2023/10/31
Summary
We are still hiring for two to three curriculum specialists for climate science and NeuroAI. We will be hiring a Civic Science Fellow in February to March based on a grant we got. We will also be hiring or bringing on some data science contractors (student-level contractors) at that time to help us fulfill an NMDA contract.
Some of my updates for last month on activities were accidentally descriptive of activities in October because I wrote the last update late, so some of this info is old hat, but I have left it in here as it describes October as it is supposed to.
We have $127 in the bank, $56k in due invoices/accounts receivable, $55k in billable (money on grants or contracts we could bill for now), and an additional $1,300,000 in long term accounts receivable (money on grants or contracts for the future).
Progress Updates
Data Analytics
No significant changes in NMDA. The contract we have ongoing is going according to plan. It is likely we will receive another contract for about $15k in the next few weeks.
Open Publishing
Product specifications have been written and Konstantine has explored API and integrations with other databases and services to index research work. Lisa Yang discussions are still under way.
Community
Viviana has laid out the matching conference scope and plan.
Academy
Applications have opened for several volunteer roles. The academy is trying out its first working group as part of our new R&D process. This first group will focus on substantial curriculum changes in the computational tools for climate science course. The Neuro AI course build process is starting.
Financial Report
Treasury Review
Bank of America Account: $37,289 USD
Lending Club Account: $89,454 USD
Mercury Account: $88,720 USD
Stripe: $0
TOTAL: $215,463 USD
TOTAL NM SPENDABLE: $126,743 USD
Note: I show Mercury account here for a financial picture overview, but it is not considered in our runway and budget calculations. It is budgeted and managed separately.
Fundraising Status
Received Donor Funds and Commitments
We received a grant from Dana, Kavli, and Rita Allen foundation for $200,000 to support a fellow in Civic Science to help lead community programs and help research how community oriented science can be built into science education.
Getting closer to receiving Facebook and Deepmind funds. It is very difficult because of our corporation name change.
In Discussion Donor Funds
Kavli foundation let us know that their executive director expressed concerns about funding Neuromatch because they felt we were ‘overextended’ and trying to do too many activities with too little focus. Their ED also got rid of any dedicated funds for education or conferences or events. They only want to fund research. That said, they funded us via the Civic Science program above and are considering using us as a regranter to give small pilot funds to international neuroscience projects.
Simons foundation let us know that a new policy at the organization does not allow the program officers to award funds outside of RFPs unless those funds are less than $10,000. They also said that they have no open RFPs for anything we are working on on the neuro side, but, they indicated they are creating a new mechanism that might be a great fit for us. It will debut in early spring and can support up to $100k to support conferences and education programs. This would be an expansion of our Simons funding, but we will have to be patient. On the climate side, we (Abigail) are meeting with Simons in early November to talk about support of Climatematch.
It is highly likely that the fact that Dana is granting us the Civic Science fellowship will lower our chances of receiving their ‘Pilots in Neuroscience’ grant. I lowered the likelihood of that in our grant tracker.
We have ongoing discussions with Meta, Sloan, and New Science, but only the New Science grant looks promising in the short term.
We have $200,000 of submitted grants to the Tools Competition to advance our algorithms for matchmaking, science networking, and create tools that can monitor our classrooms for group participation and submit reports when students aren’t participating.
Most of our in-discussion donor funds are actually federal grants we are working on. We are working on CyberTraining, Innovations in Graduate Education, Advancing Informal STEM Learning, and an IES Grant for collaborative learning.
I recently found out about the CREST program. We are a great partner for CREST programs, and I reached out to the Georgia State one (focus on diversity and collaboration in big-data neuroscience) and asked if we could be a CREST Supplement Partner. They were interested. This represents approximately $50,000 in new funding if it goes through. We can repeat this for about six eligible CREST programs in neuroscience and climate science over the next year if it works, and it will be used to fund students and TAs and research opportunities for students that are part of the current CREST programs.
Fundraising Plans
We are testing a few things right now:
- Whether we can raise funds from existing donors for a new course in a similar area
- Whether we can expand climate donors by bringing on a senior scientist steering committee
- Approaching private individuals
Earned Income
No new earned income this month that wasn’t already captured in previous updates.
Financial Projections
Earned Income
$170,000 in upcoming new earned income (outside of Academy) over the next three years is confirmed.
Donations
Our total long term Accounts Receivable is $1.1MM in subcontracts. It may not make sense to call these donations/grants.
Major Costs
Several hires. While these will expand our capabilities and are currently grant funded, they represent greater risk in short term issues with grant funding (government shutdowns, invoice troubles, etc) due to our low cash position.
Runway
With new the new NMDA contracts being counted, our Dana/Kavli/Rita fellowship and more, our out of cash date has shifted to December 2024.
Hiring, Team Changes, and People Updates
Next Hires
Curriculum specialists for Neuro/AI and climate science. Fellow for Civic Science Program. Data Scientists and cloud service contractors for NMDA.
Other Notifications
We signed up for professional liability insurance as a requirement for the ARNI subcontract. This is generally useful to have.