Total: 2m to 2.5m

Beyond the ~1.5m in our Proposed 2023 Budget, our most ambitious plans include:

• $250k - Hire 2 additional FTE to develop and promote Manifold projects
  • We have many more projects in our 2023 Roadmap than we will be able to build, by default. We also have many more qualified applicants than we can afford to hire on our current budget.
• $250k - Incubate other EA software projects and talent
  • The Manifold team has extensive experience developing software. Meanwhile, EA as a whole… isn’t that great at shipping code. There are two main ways we might help with this:
    • Consultancy model: directly work with EA orgs to improve their software infra and workflows. As an example, Manifold helped the FTX Future Fund design the software backend for their regranting program.
    • Incubator model: provide mentorship and assistance to 3-5 new grads/college students, training their engineering skills as they build useful software apps for the EA ecosystem. As an example, Manifold provided architecture advice and debugging support for OpenBook, a new EA grants database.
• $200k - Fund a test of impact certificates within the EA ecosystem
  • Impact certificates are a funding mechanism that may help direct money to promising early-stage charitable projects, just as venture capital helps promising for-profit projects. However, not much funding has been set aside for the retroactive purchase component of impact certs. Manifold would love to run a prototype/proof-of-concept of this. See also Impact Markets: The Annoying Details.
• $100k - Run an open version of EA Global
  • Austin is still annoyed at having been rejected from EAG London 2022, and wants to run a EA convention that’s open to everyone. It can’t possibly be that hard.

Let us know if any of these are specifically exciting!