"On the other hand, I have heard MIRI/FHI/CEA staff claiming they are much more in need of qualified people than money"

"Getting the right people is the most important thing" is a general principle at FHI. However, in my 2.5 years managing FHI there have consistently been people we haven't been able to hire and research areas we haven't been able to address, although we've been successful in expanding and improving our funding situation quite a lot. If you presented us with another qualified person right now, I don't see how we would be able to hire them at present (although that may not be the case in some months, depending on grant successes, etc). We've also consistently been understaffed and underfunded on core operations, and thus have only been able to avail of a fraction of the opportunities available to us.