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This is the Project Expense Policy referred to in the SPAR Mentor Agreement and SPAR Mentee Agreement. Last updated October 5, 2026. Changes apply going forward.

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This policy covers research expenses. For travel expenses, see Travel Funding Policy.

Overview

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To request a project expense grant, message us in your requests channel on Slack or email [email protected] with the amount you need and a short expense breakdown. We should get back to you within a few business days.

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This is a quick guide on how to use SPAR project expense budgets, and the spending rules every mentor and mentee agreed to when they signed their agreement. Budgets can be requested during your project application or on an ongoing basis throughout the program, and spent through virtual cards, or reimbursements.

We expect most budgets to be in the $500 to $6,000 range, but we’ve approved grants up to $80k for very strong projects with clear needs. While you should leave room for error, please don't ask for significantly more than you expect to need, as it makes it very hard for us to predict expenditure. Instead, we prefer that you just send us another request if you need more money.

What is covered

Project expense grants cover reasonable and justified expenses related to your project, including but not limited to:

• Cloud computing resources
  • Renting servers or clusters (e.g., AWS EC2, RunPod, SF Compute or Vast.ai)
  • GPU-enabled notebook platforms (e.g., Google Colab Pro)
• LLM APIs (e.g., the Anthropic API, the OpenAI API, OpenRouter or Goodfire Ember)
• LLM-related project subscriptions (e.g., subscriptions to ChatGPT or Claude)
• Software subscriptions (e.g., Cursor, Claude Code, Overleaf)
• Datasets or journal access
• Hardware purchases (see below)

Not covered:

• Salaries or stipends for mentors, mentees, or others working on the project
• Personal expenses, including those that increase your research productivity (e.g., meals while working, alcohol, nootropics, etc)
  • Anything spent outside the project's approved purpose or this policy is repaid to Kairos on request. Mentors and mentees both agreed to this in their agreements.
• Annual subscriptions, if a monthly option is available
• Anything we can’t legally fund or that would jeopardize our status as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit
  • The most likely way this comes up is something that has a disproportionate benefit to you as an individual relative to the benefit to your project
  • Also, policy projects can’t spend our money on lobbying, which includes publicly advocating for specific legislation anywhere in the world. In a very unusual case we might agree to an exception in writing, so ask if you think you have one, but don't plan around it.

If you're unsure whether a specific expense qualifies, please consult with the SPAR team before making the purchase. Thanks!