Thanks!
I agree with the list, it's really gotten better. Glad to see newcomer talents being appreciated.
And of course you're also right with projects being funded by more than one source, especially when they're as big as PEvO. The total cost for it can easily accumulate into the millions over time.
We try to handle everything as open as possible, and everyone is invited to contribute. That includes monetary contributions of course.
I'm able to carry the running expenses by myself for a while now, we just can't expand much more with the current budget. If the situation doesn't resolve I may start to try actively raising funds next year, and at some point that won't be avoidable at all probably. For now I hope to get back up soon.
There isn't millions to allocate from witness funding at all. Currently power-downs for a long-running witness run about $2000/week and if you value SP at 100% of par (questionable), accrued SP is still only about $4000/week. I'm running negative just to maintain funding to projects that I want to support, delaying cuts until it is clear the market won't recover. So if you do need that kind of funding then other sources will probably needed anyway, unless there are some big STEEM price increases soon.
In the long run it will have to find support from the scientific community. We're not there yet though :) And to a big part it's up to us how fast we want to/can get there.