Open Philanthropy (organization)


Open Philanthropy is a research and grantmaking foundation. It aims to make grants and to share its findings openly. Open Philanthropy identifies outstanding giving opportunities, makes grants, follows the results, and publishes their findings online. Its current chief executive officer is Holden Karnofsky and its main funders are Cari Tuna and Dustin Moskovitz.

History

Open Philanthropy was originally incubated as a partnership between Good Ventures, Tuna and Moskovitz's foundation, and GiveWell, a charity evaluator founded by Karnofsky and Elie Hassenfeld. The partnership named itself the "Open Philanthropy Project" in 2014, and began operating independently in 2017.

Focus areas

Open Philanthropy defines a 'cause' as "the field around a particular problem or opportunity—such as reforming the criminal justice system, preventing pandemics, or reducing the burden of Alzheimer's disease—in which it's necessary to develop expertise and networks to make good giving decisions." According to Open Philanthropy, the choice of a focus area—defined as a high-priority cause—is among the most important choice a philanthropist makes.
Open Philanthropy prioritizes causes that score particularly highly on some combination of the following three criteria:
As of August 2019, Open Philanthropy has selected focus areas primarily from the following four categories:
  1. U.S. policy. Focus areas: criminal justice reform, farm animal welfare, macroeconomic stabilization policy, immigration policy and land use reform.
  2. Global catastrophic risks. Focus areas: biosecurity and pandemic preparedness and potential risks from advanced artificial intelligence.
  3. Scientific research. Focus areas: human health and wellbeing, scientific innovation, science supporting biosecurity and pandemic preparedness, transformative basic science, science policy and infrastructure, and other scientific research areas.
  4. Global health and development. No focus areas yet identified.

    Grants

As of August 2019, Open Philanthropy has made around 650 grants to over 370 unique organizations, disbursing a total of $857 million.
Notable grantees include Deworm the World Initiative, the Malaria Consortium, the Center for Security and Emerging Technology, GiveDirectly, the Against Malaria Foundation, OpenAI, the Schistosomiasis Control Initiative the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, Sherlock Biosciences, The Humane League, Helen Keller International, the Nuclear Threat Initiative, the Future of Humanity Institute, the Centre for Effective Altruism, and 80000 Hours.