The numbers that I am confused about are in the high 5 figures and low 6 figures, about an order of magnitude bigger than $10,000. I don’t think assuming a salary of $30/hour helps me understand or explain these numbers. I brought up volunteering vs. paid work in the OP, and I think this was probably misleading—sorry about that.
However, on that point:
I agree that we don’t want EA groups to only be run by the financially privileged. But this concern needs to be balanced against the fact that EA in general, and EA university group organizing in particular (probably) already selects for high SES people, and there may be better ways of making participation in EA accessible to everyone. There is already some level of SES barrier for college students maneuvering themselves into a position to start receiving funding for this work, so you are already getting a filtered sample by the time the money starts flowing. This is a difficult problem to solve, but I hope people are conscientious of it.
Thanks for sharing your experience. I’m sure I would have also felt shame and guilt if I were in your situation, though obviously this is not what we want to happen!
My general feeling about situations like this is that there are some grants that are better off not being shared publicly, if the context allows for it (this depends on many complex social factors). Wealthy people spend money on all kinds of outlandish things all over the world yet receive comparably little opprobrium simply because this spending is rarely public. It’s unfair for you to be exposed to the vitriol from regular people expressing their frustration with inequality.
I’m reluctant to say too much about your particular circumstance (given I don’t have context, and this is quite a personal thing), but I think if it were me, I might look for ways to tactfully omit discussion of the grant when first getting to know non-EAs socially. Not because it *is* shameful but just because it may unconsciously make some people uncomfortable. If it does come up, I think there is a way to “check your privilege” while also expressing confidence that you did nothing wrong. I’ve found in my experience, ironically, if I express contrition about something, people are more likely to actually think I did something shameful. Whereas if I sound confident, they tend to have a positive impression of me. These aren’t necessarily bad people, that’s just how humanity is.
While socializing with EAs is wonderful, I agree that it is better to have a diverse social circle including non EAs too!