I scheduled a conversation with Evan based on this post and it was very helpful. If you're on the fence, do it! For me, it was helpful as a general career / EA strategy discussion, in addition to being useful for thinking about specifically Long-Term Future Fund concerns.
And I can corroborate that Evan is indeed not that intimidating.
Since it was brought up to me, I also want to clarify that EA Funds can fund essentially anyone, including:
Cross-posted to the EA Forum.
One thing I have realized as a fund manager for the EA Long-Term Future Fund is that there are a lot of grants that I would like to make that never cross our desk, just because potential applicants are too intimidated by us or don’t realize that their idea is one we’d be willing to fund if only they applied.
To try to remedy that problem, I’m going to start offering the following service: if you have any idea of any way in which you think you could use money to help the long-term future, but aren’t currently planning on applying for a grant from any grant-making organization, I want to hear about it. Feel free to send me a private message on the EA Forum or LessWrong. I promise I’m not that intimidating :)
Not only that, but having talked about this with some of the other EA Funds managers, many of them were willing to extend the same offer as well:
For example, here are some of the sorts of grants I’m often excited about but that I rarely see anyone apply for:
Really, though, I don’t want to anchor anybody too much on these specific ideas—if you have any idea of any way in which you think you could use money to help the long-term future, I want to hear about it.