MIT Synthetic Neurobiology Group 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

Donee donation statistics

Cause areaCountMedianMeanMinimum10th percentile 20th percentile 30th percentile 40th percentile 50th percentile 60th percentile 70th percentile 80th percentile 90th percentile Maximum
Overall 2 2,970,000 2,985,000 2,970,000 2,970,000 2,970,000 2,970,000 2,970,000 2,970,000 3,000,000 3,000,000 3,000,000 3,000,000 3,000,000
Scientific research 2 2,970,000 2,985,000 2,970,000 2,970,000 2,970,000 2,970,000 2,970,000 2,970,000 3,000,000 3,000,000 3,000,000 3,000,000 3,000,000

Donation amounts by donor and year for donee MIT Synthetic Neurobiology Group

Donor Total 2018 2016
Open Philanthropy (filter this donee) 5,970,000.00 3,000,000.00 2,970,000.00
Total 5,970,000.00 3,000,000.00 2,970,000.00

Full list of documents in reverse chronological order (1 documents)

Title (URL linked)Publication dateAuthorPublisherAffected donorsAffected doneesAffected influencersDocument scopeCause areaNotes
This Powerhouse Funder is Still New to Scientific Research. Where Are Grants Going?2018-04-17Paul Karon Inside PhilanthropyOpen Philanthropy MIT Synthetic Neurobiology Group Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center University of Washington (Institute for Protein Design) Third-party coverage of donor strategyScientific researchThe article discusses grantmaking by the Open Philanthropy Project in the domain of scientific research, noting that the grants were often made in areas overlapping with other interests (such as global health). The large donation to the Institute for Protein Design in connection with influenza research is highlighted.

Full list of donations in reverse chronological order (2 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 2)Donation dateCause areaURLInfluencerNotes
Open Philanthropy3,000,000.0012018-02Scientific researchhttps://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/scientific-research/miscellaneous/massachusetts-institute-technology-synthetic-neurobiology-group-2018Chris Somerville Heather Youngs Grant over two years. Grantee group led by Ed Boyden. Followup to March 2016 grant, and made for similar reasons as that first grant: https://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/scientific-research/miscellaneous/massachusetts-institute-technology-synthetic-neurobiology-group. Announced: 2018-03-08.
Open Philanthropy2,970,000.0022016-03Scientific research/neurobiologyhttps://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/scientific-research/miscellaneous/massachusetts-institute-technology-synthetic-neurobiology-group-- Grant is to expand research at MIT Media Lab’s Center for Extreme Bionics. Among other things, the grantee is working on developing new methods and techniques for mapping the brain. Announced: 2016-05-09.