Enhance Funding Applications: Share Utility Function Over Money (+Tool)

[plex]

You have more context on your ability to make use of funds than fits into a specific numerical ask.^[1] You want to give funders good information, and the natural type-signature for this is a utility function over money—how much good you think you can do with different funding levels, normalized to the max EV your project has.

I kinda think the current process can be reasonably described as the applicant converting from a utility function over money to a few datapoints with ambiguous meanings then the funder trying to reverse that conversion to make a decision. Let’s cut out the difficult and information-losing steps.

I^[2] made a little tool for drawing utility functions over money^[3], for use in funding applications.

Features:

• Copy graph to clipboard as CSV and paste back in^[4]

• By default enforces monotonicity but you can turn that off (hover graph for toggle)

• Click to add/​remove points, drag to move, clear all button (hover)

• Shows preview on hover of what the graph looks like if you add points.

• Flexible bounds on funding, can quickly change via a slider at the bottom or click into the max to pick any max directly.

Released as CC attribution share alike, feel free to remix and improve, if you make it better I might switch the official one to yours.

1. ^

   The proliferation of extra numbers like Min funding, Main ask, Ambitious, Max etc in many applications points to the funders wanting this information, but it’s stressful and unclear how to translate your understanding of your project into those numbers.

2. ^

   (Claude)

3. ^

   Make sure to bookmark http://​​utility.plex.ventures/​​, so you get the newest version and are not left with an old artifact.

4. ^

   Nicely human editable too, like:

   0%,$0
   46%,$18960
   57%,$30280
   76%,$66110

[plex]

Changelog

New Features:

• Added Ctrl+Z/​Ctrl+Y undo/​redo—experiment freely and roll back mistakes

• 🚀 Set ambition level—rescales % so you can extend a project^[1]

• 📸 Copy graph to clipboard—Easy grabbing the image

• Dotted reference lines drop from each point to show exact dollar amounts and to the left for exact % amounts^[2]

• Clear notification—Shows “Points cleared—press Ctrl+Z to undo” when you clear all points

• 🧲 Snap to Grid—Enable magnetic snapping to round numbers (off by default)

• Right click to add text to breakpoints^[3]

• Smart currency input—type “90k” or “1.5M” and it auto-converts

• Input validation with helpful error messages

• Touch scrolling fixed—Dragging points on mobile doesn’t scroll the page anymore

Language Updates:

• Guide describes all features properly

• Changed “Utility” → “Impact” throughout (less jargon!)

• New title: “Plot Your Impact at Different Funding Levels”

• Clearer subtitle mentions sharing with funders

• Added watermark with stable URL

Accessibility

• Keyboard navigation—Can focus and navigate the graph with keyboard

• Screen reader support—All buttons labeled, status messages announced

• Modal focus trap—Can’t accidentally tab outside modal dialog

1. ^

   

2. ^

   

3. ^