[Linkpost] “Announcing Manifund Regrants” by Austin, Rachel Weinberg

Manifund is launching a new regranting program! We will allocate ~$2 million over the next six months based on the recommendations of our regrantors. Grantees can apply for funding through our site; we’re also looking for additional regrantors and donors to join.What is regranting?Regranting is a funding model where a donor delegates grantmaking budgets to different individuals known as “regrantors”. Regrantors are then empowered to make grant decisions based on the objectives of the original donor.This model was pioneered by the FTX Future Fund; in a 2022 retro they considered regranting to be very promising at finding new projects and people to fund. More recently, Will MacAskill cited regranting as one way to diversify EA funding.What is Manifund?Manifund is the charitable arm of Manifold Markets. Some of our past work:Impact certificates, with Astral Codex Ten and the OpenPhil AI Worldviews ContestForecasting tournaments, with Charity Entrepreneurship and Clearer ThinkingDonating prediction market winnings to charity, funded by the Future FundHow does regranting on Manifund work?Our website makes the process simple, transparent, and fast:A donor contributes money to Manifold for Charity, our registered 501c3 nonprofitThe donor then allocates the money between regrantors of their choice. They can increase budgets for regrantors doing a good job, or pick out new regrantors who share the donor’s values.Regrantors choose which opportunities (eg existing charities, new projects, or individuals) to spend their budgets on, writing up an explanation for each grant made.We expect most regrants to start with a conversation between the recipient and the regrantor, and after that, for the process to take less than two weeks.Alternatively, people looking for funding can post their project on the Manifund site. Donors and regrantors can then decide whether to fund it, similar to Kickstarter.The Manifund team screens the grant to make sure it is legitimate, legal, and aligned with our mission. If so, we approve the grant, which sends money to the recipient’s Manifund account.The recipient withdraws money from their Manifund account to be used for their project.Differences from the Future Fund’s regranting programAnyone can donate to regrantors. Part of what inspired us to start this program is how hard it is to figure out where to give as a longtermist donor—there’s no GiveWell, no ACE, just a mass of opaque, hard-to-evaluate research orgs. Manifund’s regranting infrastructure lets individual donors outsource their giving decisions to people they trust, who may be more specialized and more qualified at grantmaking.All grant information is public. This includes the identity of the regrantor and grant recipient, the project description, the grant size, and the regrantor’s writeup. We strongly believe in transparency as it allows for meaningful public feedback, accountability of decisions, and establishment of regrantor track records.Almost everything is done through our website. This lets us move faster, act transparently, set good defaults, and encourage discourse about the projects in comment sections.We recognize that not all grants are suited for publishing; for now, we recommend sensitive grants apply to other donors (such as LTFF, SFF, OpenPhil).We’re starting with less money. The Future [...] --- First published: July 5th, 2023 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/RMXctNAksBgXgoszY/announcing-manifund-regrants Linkpost URL:https://manifund.org/rounds/regrants --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.