Thanks for the feedback! I’ll forward it to our team.
I think I basically agree with you that from reading the RFP page, this project doesn’t seem like a central example of the projects we’re describing (and indeed, many of the projects we do fund through this RFP are more like the examples given on the RFP page).
Some quick reactions:
FWIW, our team generally makes a lot of grants that are <$100k (much more so than other Open Phil teams).
I agree the application would probably take most people longer than the description that Gavin gave on Manifund. That said, I think it’s still relatively lean considering the distribution of projects we fund, though I agree it’s slightly long for projects as small as this one (but I think Gavin could have filled it out in <<2 days). For reference, this is our form.
Regarding turnaround time, my guess is for this project, we would have taken significantly less than 3 months, especially if they had indicated that receiving a decision was time-sensitive. For reference, the form currently says:
We expect to make most funding decisions in 3 months or less (assuming prompt responses to any follow-up questions we may have), and we may or may not be able to accommodate requests for greater time-sensitivity. Applicants asking for over $500K should expect a decision to take the full 3 months (or more, in particularly complex cases), and apply in advance accordingly. We’ll let you know as soon as we can if we anticipate a longer than 3-month decision timeline. [emphasis in original]
For $500k+ projects, I think a 3-month turnaround time is more defensible, though I do personally wish we generally had faster response times.
I’m glad your team is equipped to do small, quick grants—from where I am on the outside, it’s easy to accidentally think of OpenPhil as a single funding monolith, so I’m always grateful for directional updates that help the community understand how to better orient to y’all.
I agree that 3months seems reasonable when 500k+ is at stake! (I think, just skimming the application, I mentally rounded off “3 months or less” to “about 3 months”, as kind of a learned heuristic on how orgs relate to timelines they publish.)
As another data point from the Survival and Flourishing Funds, turnaround (from our application to decision) was about 5 months this year, for an ultimately 90k grant (we were applying for up to 1.2m). I think this year they were unusually slow due to changing over their processes; in past years it’s been closer to 2-3 months.
Our own philosophy at Manifund does emphasize “moving money quickly”, to almost a sacred level. This comes from watching programs like Fast Grants and Future Fund, and also our own lived experience as grantees. For grantees, knowing 1 month sooner that money is coming, often means that one can start hiring and executing 1 month sooner—and the impact of executing even 1 day sooner can sometimes be immense (see: https://www.1daysooner.org/about/ )
Thanks for the feedback! I’ll forward it to our team.
I think I basically agree with you that from reading the RFP page, this project doesn’t seem like a central example of the projects we’re describing (and indeed, many of the projects we do fund through this RFP are more like the examples given on the RFP page).
Some quick reactions:
FWIW, our team generally makes a lot of grants that are <$100k (much more so than other Open Phil teams).
I agree the application would probably take most people longer than the description that Gavin gave on Manifund. That said, I think it’s still relatively lean considering the distribution of projects we fund, though I agree it’s slightly long for projects as small as this one (but I think Gavin could have filled it out in <<2 days). For reference, this is our form.
Regarding turnaround time, my guess is for this project, we would have taken significantly less than 3 months, especially if they had indicated that receiving a decision was time-sensitive. For reference, the form currently says:
For $500k+ projects, I think a 3-month turnaround time is more defensible, though I do personally wish we generally had faster response times.
Thanks for forwarding my thoughts!
I’m glad your team is equipped to do small, quick grants—from where I am on the outside, it’s easy to accidentally think of OpenPhil as a single funding monolith, so I’m always grateful for directional updates that help the community understand how to better orient to y’all.
I agree that 3months seems reasonable when 500k+ is at stake! (I think, just skimming the application, I mentally rounded off “3 months or less” to “about 3 months”, as kind of a learned heuristic on how orgs relate to timelines they publish.)
As another data point from the Survival and Flourishing Funds, turnaround (from our application to decision) was about 5 months this year, for an ultimately 90k grant (we were applying for up to 1.2m). I think this year they were unusually slow due to changing over their processes; in past years it’s been closer to 2-3 months.
Our own philosophy at Manifund does emphasize “moving money quickly”, to almost a sacred level. This comes from watching programs like Fast Grants and Future Fund, and also our own lived experience as grantees. For grantees, knowing 1 month sooner that money is coming, often means that one can start hiring and executing 1 month sooner—and the impact of executing even 1 day sooner can sometimes be immense (see: https://www.1daysooner.org/about/ )