system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Everyone has projects, no one has funding

As I'm coming to the end of my PhD I've noticed a pattern emerging in my postdoc search.  Everyone I talk to has a project for me, some more interesting or high impact than others, but no one has funding.  I'm wondering how everyone else (in the social sciences) deals with this type of conversation? I don't want to be rude, and I am genuinely interested in working with many of these projects, but I can't afford to work for free and I'm getting tired of having meeting after meeting that lasts half a hour only to end with the suggestion that I apply for external funding, or I conduct a pilot study and publish it to increase funding opportunities.  How can I make it clear from the beginning that I'm not interested in more projects unless they can put food on the table (and at least the team is willing to do some of the leg work getting there) without coming off like a jerk?

Edited to reply to comments: Wow! I love the feedback this post has gotten and the conversations this has inspired!  Just to clarify, I have applied to external funding and won it for both of my graduate degrees (two sources for my Masters and one that fully funded my PhD) so it’s not that I don’t have a history of winning funding.  Im also not approaching PI’s asking for a funded project, im finding PI’s approach me, throwing projects and material at me, and then expecting that I source funding relatively unsupported.  Many of these projects are in regions or time periods in unfamiliar with, so applying for funkend requires a large time dedication just to get up to speed on the research being done currently, in a broad sense.
gpt
I don't know if this is true in your field as well, but in mine, even if you would get hired on a funded project now, this would backfire in the next applications after that \-\- beyond the doc level, one of the requirements is almost always "proven ability to obtain third party funding". Depending on your further aspirations, this may be something to keep in mind now.