Group Support Funding

Contents

About Group Support Funding

Group Support Funding can cover a group's running expenses or fund a specific group project.

Group Support Funding is not intended to pay for people’s living expenses or time. To find out about other sources of funding for EA groups, including funding for part-time or full-time salaries of group organizers, visit the "Funding for Groups" page of the EA Groups Resource Centre.

There is no specific limit on the amount of money groups can request. Our default amounts that groups can apply for range from 2,500-4,500 USD per year for smaller groups, and 8,000-9,000 USD per year for larger groups.

Update on May 3, 2023:

  1. We've updated our application response and decision times. You can find our current average evaluation and processing time for group support grants here.
  2. Over the period of November 2022 to March 2023, we've made some key changes to our group expenses guidelines. You can read a list of these changes here.

Expenses That Can Be Covered

There are two categories of expenses that we’re willing to fund via group support funding: basic expenses and additional expenses.

Our benchmark location for our cost guidelines is for a group in San Francisco. Please adjust these cost guidelines based on the cost of living in your location. We have recommendations here on how to do this.

Basic Expenses

These include:

  1. EA books
  2. Snacks/drinks for events (up to $6 USD/person/event)
  3. Meals for events (up to $25 USD/person/event) but only for 1-2 meals every semester or every six months by default
  4. Advertising costs such as banners/posters for clubs fairs (~300 USD), and food for clubs fairs and tabling (up to ~200 USD per event)
  5. Venue hire (up to ~200 USD per event)
  6. Certain software and subscriptions

Basic expenses are easier to get funding for compared to those listed in the additional expenses category below.

Additional Expenses
  1. Retreats (by default, we can fund for up to $150 USD/person for a two-night retreat, and only one every semester or every six months per group)
  2. Honorarium and travel expenses for speakers

Retreats fall under additional expenses because we have a higher bar for deciding to give groups funding to organize a retreat, since they are more costly and can be more difficult to organize.

What Can't Be Covered Via Group Support Funding

  1. Group travel grants to EAG/EAGx conferences - CEA's Groups Team used to fund these, but starting November 2022, attendees must now apply for these individually via the EAG/EAGx application form instead. (This allows CEA's Events Team to have visibility on the number of travel grants that a person receives per year.)
  2. Stipends or salaries (e.g. for organizers, or participants of an intro fellowship or program)
  3. Co-working spaces
  4. Housing / living expenses

If you would like to find funding for anything from the list above of what can’t be covered, you can look at our resource on funding options for groups.

More detailed information on what you can spend on is in our group expenses guidelines, which we recommend you view before applying for funding. If there’s an expense you want funding for, but it isn’t in our expense guidelines, you can still include it in your application.

At any point in the funding process, you can contact groups@centreforeffectivealtruism.org with questions about the content of the application, or contact the Effective Ventures Ops Team at grants@ev.org about due diligence or payment.

Two Types of Group Support Funding

  1. Group Support Grants (preferred option). A lump sum to pay for future group expenses for up to 6-12 months.
  2. Rapid Group Funding. For urgent requests for reimbursement or for costs that need to be paid, usually within 3-4 weeks from the application date. We prefer groups to apply for Group Support Grants, but Rapid Group Funding is available with certain conditions.

Group Support Grants

This is our preferred method of funding groups. We think most groups should apply for a Group Support Grant.

  • These grants are intended for groups to receive a sum of money to pay for future group expenses for up to 12 months. In some cases, we may also reimburse expenses already made on a case-to-case basis.

  • We recommend you apply at least five weeks before your group needs the funding. Currently, it takes us on average 15 days to give groups a decision, and 8 days on average for urgent applications. If we approve funding, you will be asked within 2 work days to complete our due diligence form if you haven't completed it within the last 2 years. After this step, you'll receive the grant agreement within 1-2 weeks. After signing the grant agreement, you will usually receive the funds within a week for UK and US groups or 2 weeks for groups in other countries.

  • To read about how to submit a report for your grant, go to this section.

Instructions to Apply for Group Support Grants

Apply for a Group Support Grant

  1. Prepare your application. View the application questions. You may wish to make a copy to share with any co-organizers with whom you are discussing the application. You can also contact groups@centreforeffectivealtruism.org with questions about the content of the application.

  2. Apply via the Effective Ventures Grantee Portal. If you haven't logged in before, click "Self-register here", and make an account. Once you are signed in, you can find the application form by going to "Apply for a Grant" and then "Group Support". Please then fill up the application form. If you would like to save your progress, click "Save my progress and resume later" and then click the "Save" button.

  3. Wait for a decision.

After submitting your application, you will usually receive an email within 7 workdays (or 4 workdays if it's urgent) with either:

  • a request for more info or to have a call with a member of CEA's Groups Team
  • our decision (and the next steps to complete your grant processing if it's approved)

As mentioned earlier, it currently takes us on average 15 days from the application date to give groups a decision. (This already includes if there’s time spent requesting for more info or having a call with the organizer.)

Note: If you don't receive a response in 7 workdays (or 4 workdays for an urgent application), check your spam folder. If it's not there, email groups@centreforeffectivealtruism.org.

