Apply to EA Funds now

By Jonas V @ 2020-09-15T19:23 (+56)

The Animal Welfare Fund, the Long-Term Future Fund, and the EA Infrastructure Fund (formerly the EA Meta Fund) are calling for applications. 

If you have a project you think will improve the world, and it seems like a good fit for one of our Funds, we encourage you to apply. Apply here.

Application deadlines:

• Long-Term Future Fund: Friday, September 25th (edit: now extended to Friday, October 2nd at 11:59 pm PST)
• EA Infrastructure Fund: Friday, October 2nd at 11:59 pm PST
• Animal Welfare Fund: Saturday, October 10th at 12:00 pm UTC

We sometimes meet people who did not apply because they thought they would not be funded. Some of them eventually applied and were funded, despite their doubts, because we were excited by their projects. Applying is fast and easy; we really do encourage it!

The application consists of submitting a brief form. In case we have any follow-up questions, we will reach out to you via email or arrange a phone call. The decisions will be communicated by mid-November (or sooner in some cases). If you need to hear back sooner, just let us know.

All of these Funds have rolling applications, with application deadlines every four months (in October, February, and June). Any application received after the deadlines stated above will receive a response around five months later, during the next evaluation period. (The EA Infrastructure Fund and Long-Term Future Fund (but not the Animal Welfare Fund) may make out-of-cycle grants if the timing is urgent, but they are less likely to fund out-of-cycle applications.)

Please note that the minimum grant size at EA Funds has been reduced from $10,000 to $1,000. EA Funds will consider grant amounts up to $250,000, though we generally prefer to make smaller grants (this threshold previously was $100,000 with rare exceptions). EA Funds can make grants to individuals, non-profit organizations, academic institutions, and other entities in most countries.

If you have any questions about the application process or other questions related to the Funds, feel free to submit them in the comments. You can also reach out to:

• Jonas Vollmer (jonas.vollmer@centreforeffectivealtruism.org) for general questions about EA Funds,
• Kieran Greig (kieran@farmedanimalfunders.org) for questions about the Animal Welfare Fund,
• Oliver Habryka (ealongtermfuture@gmail.com) for questions about the Long-Term Future Fund, and
• Denise Melchin (denisemelchin@gmail.com) for questions about the EA Infrastructure Fund.

Animal Welfare Fund

The Animal Welfare Fund aims to effectively improve the well-being of nonhuman animals, by making grants that focus on one or more of the following:

• Relatively neglected geographic regions or groups of animals
• Promising research into animal advocacy or animal well-being
• Activities that could make it easier to help animals in the future
• Otherwise best-in-class opportunities

For more information about the Fund’s focus, see its request for proposal for this round and past grants.

Apply to the Animal Welfare Fund

Long-Term Future Fund

The Long-Term Future Fund aims to positively influence the long-term trajectory of civilization by making grants that address global catastrophic risks, especially potential risks from advanced artificial intelligence and pandemics. In addition, we seek to promote, implement, and advocate for longtermist ideas, and to otherwise increase the likelihood that future generations will flourish.

We continue to be particularly interested in small teams and individuals who are less likely to be funded by existing, larger grantmakers. Some concrete examples of projects we would like to fund:

• Teaching buy-outs, scholarships, and top-up funding for students and PhD candidates in relevant areas to free up more time for research
• Spending a few months (perhaps during the summer) researching an open problem in AI alignment or AI strategy and producing a few blog articles or videos on your ideas
• Doing an unpaid internship relevant to developing a career aimed at improving the long-term future
• Spending a few months building a web app with the potential to solve an operations bottleneck for existential risk organizations
• Spending a few months up-skilling in a field to prepare for future work (e.g., microeconomics, functional programming)
• Spending a year testing an idea that has the potential to be built into an organization
• Working on a larger project or potential new organization with the goal of improving the long-term future

Our previous grant reports may help you decide whether your project is a good fit.

Apply to the Long-Term Future Fund

EA Infrastructure Fund

The EA Infrastructure Fund recommends grants that aim to improve the work of projects that use the principles of effective altruism, by increasing their access to talent, capital, and knowledge. We are interested in applications from organizations and individuals working on new or established projects.

To get a better idea of what kinds of projects we might be interested in funding, you can review our past payout reports.

Note that the projects we have funded so far do not represent an exhaustive list of the types of projects we might be interested in funding. Some other examples of projects we might fund:

• Projects experimenting with novel strategies for talent development and fundraising
• Projects building and supporting profession-specific networks in EA
• Initiatives targeting problems in the EA community
• Research projects related to cause prioritization

Please note that if your project relates to community building for local, regional, or national groups, you should apply to CEA’s Community Building Grants (CBG) programme. However, the EA Infrastructure Fund is still keen to fund projects initiated by local groups which are unrelated to community building. If you are uncertain whether you should apply to the EA Infrastructure Fund or the CBG programme, please contact us.

Apply to the EA Infrastructure Fund

What types of grants can we fund?

For grants to individuals, we are likely able to fund the following types of grants: 

• Events/workshops
• Scholarships
• Self-study
• Research projects
• Content creation
• Product creation (e.g., a tool/resource that can be used by the community)

Applications for for-profit projects (e.g., seed funding for start-ups) may be referred to EA-aligned investors.

We will likely not be able to make the following types of grants: 

• Grantees requesting funding for a list of possible projects
  • In this case, we would fund only a single project of the proposed ones. Feel free to apply with multiple projects, but we will have to confirm a specific project before we issue funding.
• Self-development that is not directly related to community benefit
  • In order to make grants, the public benefit needs to be greater than the private benefit to any individual. So we cannot make grants that focus on helping a single individual in a way that is not directly connected to public benefit.

Please err on the side of applying, as it is likely we will be able to make something work if the fund managers are excited about the project. We look forward to hearing from you.