Effective Altruism Foundation donations received

This is an online portal with information on donations that were announced publicly (or have been shared with permission) that were of interest to Vipul Naik. The git repository with the code for this portal, as well as all the underlying data, is available on GitHub. All payment amounts are in current United States dollars (USD). The repository of donations is being seeded with an initial collation by Issa Rice as well as continued contributions from him (see his commits and the contract work page listing all financially compensated contributions to the site) but all responsibility for errors and inaccuracies belongs to Vipul Naik. Current data is preliminary and has not been completely vetted and normalized; if sharing a link to this site or any page on this site, please include the caveat that the data is preliminary (if you want to share without including caveats, please check with Vipul Naik). We expect to have completed the first round of development by the end of July 2024. See the about page for more details. Also of interest: pageview data on analytics.vipulnaik.com, tutorial in README, request for feedback to EA Forum.

Table of contents

Basic donee information

ItemValue
Country Switzerland
Facebook page ea.stiftung
Websitehttps://ea-foundation.org/
Donate pagehttps://ea-foundation.org/donate/
Transparency and financials pagehttps://ea-foundation.org/transparency/
Donation case pagehttps://ea-foundation.org/impact/
Twitter usernameEA_Stiftung
Org Watch pagehttps://orgwatch.issarice.com/?organization=Effective+Altruism+Foundation
Key peopleJonas Vollmer|Tobias Pulver
Launch date2015-08

Donee donation statistics

Cause areaCountMedianMeanMinimum10th percentile 20th percentile 30th percentile 40th percentile 50th percentile 60th percentile 70th percentile 80th percentile 90th percentile Maximum
Overall 12 8,581 92,582 52 75 103 119 1,607 8,581 16,432 17,878 20,651 30,000 1,000,000
Effective altruism 11 8,581 98,271 52 75 103 119 1,607 8,581 15,488 16,432 17,878 20,651 1,000,000
Animal welfare 1 30,000 30,000 30,000 30,000 30,000 30,000 30,000 30,000 30,000 30,000 30,000 30,000 30,000

Donation amounts by donor and year for donee Effective Altruism Foundation

Donor Total 2019 2017 2016 2015
Open Philanthropy (filter this donee) 1,000,000.00 1,000,000.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
Stefan Huber (filter this donee) 36,138.73 0.00 0.00 15,488.03 20,650.70
Effective Altruism Funds: Animal Welfare Fund (filter this donee) 30,000.00 0.00 30,000.00 0.00 0.00
Saulius Šimčikas (filter this donee) 17,878.27 0.00 0.00 17,878.27 0.00
Ross Reason (filter this donee) 16,432.23 0.00 0.00 16,432.23 0.00
Alfredo Parra (filter this donee) 8,580.58 0.00 0.00 8,580.58 0.00
Denis Drescher (filter this donee) 1,606.93 0.00 0.00 1,606.93 0.00
Paulina Widmer (filter this donee) 154.88 0.00 0.00 51.63 103.25
Tim Bakker (filter this donee) 118.68 0.00 0.00 0.00 118.68
Vidur Kapur (filter this donee) 74.93 0.00 0.00 74.93 0.00
Total 1,110,985.23 1,000,000.00 30,000.00 60,112.60 20,872.63

Full list of documents in reverse chronological order (12 documents)

