5k seems pretty useful. If they get to be a pain, I imagine there will be ways to lessen the marginal costs.
Here are some excerpts from the EAIF application page which might be of interest in this context:
I think the second of those paragraphs is in line with you suggesting that people should apply for funding for a few steps at once, rather than just for the first step. And I think that’s indeed often the best move.
That said, I’d personally prefer that people still feel that it’s fine to apply for grants of just $1k-5k, if they think that’s the best move if their case. This is because:
That can be the appropriate amount for some projects
Sometimes that just really is all someone needs for something.
Or sometimes they really should start a project with a pilot /​ initial steps that will only cost roughly 1k-5k, and should only get funding for further work after that pilot /​ those initial steps are completed or partially completed.
Small projects are still often fairly impactful
I think that, for approved grants, net positive impact will be positively correlated with grant size, but I’d guess the correlation is moderate rather than strong. Some small projects
It seems important that there’s some mechanism for funding small things, and EA Funds seems like currently one of the best mechanisms for that
There’s also mechanisms like being friends with pretty well off EAs who know your skills and plans well and are willing to donate to your work, but that will miss many people & projects that should get funded
Part of why this seems important is as a stepping stone towards more ambitious work; often a lot of the value of the small projects is giving someone a chance to test & build fit for some kind of work that they could then do more of later. If the initial steps weren’t funded, the whole journey might not happen (so to speak).
Small projects are often not very time-consuming to evaluate
There’s a (I’d say) moderate correlation between grant size applied for and time spent on evaluating the grant. I’d guess we generally move fewer dollars per hour when looking at small grants than at big grants, so small grants are in some sense less efficient as a use of fund managers time, but only moderately so.
(These are just my personal quickly written views, and I acknowledge that many of those statements are quasi-quantitative yet vague and not based on systematically looking at data—hopefully it’s useful anyway.)
Good points. I think I agree that being able to offer grants in between $1k-$5k seems pretty useful. If they get to be a pain, I imagine there will be ways to lessen the marginal costs.