2 months wait time + applications open every 3 months. So people have to wait 2–5 months for a funding decision? That seems unfortunate – slower than other major grantmakers and much slower than e.g. the startup ecosystem operates.
And then eventually I hope to switch towards monthly grant rounds, which will move average decision-time to something more like 2-3 weeks. My guess is we’ll do that after the next grant round (so in Q1 2027), but we’ll see how it goes.
I would be surprised if Lightcone Commons doesn’t end up with a pretty wide margin the fastest funder in the ecosystem of comparable size.
2 months wait time + applications open every 3 months. So people have to wait 2–5 months for a funding decision? That seems unfortunate – slower than other major grantmakers and much slower than e.g. the startup ecosystem operates.
No, we are only closing applications for the first round, because we need to get a bunch of stuff off the ground that’s much easier with a fixed application pool. So after that it’s going to be averaging more like 2 months, and then we also have a direct grants system which sends out money much faster than that: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/tjeoLz2GzfFMysZhg/lightcone-commons#What_if_a_project_needs_funding_sooner_than_3_months_from_now_
And then eventually I hope to switch towards monthly grant rounds, which will move average decision-time to something more like 2-3 weeks. My guess is we’ll do that after the next grant round (so in Q1 2027), but we’ll see how it goes.
I would be surprised if Lightcone Commons doesn’t end up with a pretty wide margin the fastest funder in the ecosystem of comparable size.