Title (URL linked)Publication dateAuthorPublisherAffected donorsAffected doneesAffected influencersDocument scopeCause areaNotes
Effective Altruism Foundation: Plans for 2020 (GW, IR)2019-12-23Jonas Vollmer Effective Altruism FoundationOpen Philanthropy Effective Altruism Foundation Raising for Effective Giving Wild-Animal Suffering Research Utility Farm Wild Animal Initiative Sentience politics Donee periodic updateEffective altruism/movement growth/s-risk reductionThe document includes the 2019 review and plans for 2020 of the Effective Altruism Foundation (EAD). Key highlights: EAD plans to change its name in 2020 as a rebranding effort to highlight its focus on s-risk reduction, rather than the effective altruism; as part of this, the Foundational Research Institute brand will also be deprecated. Wild-Animal Suffering Research and Utility Farm merged to form Wild Animal Initiative, which is now completely separate from EAF. Raising for Effective Giving and Sentience Politics continue to be housed under EAF. The post also describes communication guidelines developed along with Nick Beckstead of the Open Philanthropy Project (that also made a $1 million grant to EAF). The guidelines "recommend highlighting beliefs and priorities that are important to the s-risk-oriented community" and "recommend communicating in a more nuanced manner about pessimistic views of the long-term future by considering highlighting moral cooperation and uncertainty, focusing more on practical questions if possible, and anticipating potential misunderstandings and misrepresentations." The post also says the guidelines will soon be made public, and that it was a mistake to not announce the guidelines earlier; doing so might have addressed https://www.simonknutsson.com/problems-in-effective-altruism-and-existential-risk-and-what-to-do-about-them/ and related concerns
Message exchange with EAF2019-11-12Simon Knutsson Open Philanthropy Effective Altruism Foundation Reasoning supplementEffective altruism|Global catastrophic risksThis is a supplement to https://www.simonknutsson.com/problems-in-effective-altruism-and-existential-risk-and-what-to-do-about-them/ The supplement documents an email exchange between Knutsson and Stefan Torges of the Effective Altruism Foundation where Knutsson asks Torges for comment on some of the points in the article. Torges's reply is not quoted as he did not give permission to quote the replies, but Knutsson summarizes the replies as saying that EAF can't share further information, and does not wish to engage Knutsson on the issue.
E-mail exchange with the Open Philanthropy Project2019-11-10Simon Knutsson Open Philanthropy Effective Altruism Foundation Reasoning supplementEffective altruism|Global catastrophic risksThis is a supplement to https://www.simonknutsson.com/problems-in-effective-altruism-and-existential-risk-and-what-to-do-about-them/ The supplement documents an email exchange between Knutsson and Michael Levine of the Open Philanthropy Project where Knutsson asks Levine for comment on some of the points in the article. Levine's reply is not quoted as he did not give permission to quote the replies, but Knutsson summarizes the replies as saying that "[Open Phil] do not have anything to add beyond the grant page https://www.openphilanthropy.org/giving/grants/effective-altruism-foundation-research-operations
Problems in effective altruism and existential risk and what to do about them2019-10-16Simon Knutsson Open Philanthropy Effective Altruism Foundation Centre for Effective Altruism Effective Altruism Foundation Future of Humanity Institute Miscellaneous commentaryEffective altruism|Global catastrophic risksSimon Knutsson, a Ph.D. student who previously worked at GiveWell and has, since then, worked on animal welfare and on s-risks, writes about what he sees as problematic dynamics in the effective altruism and x-risk communities. Specifically, he is critical of what he sees as behind-the-scenes coordination work on messaging, between many organizations in the space, notably the Open Philanthropy Project and the Effective Altruism Foundation, and the possible use of grant money to pressure EAF into pushing for guidelines for writers to not talk about s-risks in specific ways. He is also critical of what he sees as the one-sided nature of the syllabi and texts produced by the Centre for Effective Altruism (CEA). The author notes that people have had different reactions to his text, with some considering the behavior described as unproblematic, while others agreeing with him that it is problematic and deserves the spotlight. The post is also shared to the Effective Altruism Forum at https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/EescnoaBJsQWz4rii/problems-in-effective-altruism-and-what-to-do-about-them (GW, IR) where it gets a lot of criticism in the comments from people including Peter Hurford and Holly Elmore.
