Thank you so much!

Hi finm,

Good question! It's a closed loop where they normally hold bike races. It's 2.5KM per loop and I will be doing as many loops as I can. It's got one bridge that slows down my speed and that's the most tricky part due to balance. When I'm cruising at 25kmh the bike is very stable, but I go down to about 15 when I ascend the small bridge so that's where I need to stay focused! 

It's in The Netherlands so it's otherwise completely flat, and because it's closed there's no other traffic or traffic lights. It's just me, my butt and I. 

Amazing! I'll reach out to huff to see if they can cover it for more donations!

This really means a lot to me Brad, and I'm glad that I can be of help to you sometimes (and appreciate all the help you give me!). 

I will indeed be wearing a helmet! :)

Thanks for sharing it Brad, and I invite everyone to debate this in the comments. 

@Tom Barnes thank you for this insight. Your team and Caleb must work under a lot of pressure and this post, even when important, must not be nice for you to read.

It was clear to me from our EAIF applications and interactions that your team is overworked, understaffed and or burned out. I think it's so important that you are honest about that, and you work on a process that keeps your quality high. It seems from this post that EAIF is not meeting timelines, not communication clearly, and it was clear from the feedback on our application that it was not carefully reviewed (I can share the feedback and the errors and inconsistencies in that). 

Can you limit applications somehow and focus on making better decisions on fewer applications with clear communication? I'd rather wait for your team to carefully consider our application, so I don't have to waste time drafting it every 6 months and it not being carefully reviewed. 

We also had feedback with very clear inconsistencies (e.g. saying we had closed accounting, even when it was publicly available and clearly linked. Saying our application had not changed from last rejection, even though we applied with a completely different project). Disrespectful. 

@Igor Ivanov my experience with Caleb and EAIF have been incredibly similar (with the exception of Michael Aird who is smart, helpful and emphatic). I'm unfortunately not surprised to see this post and its many upvotes, and I know of multiple people who have ranted about EAIF's disrespectful and unemphatic ways of working. I hope they will also start speaking up, and your post has persuaded me to do so, so thanks for that!

I will disclose the email I sent to Caleb below. In his defence: he did reply with feedback after this email for which I'm thankful. Unfortunately the feedback contained factual errors about our application and company, and made it clear that our application was not carefully reviewed (or reviewed at all). We recently got another application rejected by Caleb, even though I specifically asked for someone else to review it too, because I believe he has something against me (no clue what that would be since he always ignored me and we never met). 

I still believe EAIF and its managers are good people trying to do a good job, I just don't think they are actually doing a good job based on others and my experiences. 

Here's the email:

Hi Caleb,

I hope you are well!

I know it's not your policy, but after many applications that are, and I mean this respectfully, wasting a lot of time on both ends, I think it's in both our interests if we have some clarity on our applications. Many others and myself think EAIF is an incredibly good fit with our common goals, but after the declined applications it's clear EAIF does not think so (at least currently). That's fine, but because we continue to believe this is a good fit we're continuing to apply and up until now wasting a lot of EA's time. At this stage I'm confident it would help a lot if you could give a little bit of feedback, even if it's just one line of feedback, so we can either move on or reapply with something that we both agree if effective. 

I hesitated to write this because I'm anxious it will hurt our future within EA because I believe you and EAIF have a position of power, but I have decided honesty is more important and it's more helpful if you know who this is coming from so I decided not to be anonymous. This might be emotional and irrational and not at all true, but I have the feeling you don't like me or the work that I'm doing. If true, I haven't figured out why, but I'd prefer to hear that out loud so I can stop frustrating you (if I am) and I can stop being frustrated by not being answered. For context: I have read up on EAIF's and your work, I've been to two office hours on two EAG's, I went to your talk and I tried to get both written or F2F feedback at multiple occasions, each time emphasizing I'd do whatever would be easiest for you, and even if it was one minute of feedback it would help us a lot. I tried to be very respectful of your time because I completely understand you are incredibly busy. You wrote me back once that you could give feedback but after replying I was again ignored. If I may be completely frank I have found it quite disrespectful, considering how respectful I tried to be with your time and space, and how much time we put into our applications. 

These are just emotional observations and they do not constitute truth, but I think it's helpful for you to know the impression you and EAIF (although others at or affiliated to EAIF did reply to our requests for help, most of them pointing to you to ask for feedback) are leaving on me. I'm very sorry if this is making you feel bad, I don't at all think that you are a bad person and I admire the amazing work you do. I'm just sharing the impression our encounters (or the lack thereof) have made me feel. 

Any feedback would be helpful because I believe it will help EAIF save considerable time in the future. I would appreciate it if our next EAIF will be reviewed by someone else so we can remove any personal biases there might be between you and us. We continue to believe the fit is great and won't give up until we get clear feedback saying otherwise. 

Thanks and all the best,
 

Vin 



 

Congrats Brad! I hope and think the Ted stage gets more people otherwise unfamiliar with effective giving and profit for Good to take action.