EA - Launching the meta charity funding circle (MCF): Apply for funding or join as a donor! by Joey

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Launching the meta charity funding circle (MCF): Apply for funding or join as a donor!, published by Joey on July 26, 2023 on The Effective Altruism Forum.SummaryWe are launching the Meta Charity Funders, a growing network of donors sharing knowledge and discussing funding opportunities in the EA meta space. Apply for funding by August 27th or join the circle as a donor. See below or visit our website to learn more!If you are doing EA-aligned "meta" work, and have not received substantial funding for several years, you might be worried about funding. Over the past 10 years, Open Philanthropy and EA Funds comprised a large percent of total meta funding and are far from independent of each other. This lack of diversity means 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 are launching the Meta Charity Funders, a growing 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. Well known examples of meta organizations include charity evaluators like GiveWell, incubators like Charity Entrepreneurship, cause prioritization research organizations like Rethink Priorities, or field-building projects promoting effective giving or impactful careers.Grantees: Apply to many HNW donors at once - 1st round closes August 27.We are open to funding meta work across a range of causes, organizational stages, strategies, etc. We are most interested in applications that have not already been substantially supported by similar actors such as EA Funds or Open Philanthropy, though we will still consider these. We expect most of our grants to range from $10,000 to $500,000 and consider grants to both individuals and organizations. We expect our first round to be between $500,000 and $1.5m of total funding.Please lean in favor of applying if you are unsure if you would be a good fit!Donors: Join us! Find neglected opportunities, get help with ops and vetting, and give on your own terms.People who are unable to commit to regular meetings are still encouraged to apply and may be invited to our Slack and email list and gain access to our grant opportunities database.Meta Charity Funding Circle is a project of Charity Entrepreneurship and Impactful Grantmaking. It is organized by this post's authors: Gage Weston, Vilhelm Skoglund, and Joey Savoie. Our members are anonymous.Thanks for listening. To help us out with The Nonlinear Library or to learn more, please visit nonlinear.org