Review of Fundraising Activities of EAF in 2018 (GW, IR)2019-06-04Stefan Torges Effective Altruism Forum Effective Altruism Foundation Raising for Effective Giving Donee periodic updateEffective altruism/fundraisingThe blog post gives an update on the fundraising activities in 2018 of Effective Altruism Foundation, with a particular focus on Raising for Effective Giving and its Double Up Drive. It concludes: "Going forward, we intend to maintain our philanthropic activities at the current level. We will continue to provide a donation infrastructure for German, Swiss, and Dutch donors. We will maintain Raising for Effective Giving, focusing on the most important relationships and opportunities."
EA orgs are trying to fundraise ~$10m - $16m (GW, IR)2019-01-06Hauke Hillebrandt Effective Altruism Forum Centre for Effective Altruism Effective Altruism Foundation Machine Intelligence Research Institute Forethought Foundation for Global Priorities Research Sentience Institute Alliance to Feed the Earth in Disasters Global Catastrophic Risk Institute Rethink Priorities EA Hotel 80,000 Hours Rethink Charity Miscellaneous commentaryThe blog post links to and discusses the spreadsheet https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/10zU6gp_H_zuvlZ2Vri-epSK0_urbcmdS-5th3mXQGXM/edit which tabulates various organizations and their fundraising targets, along with quotes and links to fundraising posts. The blog post itself has three points, the last of which is that the EA community is relatively more funding-constrained again
EA Giving Tuesday Donation Matching Initiative 2018 Retrospective (GW, IR)2019-01-06Avi Norowitz Effective Altruism ForumAvi Norowitz William Kiely Against Malaria Foundation Malaria Consortium GiveWell Effective Altruism Funds Alliance to Feed the Earth in Disasters Effective Animal Advocacy Fund The Humane League The Good Food Institute Animal Charity Evaluators Machine Intelligence Research Institute Faunalytics Wild-Aniaml Suffering Research GiveDirectly Center for Applied Rationality Effective Altruism Foundation Cool Earth Schistosomiasis Control Initiative New Harvest Evidence Action Centre for Effective Altruism Animal Equality Compassion in World Farming USA Innovations for Poverty Action Global Catastrophic Risk Institute Future of Life Institute Animal Charity Evaluators Recommended Charity Fund Sightsavers The Life You Can Save One Step for Animals Helen Keller International 80,000 Hours Berkeley Existential Risk Initiative Vegan Outreach Encompass Iodine Global Network Otwarte Klatki Charity Science Mercy For Animals Coalition for Rainforest Nations Fistula Foundation Sentience Institute Better Eating International Forethought Foundation for Global Priorities Research Raising for Effective Giving Clean Air Task Force The END Fund Miscellaneous commentaryThe blog post describes an effort by a number of donors coordinated at https://2018.eagivingtuesday.org/donations to donate through Facebook right after the start of donation matching on Giving Tuesday. Based on timestamps of donations and matches, donations were matched till 14 seconds after the start of matching. Despite the very short time window of matching, the post estimates that $469,000 (65%) of the donations made were matched
2018 AI Alignment Literature Review and Charity Comparison (GW, IR)2018-12-17Larks Effective Altruism ForumLarks Machine Intelligence Research Institute Future of Humanity Institute Center for Human-Compatible AI Centre for the Study of Existential Risk Global Catastrophic Risk Institute Global Priorities Institute Australian National University Berkeley Existential Risk Initiative Ought AI Impacts OpenAI Effective Altruism Foundation Foundational Research Institute Median Group Convergence Analysis Review of current state of cause areaAI safetyCross-posted to LessWrong at https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/a72owS5hz3acBK5xc/2018-ai-alignment-literature-review-and-charity-comparison (GW, IR) This is the third post in a tradition of annual blog posts on the state of AI safety and the work of various organizations in the space over the course of the year; the previous two blog posts are at https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/nSot23sAjoZRgaEwa/2016-ai-risk-literature-review-and-charity-comparison (GW, IR) and https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/XKwiEpWRdfWo7jy7f/2017-ai-safety-literature-review-and-charity-comparison (GW, IR) The post has a "methodological considerations" section that discusses how the author views track records, politics, openness, the research flywheel, near vs far safety research, other existential risks, financial reserves, donation matching, poor quality research, and