  1. Complete due diligence (for provisionally accepted grants when the applicant has not completed due diligence in the last 2 years).

This step is for us to collect the bank account details of where you want to receive the grant, and to fulfill CEA’s legal obligations. It involves the applicant logging in to the grantee portal and filling in a form. The questions can be viewed here.

  1. Sign the grant agreement. Once you've completed due diligence, or if you've already completed it before, you will be sent an email asking you to sign a grant agreement document within 1-2 weeks. If you don't receive a response within 1-2 weeks, check your spam folder. If it's not there, then email grants@ev.org.

  2. Await payment. It will likely take up to 5 working days after you sign the grant agreement to receive your payment, but transfers to some countries can take up to 14 working days.

Apply for a Group Support Grant

Rapid Group Funding

We prefer groups to use Group Support Grants, but Rapid Group Funding is available with these conditions:

  • Groups and organizers that are known to CEA’s Groups team and have received CEA group support funding already before
  • The total amount is below 5000 USD
  • All receipts can be submitted within 1 month of the original application date. (We may make exceptions from time to time that allow organizers to make purchases and submit receipts later than one month from the application date.)

You can view the questions in advance here. Rapid Group Funding applications will usually be responded to within 3-4 workdays, and successful applications will then receive an email with instructions on how to enter bank details. For groups in the US and UK, the money will usually arrive in your bank account as soon as you enter your bank details. For other countries the transfer will usually take up to 3 workdays.

To read about how to submit a report for your rapid funding, go to this section.

Apply for Rapid Group Funding here

Which bank account to use to receive and manage your funding

You can choose which bank account CEA should send your funding to. Some student groups have a bank account with their university, which they may have to use to receive the funding. Some city or national groups also have their own group bank account. Depending on your bank or your university’s system, there may be an administrative burden to make transactions or add or remove signatories, so most groups just use a personal bank account as where they receive and store the money from CEA.

If you choose not to have a group bank account, you might like to open a separate personal account that just gets used for group-related transactions. This is to make it easier to track expenses and your remaining funds.

After receiving the money, you could also choose to split your funding among a few organizers' bank accounts, so that not all payments/disbursements have to be done by one person. If you do this, we recommend one or more of you include and regularly update details of where you have your money stored and how much is left with each person (e.g. in a spreadsheet), as well as logging regularly all of your group’s expenses there (with links to receipts).

Once your group is bigger and more established, and if you find managing money via personal bank accounts to not be optimal, you can look into the process and pros and cons of getting a group or organization bank account.

Using Your Funding

  • Keep track of your spending in a spreadsheet (this is a template you could use)

  • Look at the report process below so that you know what kind of information you will need to collect.

  • Contact groups@centreforeffectivealtruism.org for approval if your plan changes and you wish to spend the funds in a significantly different way from your initial application or the common group expenses.

  • For Group Support Grants:

    • Keep all receipts over 500 USD
    • Reapply when your funds get low (e.g. down to ~20% of their original grant amount, or if the funds could run out within 2 months). You will have to submit a report for your last grant before you reapply.
    • If it seems like you are going through the grant significantly faster than you expected (e.g. you’ll run out of funding earlier than halfway through your grant period) contact groups@centreforeffectivealtruism.org.
    • If groups have a change of organizer, grant money can be passed to the next organizer. Contact groups@centreforeffectivealtruism.org to update us.
    • Groups can submit a report and receipts before the end of the grant period if they aren’t expecting to use the funds (e.g. if the group becomes dormant).

  • For Rapid Group Funding: Keep all receipts

  • At the end of the funding period, groups will receive a request via email to write a review, which is due one month after the completion of their funding period.

Reports for Group Support Grants

For most groups, the grantee will receive a request by email to complete a progress report every 6 months, and a final report at the end date of the grant period (due 1 month later). You may also fill up the report already as soon as you have finished or are about to finish spending all the funding. The report questions are listed here.

Submit your final report before you apply for a new Group Support Grant or at the end of the grant period (whichever comes first).

To submit your report:

  1. Log in to the Effective Ventures Grantee Portal
  2. Click the "More" tab at the top navigation bar, then click "Reports".
  3. You should find a row corresponding to the group support grant that you want to submit a report for. It should say "Please submit your report" under the column "Grant Report Requirement". Click that, and fill up the questions there. Then press submit.
Go to our Grantee Portal

Reports for Rapid Group Funding

Three weeks after your application date you will receive a request to complete a short report. Report questions are listed here. This report is due one month after your application date. Reports are not required for reimbursements.

Submit your Rapid Group Funding Report

What To Do with Leftover Funding

  • If you have leftover funding from your last group support grant or rapid funding that is greater than $200, and you do not need additional group funding from CEA yet, we would still like you to submit a new group support grant application on how you plan to use this leftover money. (You can place $0 in the application as the additional money you'll need.) Please link a budget for how you'll use this funding so we can check if it fits with our group expenses guidelines.
  • If you have leftover funding that you won't be able to use within the next 6 months, you can return it ahead via the instructions given when you fill out the report for your grant, or you can email grants@ev.org about how to return funding.