Detailed Review of Meta Charity Funders Second Round Retrospective

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: Meta Charity Funders: Second round retrospective, published by Joey on June 19, 2024 on The Effective Altruism Forum.
Previously:
Launching the meta charity funding circle (MCF),
Summary of Our First Grant Round and Path Forward,
Launching the 2nd round
Meta Charity Funders (MCF) is a funding circle that aims to fund charitable projects working one level removed from direct impact.
We think this post will be relevant for people who want to apply to MCF in the future and people who want to better understand the EA Meta funding landscape. The post is written by the MCF organisers (all authors of this post). Some of our members might not agree with everything said.
Summary
We received 109 applications and ultimately funded 11 projects: "AI Assurance Tech Report", an anonymous AI safety field-building initiative, an anonymous effective giving organization, an anonymous UHNWI initiative, EA Indonesia, EA New Zealand, EA Philippines, EA UK, Founders Pledge, Giving Multiplier, and High Impact Athletes. In total, our members granted $2,043,176 in this round, which is a significant step up from the $686,580 that was given in the last round.
The next grant round will open in late August 2024, and we will welcome similar applications as in the last round. We are especially excited about initiatives targeting ultra-high-net-worth-individuals and are excited to fund such initiatives. However, we want to stress that we believe the skillset to do this well is rare.
Information for the next round
The next round will open in late August, with grants given out in late November.
The application form will remain open but don't expect your application to be processed before September.
If you want to join Meta Charity Funders as a donor, please fill in
this form. Note that the minimum expected annual donation is $100,000. However, there is no obligation to donate if you don't think the opportunities presented are good enough, and during your first year, you are free to observe. If you have any questions, please contact us at metacharityfunders@gmail.com.
Check out our
website to learn more about Meta Charity Funders and stay up-to-date with the new funding round.
How to increase your chances of success when applying
First, read
Summary of Our First Grant Round and Path Forward.
We generally felt that the applications this round were of higher quality than the last round, and we believe this was partly due to the information we shared in the last grant round. Fewer initiatives were desk rejected, and we had a larger pool of grants that we considered during the meetings.
We still want to strongly encourage all applicants to spend time on their
Theories of Change as this is where you set out your path to impact. The clearer you make the connection between us providing you funding and you making a positive impact on the world, the more likely you are to get funded.
Grants we made
Below we will provide a summary of the projects we ended up funding as stated by the applicants themselves, the extent to which we have chosen to fund them, their request, and our reasoning. Note that all funding decisions are made by individual members, and therefore do not necessarily reflect the priorities of the funding circle in its entirety.
General comments:
On local EA Orgs: Due to a re-focus from CEA, it has recently become difficult for smaller EA organizations to get funded. As such, some funders have chosen to cover the budgets of some local EA orgs.
On anonymity: Some organizations we have funded have chosen to remain anonymous. While we prefer to disclose what we fund openly, we made exceptions in these cases, since we agreed that it would be better all things considered.
We include the "of $X" to indicate that the grantees might still be looking for additional funds and encourage other funders to reach...