the Bay Area. The number of organizations reviewed is also larger than in previous years. Excerpts from the conclusion: "Despite having donated to MIRI consistently for many years as a result of their highly non-replaceable and groundbreaking work in the field, I cannot in good faith do so this year given their lack of disclosure. [...] This is the first year I have attempted to review CHAI in detail and I have been impressed with the quality and volume of their work. I also think they have more room for funding than FHI. As such I will be donating some money to CHAI this year. [...] As such I will be donating some money to GCRI again this year. [...] As such I do not plan to donate to AI Impacts this year, but if they are able to scale effectively I might well do so in 2019. [...] I also plan to start making donations to individual researchers, on a retrospective basis, for doing useful work. [...] This would be somewhat similar to Impact Certificates, while hopefully avoiding some of their issues.
Reducing Wild Animal Suffering Ecosystem & Directory (GW, IR)2018-10-31Evan Gaensbauer Effective Altruism Forum Effective Altruism Foundation Wild-Animal Suffering Research Animal Ethics Utility Farm Rethink Priorities The Hedonistic Imperative The Abolitionist Project Qualia Research Institute Sentience Politics Sentience Institute Animal Charity Evaluators Review of current state of cause areaAnimal welfare/wild animal welfareThe post covers the current state of the ecosystem of efforts to reduce wild-animal suffiering. It includes a diagram depicting the relations between organizations mentioned in the post
Effective Altruism Foundation update: Plans for 2018 and room for more funding (GW, IR)2017-12-15Jonas Vollmer Effective Altruism Foundation Effective Altruism Foundation Raising for Effective Giving Foundational Research Institute Wild-Animal Suffering Research Donee donation caseEffective altruism/movement growth/s-risk reductionThe document describes the 2018 plan and room for more funding of the Effective Altruism Foundation. Subsidiaries include Raising for Effective Giving, Foundational Research Institute, and Wild-Animal Suffering Research, Also cross-posted at https://ea-foundation.org/blog/our-plans-for-2018/ (own blog)
Introducing CEA’s Guiding Principles2017-03-07William MacAskill Centre for Effective AltruismEffective Altruism Foundation Rethink Charity Centre for Effective Altruism 80,000 Hours Animal Charity Evaluators Charity Science Effective Altruism Foundation Foundational Research Institute Future of Life Institute Raising for Effective Giving The Life You Can Save Miscellaneous commentaryEffective altruismWillam MacAskill outlines CEA's understanding of the guiding principles of effective altruism: commitment to others, scientific mindset, openness, integrity, and collaborative spirit. The post also lists other organizations that voice their support for these definitions and guiding principles, including: .impact, 80,000 Hours, Animal Charity Evaluators, Charity Science, Effective Altruism Foundation, Foundational Research Institute, Future of Life Institute, Raising for Effective Giving, and The Life You Can Save. The following individuals are also listed as voicing their support for the definition and guiding principles: Elie Hassenfeld of GiveWell and the Open Philanthropy Project, Holden Karnofsky of GiveWell and the Open Philanthropy Project, Toby Ord of the Future of Humanity Institute, Nate Soares of the Machine Intelligence Research Institute, and Peter Singer. William MacAskill worked on the document with Julia Wise, and also expresses gratitude to Rob Bensinger and Hilary Mayhew for their comments and wording suggestions. The post also briefly mentions an advisory panel set up by Julia Wise, and links to https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/mdMyPRSSzYgk7X45K/advisory-panel-at-cea (GW, IR) for more detail
CEA Staff Donation Decisions 20162016-12-06Sam Deere Centre for Effective AltruismWilliam MacAskill Michelle Hutchinson Tara MacAulay Alison Woodman Seb Farquhar Hauke Hillebrandt Marinella Capriati Sam Deere Max Dalton Larissa Hesketh-Rowe Michael Page Stefan Schubert Pablo Stafforini Amy Labenz Centre for Effective Altruism 80,000 Hours Against Malaria Foundation Schistosomiasis Control Initiative Animal Charity Evaluators Charity Science Health New Incentives Project Healthy Children Deworm the World Initiative Machine Intelligence Research Institute StrongMinds Future of Humanity Institute Future of Life Institute Centre for the Study of Existential Risk Effective Altruism Foundation Sci-Hub Vote.org The Humane League Foundational Research Institute Periodic donation list documentationCentre for Effective Altruism (CEA) staff describe their donation plans. The donation amounts are not disclosed.

