Buying laptops or providing travel funding for promising individuals
I think some donors may just have gotten lucky. But I do think there’s a small number of donors (maybe 10-30% of those who attempt?) who managed to ‘beat’ the broader funding ecosystem.
I spent two minutes making a list of projects that grantmakers donors funded that large funders (e.g. EA Funds) deliberately didn’t fund. The list ended up being roughly twice as long as the above one (8 orgs + some smaller things).
Off the top of my head, I’m aware of some donors supporting the following organizations a few months before large funders did:
Global Challenges Project (formerly Student Career Team)
Rethink Priorities’ longtermist and meta teams
maybe Czech EA
maybe AI Impacts
Buying laptops or providing travel funding for promising individuals
I think some donors may just have gotten lucky. But I do think there’s a small number of donors (maybe 10-30% of those who attempt?) who managed to ‘beat’ the broader funding ecosystem.
I spent two minutes making a list of projects that grantmakers donors funded that large funders (e.g. EA Funds) deliberately didn’t fund. The list ended up being roughly twice as long as the above one (8 orgs + some smaller things).