Overleaf to Google Drive Transition

Discussion

Dr. Ely has started moving files over from Overleaf to Google Drive.

• Grantmaker Review: List of Potential Funding Sources
• Funding Strategies, Resources and Notes

In the process, Dr. Ely identified a number of relevant resources:

• Salesforce
  • Provides a range of record keeping resources for non-profits
  • Free for the first 10 users
  • Cloud-based
  • May be hidden fees

Action Items

Non-Governmental Agencies

Discussion

Grantmaker Review

• Reviewed Sloan Foundation, Dorrance Family Foundation and Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation
  • Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation
    • Requirements:
      • 2 years of financial audit statements
      • Organization-wide budget that includes both expenses and revenue projections
      • Audit management letters
      • Year-to-date financials
      • Indirect costs vs. direct cost limitations
      • No documentation on requirements for founding documents/policies
    • Possible Pitches:
      • The “39 Alpha Method” in its own right. This would require:
        • A solid outreach plan
        • Evidence that it works
        • The right foundation
      • The Monocrop Project
      • Possibly leverage scientific software
    • Proposals are invitation only
      • 100 word email required as “Letter of Intent”
    • No money for religious organizations
  • Sloan Foundation
    • 20% indirects
    • Energy & Environment — 39 Alpha might not fit
    • Letter of Enquiry — 1 or 2 pages
    • Smaller grants than Morre Foundation $50K - $100K
    • No stated organizational requirements (policies/bylaws)
  • Dorrance Family Foundation
    • No funding in 2019 (COVID)
    • Sort of a “Mom and Pop” operation
    • Arizona, California and Hawaii only
    • Letter of inqury required
    • No stated organizational requirements (policies/bylaws)

Action Items

Governmental Agencies

Discussion

Funding Requirements of Governmental Agencies

• National Science Foundation
  • Allows non-profits to submit proposals
  • Does not require a Conflicts of Interest policy for organizations fewer than 50 people
  • Does require:
    • Responsibility and Ethical Conduct of Research (RECR) Policy
    • Financial Management Systems Policy
    • Property Management Standards Policy
    • Procurement Standards Policy
  • Most/All proposals also require a Data Management plan
  • Making some or all of these policies standard across the organization might be worth doing to minimize effort
  • Data Management is our “property”, so there may only be a weak distinction between the DM and the PMS policy. Perhaps thy could be the same Policy?

Action Items

Review Analogous Non-Profit Policies

Discussion

• Santa Fe Institute
  • No bylaws on website
  • Financial statements on website
  • One-page ethics statement on website
• NumFocus
  • Found bylaws — nothing terribly relevant to science
• Perimeter Institute
  • Nothing found

Action Items

Website Revisions

Discussion

• The transition from Jekyll to Hugo is complete
• The site is now live on IPFS: https://gateway.ipfs.io/ipns/39alpharesearch.org
• Domain Name Resolution is broken:
  • Currently experiencing 404 erros
  • When it works, https://39alpharesearch.org resolves to the above gateway
• Either Stripe or Salesforce might be reasonable options for donation processing and record management.

Action Items

Next Meeting’s Agenda (2022-12-03)

• Tucker Ely will review more NGO funding source requirements
• Douglas Moore will review more GO funding source requirements