Full list of donations in reverse chronological order (12 donations)

Graph of top 10 donors (for donations with known year of donation) by amount, showing the timeframe of donations

Graph of donations and their timeframes
DonorAmount (current USD)Amount rank (out of 12)Donation dateCause areaURLInfluencerNotes
Open Philanthropy1,000,000.0012019-07Effective altruismhttps://www.openphilanthropy.org/giving/grants/effective-altruism-foundation-research-operationsNick Beckstead Claire Zabel Intended use of funds (category): Direct project expenses

Intended use of funds: Grant "to support research and operations"

Donor reason for selecting the donee: The grant page says "A major purpose of this grant is to encourage and support EAF and our other grantees in the space in taking approaches to longtermism with greater emphasis on shared objectives between different value systems. We conceive of this grant as falling under our work aimed at growing and supporting the EA community." Earlier in the document, past reservations that Open Phil has had about EAF are described: "EAF is an organization whose values put a particular emphasis on trying to reduce the risks of future suffering. While preventing suffering is a value we share, we also believe that the speculative and suffering-focused nature of this work means that it needs to be communicated about carefully, and could be counterproductive otherwise. As a result, we have felt ambivalent about EAF’s work to date (despite feeling unambiguously positively about some of their projects)."

Other notes: The grant would be discussed further by Simon Knutsson in his critical post https://www.simonknutsson.com/problems-in-effective-altruism-and-existential-risk-and-what-to-do-about-them/ that also includes discussion of guidelines that Nick Beckstead of the Open Philanthropy Project developed, and that EAF was now adopting and encouraging others to adopt. Knutsson sees the adoption of the guidelines as being linked to the grant money, due to both the timing matching and the language of the grant page. On separate pages, Knutsson publishes correspondence between him and people at Open Phil and EAF where he tried to get more specific information from the two organizations: https://www.simonknutsson.com/e-mail-exchange-with-the-open-philanthropy-project and https://www.simonknutsson.com/message-exchange-with-eaf/. Intended funding timeframe in months: 24; announced: 2019-07-30.
Effective Altruism Funds: Animal Welfare Fund30,000.0022017-04-20Animal welfarehttp://effective-altruism.com/ea/19d/update_on_effective_altruism_funds/Lewis Bollard Grant will fund research on the welfare of wild animals done by researchers Ozy Brennan and Persis Eskander, which internal changes at EAF have resulted in a loss of funding for. Bollard is impressed with their recent research, which focuses on foundational questions like the best scientific methods for measuring the wellbeing of wild animals, and relatively non-controversial potential interventions, like more humane methods of pest control. Percentage of total donor spend in the corresponding batch of donations: 16.67%.
Vidur Kapur74.93112016Effective altruism/movement growthhttps://github.com/peterhurford/ea-data/-- Currency info: donation given as 57.00 GBP (conversion done on 2017-08-05 via Fixer.io).
Saulius Šimčikas17,878.2742016Effective altruism/movement growthhttps://github.com/peterhurford/ea-data/-- Currency info: donation given as 13,600.00 GBP (conversion done on 2017-08-05 via Fixer.io).
Stefan Huber15,488.0362016Effective altruism/movement growthhttps://github.com/peterhurford/ea-data/-- Currency info: donation given as 15,000.00 CHF (conversion done on 2017-08-05 via Fixer.io).
Paulina Widmer51.63122016Effective altruism/movement growthhttps://github.com/peterhurford/ea-data/-- Currency info: donation given as 50.00 CHF (conversion done on 2017-08-05 via Fixer.io).
Denis Drescher1,606.9382016Effective altruism/movement growthhttps://github.com/peterhurford/ea-data/-- Currency info: donation given as 1,354.00 EUR (conversion done on 2017-08-05 via Fixer.io).
Alfredo Parra8,580.5872016Effective altruism/movement growthhttps://github.com/peterhurford/ea-data/-- Currency info: donation given as 7,230.00 EUR (conversion done on 2017-08-05 via Fixer.io).
Ross Reason16,432.2352016Effective altruism/movement growthhttps://github.com/peterhurford/ea-data/-- Currency info: donation given as 12,500.00 GBP (conversion done on 2017-08-05 via Fixer.io).
Stefan Huber20,650.7032015Effective altruism/movement growthhttps://github.com/peterhurford/ea-data/-- Currency info: donation given as 20,000.00 CHF (conversion done on 2017-08-05 via Fixer.io).
Paulina Widmer103.25102015Effective altruism/movement growthhttps://github.com/peterhurford/ea-data/-- Currency info: donation given as 100.00 CHF (conversion done on 2017-08-05 via Fixer.io).
Tim Bakker118.6892015Effective altruism/movement growthhttps://github.com/peterhurford/ea-data/-- Currency info: donation given as 100.00 EUR (conversion done on 2017-08-05 via Fixer.io).