2023/09/01
Summary
Academy ran successfully and climate received very positive feedback. Big Blue Button failed due to bandwidth issues and we found that almost all students could use Zoom anyway.
We are going to run a version of Neuromatch conference that is primarily focused on mind-matching and networking. We will keep it large to anybody with a vaguely neuro background who wants to join.
Our NMDA contract moved into a second phase for a larger sum.
Climatematch has generally agreed to merge under a single different brand name and to more tightly integrate (including merging Slacks, etc).
We have $292,000 in the bank, $32,000 in past due accounts receivable, and an additional $1,300,000 in long term accounts receivable.
Progress Updates
Data Analytics
We have moved to phase two of our project and are billing for approximately $20,000 USD. This will displace Konstantine’s time for most of this month.
Open Publishing
Our contract with Curvenote is about to complete. They have produced high quality clickable prototypes of three websites: Scholar Nexus, Open, and Oaktree. These are three pillars of our open publishing platform and we are building backends to these Clickable prototypes with the remaining funds from Amplitude foundation.
Enjoy some videos:
Community
We continue to get interest in matching events. We secured ASCB this last month and they are interested in expanding their contract. We are running matching events for Connected Minds and we ran an event for CCN.
Academy
We had about 5,400 applications, 2,400 students enrolled, around 1,900 students actually started the course. 81% rated it as excellent or very good. All courses received comparable ratings of approximately 80% rating it as excellent or very good. Climate received the highest satisfaction ratings of all. 32% of all students were undergraduates while 38% were in some sort of graduate program. Many other interesting statistics to be found in our draft, and more detailed, Evaluation Report. Thank you to Viviana for producing this in-depth analysis.
Financial Report
Treasury Review
Bank of America Account: $57,000 USD
Lending Club Account: $116,615 USD
Mercury Account: $119,000 USD
Stripe: $0
TOTAL: $292,000 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 $6,000 from CMIP, $7,500 from Bernstein, and were able to successfully initiate a payment pull with NASA.
In Discussion Donor Funds
The following deals are labeled as in discussion in our grant management platform. Total in discussion funds are $1,010,000 to be received over the next 9 months. In-Discussion funds include places we have had real conversations with funders, POs, etc and have submitted a proposal or discussed a specific project or amount.
We have $6.3 MM in ‘Proposed’ funds. These are early stage funds that are either federal grants or early discussions. The majority of these come from the INCLUDES grant we are filing for. On INCLUDES we have selected two partner organizations: an evaluator and a professional research mentor training hub.
For the IES grant, we are partnered with Nia Nixon, Lyle Ungar, and Ally Weaver to pitch conversational AI agents to help facilitate group classroom discussion.
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
We have $30,000 in earned income this month, which is, technically, our sustainability level. But this won’t continue next month.
Financial Projections
Earned Income
There may be approximately $40,000 in earned income next month, but I give it a low chance.
Donations
Our total long term Accounts Receivable is $1.30 Million USD.
Major Costs
We have about $10k or so in grant writer costs in front of us over the next month.
Runway
We have buffed up our cash situation a little bit. I have not included the $20,000 in earned income until we actually bill it given that it is an estimated hourly contract. Out of cash date is May 2024, but the chart reports October 2024 because we hold our student fee/teaching assistant balance through that window.
Hiring, Team Changes, and People Updates
Next Hires
I still want to hire marketing/comms person but I am holding off until cash situation stabilizes into 12+ month runway again.
Otherwise the next hire will be a curriculum specialist for the Neuro/AI course. If the IES grant goes through, we are beholden to hiring Alexandria Weaver as I have let her associate with us as key personnel while we write the grant together.
Market Trends and World Event Impact on Neuromatch
Giving Reports
2022 was the lowest philanthropic year since 2008. That said, despite this, we are seeing a rise in education giving, especially to informal education. I think we need to continue pressing our education angle.
Other Notifications
I am going to visit California to meet up with some potential funders in September.