Thanks for this, Ollie, it has been very helpful for me. If itâs ok, I have a tenuously related question about helping with grant making in a way that is perhaps a little different from the norm.
I have been thinking about exploring grant making as a potential skill area of comparative advantage. A friend suggested I consider it because of my tendency to be well networked and to generate ideas for collaborations, projects and operational improvements etc.
I donât think I would be a good conventional grant maker who reviews submitted grants and then makes a decision on how much funding they should get. For instance, I donât trust my judgement or attention to detail in assessing complex grant applications or doing due diligence.
However, I think that I could potentially be a good âgrant opportunity scout/âlead generatorâ. For instance, I think I could help to solve coordination problems by finding and connecting good people, ideas and grant assessors to create a critical mass that can be funded.
I see some value in doing such a role. I know a lot of people who would make EA aligned career changes (e.g., founding something) if given commitments, then access, to appropriate connections and advance commitments of funding. I also believe (very weakly) that most EA funders would like more applications for high value large-scale funding opportunities where coordination/âcoincidence of wants issues are a particularly major blocker.
Iâd like to know what you think about all this. Specifically, does or should anything like this sort of grant related work exist in EA or elsewhere? If so, how could someone trial doing it? Anyone I should talk to?
Feel free to direct me to ask 80k or someone/âsomewhere if you donât feel that you have enough time or motivation to answerâI understand that the question is a bit tangential!
Both of my recommendations are more people-oriented than you might be thinking (it sounds like you think you might be good at coming up with grant ideas and with connecting people to grants, and I am focusing on the latter), but hereâs what you reminded me of
Holly Morgan, who does a lot of informal connecting-EAs-to-other-EAs. Might be interesting to chat with her?
Recommending grants to the organisations like the Future Fund? They did this last week, but it looks like itâs closed now.
Offering people career advice?
Doing all of this without permission? What youâre describing isnât necessarily a role, I donât think. I think great leaders, researchers, policy analysts etc. can add value to their field by paying attention to what should get funded and who should start new organisations.
All of the above seems like a good way to trial this :) Sorry, Iâm not sure who else to talk to.
Edit: I accidentally hit send and then had to edit
Thanks for this, Ollie, it has been very helpful for me. If itâs ok, I have a tenuously related question about helping with grant making in a way that is perhaps a little different from the norm.
I have been thinking about exploring grant making as a potential skill area of comparative advantage. A friend suggested I consider it because of my tendency to be well networked and to generate ideas for collaborations, projects and operational improvements etc.
I donât think I would be a good conventional grant maker who reviews submitted grants and then makes a decision on how much funding they should get. For instance, I donât trust my judgement or attention to detail in assessing complex grant applications or doing due diligence.
However, I think that I could potentially be a good âgrant opportunity scout/âlead generatorâ. For instance, I think I could help to solve coordination problems by finding and connecting good people, ideas and grant assessors to create a critical mass that can be funded.
I see some value in doing such a role. I know a lot of people who would make EA aligned career changes (e.g., founding something) if given commitments, then access, to appropriate connections and advance commitments of funding. I also believe (very weakly) that most EA funders would like more applications for high value large-scale funding opportunities where coordination/âcoincidence of wants issues are a particularly major blocker.
Iâd like to know what you think about all this. Specifically, does or should anything like this sort of grant related work exist in EA or elsewhere? If so, how could someone trial doing it? Anyone I should talk to?
Feel free to direct me to ask 80k or someone/âsomewhere if you donât feel that you have enough time or motivation to answerâI understand that the question is a bit tangential!
Both of my recommendations are more people-oriented than you might be thinking (it sounds like you think you might be good at coming up with grant ideas and with connecting people to grants, and I am focusing on the latter), but hereâs what you reminded me of
Holly Morgan, who does a lot of informal connecting-EAs-to-other-EAs. Might be interesting to chat with her?
The Nonlinear Recruitment Agency, which has closed its applications for a founder, but might be worth keeping an eye out for
Thanks, Miranda! These are good suggestions!
You could try:
Recommending grants to the organisations like the Future Fund? They did this last week, but it looks like itâs closed now.
Offering people career advice?
Doing all of this without permission? What youâre describing isnât necessarily a role, I donât think. I think great leaders, researchers, policy analysts etc. can add value to their field by paying attention to what should get funded and who should start new organisations.
All of the above seems like a good way to trial this :) Sorry, Iâm not sure who else to talk to.
Edit: I accidentally hit send and then had to edit
Thanks, Ollie, thatâs helpful.