You're pledging to donate if the project hits its minimum goal and gets approved. If not, your funds will be returned.
I want to spend some time developing my next AI Safety-focused film project - researching, structuring, writing. I anticipate being able to eventually get funding elsewhere for the project as a whole, but I'd like to first get to the point where I can pitch something concrete, which will take a bit of time.
The ultimate goal is to improve public understanding of AI and the risks. I'll do so by creating another film project focused on AI Safety issues.
To pay for my time as a stopgap between now and the point at which I'm ready to pitch the full project to funders (I have a clear idea, just need to spend some time figuring out how to make it work). I anticipate that a quick grant now will ultimately speed up the next project by ~2-3 months (partly because I can get started sooner / put more time in, partly because otherwise I'd have to get tied up in corporate work that I'd have to keep finishing off even after other funding comes in).
I created Writing Doom, a film that dives into AI safety in detail, which has done very well (1.2M views on YouTube), and just finished another short Seat at the Table. You can see these and my other work at suzyshepherd.co.uk
Over the last 18 months I was also doing an MFA in Film Editing. Films I've worked on there have been doing really well (e.g. longlisted for the Student Oscars), and I just won a Royal Television Society award for postgraduate editing.
Most likely reasons for this to fail: I might not reach a concrete pitch in the time period that this grant would cover / I might realise my current idea is unworkable or not where I should be focusing. The only bad outcome here would be loss of time / money, but that time / money would still have been put towards figuring out what my next project should / shouldn't be.
I raised money for Seat at the Table from LTFF and FLI, but nothing for this new project.