My boring answer would be to see details on our website. In terms of submission style, we say:
We recommend that applicants take about 1–2 hours to write their applications. This does not include the time spent developing the plan and strategy for the project – we recommend thinking about those carefully prior to applying.
Please keep your answers brief and ensure the total length of your responses does not exceed 10,000 characters. We recommend a total length of 2,000–5,000 characters.
We recommend focusing on the substantive arguments in favour of your project rather than polishing your submission.
We recommend honestly communicating the strengths and weaknesses of your project rather than trying to “sell” your proposal.
You can find details on the scope of grants that EAIF will consider funding for here (although this is subject to change—details here).
For non-obvious mistakes, some examples that come to mind are:
Unclear theory of change—I think good applications often have a clear sense of what they’re trying to acheive, and how they plan to acheive it. This may seem relatively obvious, but I think still often goes underestimated. Put another way: it’s very rare for me to think “this applicant has thought about their path to impact too much”
Providing too little information—whilst we do recommend that applicants don’t take too long to write applications, it can be hard to make well evidenced decisions without having much information to go on. For projects that are clearly great / terrible this is less of an issue, but projects close to the bar do benefit from some (at least basic) info.
Providing too much (irrelevant) information—On the flip side, a large amount of (irrelevant) information can distract from the core case for the project. E.g. if an applicant does not have track record in an area they’re looking to move towards, I much prefer that they directly state this rather than include highly irrelevant info to fill the page.
Not providing any references—We often reach out to references, who can give a more detailed opinion on the applicant and/or their project plan. Without any 3rd party to contact, it can be difficult to verify claims made in an application.
Optimising for p(receive grant) rather than Impact—this is a tricky one, since people apply for projects which they believe are highly impactful, and an obvious instrumental goal to that happening is to get funding. But ultimately, it’s worth being upfront and honest about weakenesses, since ultimately our common goal is to do the most good, and perusasion / deception undermine that (even if this increases p(receive grant))
Intepreting rejection (or success) too strongly- The grant appplication process (like job applications) is extremely noisy, in which a single decision gives limited evidence about an application. Of course, this advise goes both ways—it is not literally 0 evidence, and some projects shouldn’t be funded—but I do worry if people over-update on a rejection from EAIF, especially when they are pretty close to the bar
I thought it might be helpful for me to add my own thoughts, as a fund manger at EAIF (Note I’m speaking in a personal capacity, not on behalf of EA Funds or EV).
Firstly, I’d like to apologise for my role in these mistakes. I was the Primary Investigator (PI) for Igor’s application, and thus I share some responsibility here. Specifically as the PI, I should have (a) evaluated the application sooner, (b) reached a final recommendation sooner, and (c) been more responsive to communications after making a decision
I did not make an initial decision until November 20. This was too short a timeframe to provide Igor a final decision by November 24.
I did not reach a final recommendation until November 30th. This was due to the final recommendation we made being somewhat more complex than the original proposal.[1]
In February, I did not provide with a full response for Igor’s request for an update on his application.
Second, I’d like to apologise to any other applicants to EAIF who have faced similar unreasonably long delays. Whilst we get back to the most applicatants on a reasonable timeframe (see other comments), there are a few cases I am well aware of where we deadlines have been missed for too long. I’m aware of a couple of instances where this has caused significant stress—again, I would like to express my deepest regret for this.
As broader context, I think it’s worth emphasising that EAIF is highly under-resourced at the moment. It’s fairly common for orgs to say they’re “capacity constrained”—but I think this is more true for EAIF in the last ~3 months than any other period:
In summer 2023, EAIF had five part-time fund managers. With OP’s distancing from EAIF, we dropped down the three. In late 2023, we then dropped to just myself (part-time), and Caleb as acting EAIF chair.
Given these changes, I would be suprised if EAIF has run on more than ~0.25 FTE over the past three months.
As such, it has been a challenge for EAIF to fulfil all of it’s key responsibilites—as well as developoing a coherent strategy and fundraising given constraints.
We are now recruiting / onboarding new fund managers, so this pressure should be alleviated soon.
I’m happy to go into details as to the details about changes we proposed and why, although I don’t think they are especially relevant to this situation