Meta Charity Funders: What you need to know when applying

By Joey 🔸, Meta Charity Funders @ 2024-08-30T11:31 (+46)

In this post, we include what is most important to know when you apply to Meta Charity Funders. We expect to update this post every round. 

The most common reasons for rejection

By sharing the most common reasons for rejections, we hope to support future grantees and help people make more informed decisions on whether they should apply to Meta Charity Funders. 

• The suggested project is not within scope: A fair amount of applications fall outside of the areas which our donors were interested in supporting. At a high level, Meta Charity Funders exists to fund projects that fall within the “meta” category and are unlikely to be funded by other major funders in this space. See “What we mean by 'meta'” further down.
• The theory of change (ToC) is unclear, unfocused, or seemed implausible: Some applicants do not share sufficient reasoning on how their project (in the end) contributes to a better world. Other applicants have a theory of change which seems too complex or involves too many programs. We generally prefer fewer programs with a more narrow focus, especially for earlier-stage projects. Other ToCs simply seem like an inaccurate representation of how well the intervention would actually work. As a starting point, we recommend Aidan Alexander’s post on ToCs.
• Going too big too early: We hesitate to give large grants (~$150k+) to new projects without much track record. An incremental upscaling is generally preferred to a more sudden upscaling, as something akin to “track record” or “expected upside” divided by “funding ask” is the ratio we’re trying to maximize as funders. The absence of a substantial track record makes it challenging to justify larger funding requests, such as those needed for hiring many additional employees. To be more specific, we are particularly wary of situations where a project seeks to more than double its budget with less than 12 months of demonstrated success. This caution stems from the need to ensure that significant increases in funding are truly warranted and likely to yield proportional benefits.
• Insufficient alternative funding sources: Some grants might seem good if continued but are not funded because they seem unlikely to be able to fundraise enough to sustain their long-term budget. While we are okay with funding a large portion of a project’s budget as a one-off grant, we do not want organizations to depend on us for long-term funding as we are very uncertain about who our donors will be or what grants they will prioritize in the future. This is another reason we prefer not to give out larger grants for newer projects.

What we’re looking for in an application

Some general things we are looking for in an application that we would like to highlight: 

• Strong founders/Track record: We think one of the strongest indicators for future success is the people related to a project and previous achievements. In your application, please explain how and why you/your organization are well suited to run this project. Back up your claims with data to the extent you can; this includes historical data for this project, data for similar projects, or data that attests to the (relevant) skills of the team. If possible, also think through and highlight how your project excels compared to other similar projects.
• Strategic alignment with field needs: Applications should demonstrate an understanding of the ecosystem and articulate a rationale for why their project is necessary at this time. Why this? Why now? Why has no one been doing this before? And is it reasonable that you are applying for X FTEs to do it instead of doing an MVP first? When evaluating an opportunity most funders are thinking about whether this is one of the best opportunities in the meta space, not just if it's positive in expected value. 
• Price tag: Think through the amount of funding you are applying for. As funders, we try to put a price tag on what you intend to deliver. We are looking for the highest impact use of a marginal $; this means that the price tag matters compared to what you will deliver. Conversely, if it seems you significantly underestimate the costs, you likely won’t be able to deliver what you say you will even if you get funded.

Transparency

Individual donors working together

We want to stress that since this is a funding circle and not a grantmaking organization, all members are responsible for their own donations. This means that funding decisions are made personally by individual circle members and do not necessarily reflect the priorities of the funding circle in its entirety. 

Time committed by funders

The funding circle is an activity the funders do on the side of their normal jobs. 

In the week before applications close and the week afterwards, members spend a cumulative ~100 hours doing an initial application review. This means that we don’t have the time to thoroughly review each application in the first stage and we urge applicants to keep this in mind when writing their applications.

Feedback

Unfortunately, we can’t commit to giving individual feedback to any applicants, as i) It is time-consuming and we are already working on a strained time budget. ii) We are not one, but ~10 actors, so any feedback from one actor might not be true for another, which means it's unclear whether the feedback is even true, or provides value for the applicant. Therefore, we resort to including some more general feedback in our retrospective.

What is Meta Charity Funders (MCF)?

Over the past 10 years, Open Philanthropy and EA Funds comprised a large percentage of all meta-funding and are far from independent of each other. This lack of diversity means that potentially effective projects outside their priorities often struggle to stay afloat or scale, and the beliefs of just a few grant-makers can massively shape the EA movement’s trajectory. 

It can be difficult for funders within meta as well. Individual donors often don’t know where to give if they don’t share EA Funds’ approach. Thorough vetting is scarce and expensive, with only a handful of grant-makers deploying tens of millions per year in meta grants, resulting in sub-optimal allocations.  

This is why we launched the Meta Charity Funders, a network of donors sharing knowledge, discussing funding opportunities, and running joint open grant rounds in the EA meta space. We believe many charitable projects create a huge impact by working at one level removed from direct impact to instead enhance the impact of others. Often these projects cut across causes and don’t fit neatly into a box, thus being neglected by funders. 

What we mean by "meta"

Meta organizations are those that operate one step removed from direct impact interventions. These can focus on the infrastructure, evaluation, and strategic guidance necessary for the broader field to maximize effectiveness and impact. They are essential in bridging gaps, identifying high-impact opportunities, and enabling other organizations to achieve or amplify their end-product impact.

Below we will list a couple of illustrative examples. Note that we only chose these examples because we think the organizations are well-known, and thus more likely to give people an understanding of the type of work we want to fund. We are not saying that we intend to fund these organizations.

Clear Passes

• Charity evaluators like GiveWell assess and recommend high-impact charities, ensuring donors can contribute effectively to causes with confidence in their impact.
• Fundraising organizations like Effektiv Spenden spread awareness and increase the funding available in the EA community.
• Field-building organizations like 80,000 hours promote impactful careers, thereby increasing the number of individuals working in high-impact areas.
• Incubators like Ambitious Impact support the creation and development of high-impact charities by providing resources, mentorship, and strategic advice to nascent organizations.
• Cause prioritization research organizations like Rethink Priorities conduct research to identify and prioritize the most pressing causes, guiding resources and efforts towards areas where they can achieve the greatest impact.

Organizations whose primary impact comes from first-order interventions fall out of the scope of the funding circle.

Example proposal 

Below we have a fictional example of what a good proposal could look like for an application sent in to Meta Charity Funders.