Niskanen Center 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
Wikipedia pagehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niskanen_Center

Donee donation statistics

Cause areaCountMedianMeanMinimum10th percentile 20th percentile 30th percentile 40th percentile 50th percentile 60th percentile 70th percentile 80th percentile 90th percentile Maximum
Overall 10 300,000 371,000 200,000 200,000 200,000 200,000 250,000 300,000 360,000 400,000 400,000 400,000 1,000,000
Environmentalism 3 200,000 233,333 200,000 200,000 200,000 200,000 200,000 200,000 200,000 300,000 300,000 300,000 300,000
Migration policy 3 360,000 320,000 200,000 200,000 200,000 200,000 360,000 360,000 360,000 400,000 400,000 400,000 400,000
Politics 4 400,000 512,500 250,000 250,000 250,000 400,000 400,000 400,000 400,000 400,000 1,000,000 1,000,000 1,000,000

Donation amounts by donor and year for donee Niskanen Center

Donor Total 2020 2019 2018 2017 2016 2015
Hewlett Foundation (filter this donee) 2,750,000.00 0.00 1,000,000.00 400,000.00 750,000.00 600,000.00 0.00
Open Philanthropy (filter this donee) 960,000.00 200,000.00 0.00 400,000.00 0.00 0.00 360,000.00
Total 3,710,000.00 200,000.00 1,000,000.00 800,000.00 750,000.00 600,000.00 360,000.00

Full list of documents in reverse chronological order (2 documents)

Title (URL linked)Publication dateAuthorPublisherAffected donorsAffected doneesAffected influencersDocument scopeCause areaNotes
Understanding Open Philanthropy’s work on migration policy2021-11-19Vipul Naik Open Borders: The CaseOpen Philanthropy Labor Mobility Partnerships Center for Global Development Protect the People Niskanen Center Federation for American Scientists Mercy Corps International Refugee Assistance Project Third-party coverage of donor strategyMigration policyIn a similar vein as past blog posts https://openborders.info/blog/overview-of-the-open-philanthropy-projects-work-on-migration-liberalisation/ and https://openborders.info/blog/update-open-philanthropy-projects-work-migration-liberalisation/ on the site, the post reviews Open Philanthropy's grantmaking in the migration policy space. It discusses evidence and possible reasons for Open Philanthropy reducing its grantmaking in the area. See https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/mhp8pofioZpoW6k34/understanding-open-philanthropy-s-evolution-on-migration (GW, IR) for a cross-post to the EA Forum.
Update on the Open Philanthropy Project’s Work on Migration Liberalisation2016-04-08Sebastian Nickel Open Borders: The CaseOpen Philanthropy Center for Global Development U.S. Association for International Migration Protect the People ImmigrationWorks Foundation No Lean Season Niskanen Center New York University Third-party coverage of donor strategyMigration policyThe blog post provides an update to https://openborders.info/blog/overview-of-the-open-philanthropy-projects-work-on-migration-liberalisation/ (a blog post from a year ago), providing updates on the grants discussed in the previous post, as well as descriptions of new grants. A section titled "Closing thoughts" gives the author's take on events; it stresses the difficulty of figuring out how best to effect political change, and the longer time horizon needed for efforts to bear fruit.

Full list of donations in reverse chronological order (10 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 10)Donation dateCause areaURLInfluencerNotes
Open Philanthropy200,000.0082020-01Migration policy/politicshttps://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/us-policy/immigration-policy/niskanen-center-research-on-immigration-policy-2020Alexander Berger Intended use of funds (category): Direct project expenses

Intended use of funds: Grant "to support [grantee's] work on immigration policy. The Niskanen Center, a libertarian think tank, seeks to reduce barriers to immigration by developing and disseminating information, arguments, and policy ideas."

Donor reason for selecting the donee: This is a renewal of a previous grant https://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/us-policy/immigration-policy/niskanen-immigration-2018 (2018-01) and is being offered as an exit grant to give the grantee time to transition out.

Donor reason for donating that amount (rather than a bigger or smaller amount): The amount is at the same rate per year ($200,000) as the previous grant, that was $400,000 over two years. The shorter timeframe (and hence lower amount) is a reflection of the "exit grant" nature.

Donor reason for donating at this time (rather than earlier or later): The grant is made at the end of the timeframe foor the previous two-year grant https://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/us-policy/immigration-policy/niskanen-immigration-2018 (2018-01).
Intended funding timeframe in months: 12

Donor thoughts on making further donations to the donee: This is an exit grant, so there are no plans for further grants.

Other notes: Affected countries: United States.
Hewlett Foundation1,000,000.0012019-01-17Politicshttps://hewlett.org/grants/niskanen-center-for-general-operating-support-2/-- For General Operating Support.
Hewlett Foundation400,000.0022018-04-06Politicshttps://hewlett.org/grants/niskanen-center-for-general-operating-support-1/-- For General Operating Support.
Open Philanthropy400,000.0022018-01Migration policy/politicshttps://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/us-policy/immigration-policy/niskanen-immigration-2018Alexander Berger Intended use of funds (category): Direct project expenses

Intended use of funds: Grant "to support [grantee's] work on immigration policy. [...] Niskanen has grown its immigration program to approximately $1M/year."

Donor reason for selecting the donee: The grant page says: "Because we do not expect significant positive movement on immigration at the federal level over the next few years [a likely reference to the Trump presidency at the time], we view this support primarily as a way to ensure the Niskanen Center is able to continue developing relationships and policy ideas in advance of any future opportunities for progress."

Donor reason for donating that amount (rather than a bigger or smaller amount): The previous grant was $360,000 for two years; this grant amount is pretty comparable. The grant page says: "Niskanen has grown its immigration program to approximately $1M/year." So this grant now accounts for only 20% of the cost of the program.

Donor reason for donating at this time (rather than earlier or later): The grant is made around the end of the timeframe for the previous two-year grant https://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/us-policy/immigration-policy/niskanen-immigration (2015-10).
Intended funding timeframe in months: 24

Donor retrospective of the donation: The followup grant https://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/us-policy/immigration-policy/niskanen-center-research-on-immigration-policy-2020 (2020-01) would be an exit grant. Open Philanthropy does not provide reasons for the exit, so its retrospective evaluation of this grant isn't clear.

Other notes: Affected countries: United States; announced: 2018-01-30.
Hewlett Foundation300,000.0062017-11-07Environmentalismhttps://hewlett.org/grants/niskanen-center-for-climate-policy-and-litigation-program/-- For Climate Policy And Litigation Program.
Hewlett Foundation250,000.0072017-03-22Politicshttps://hewlett.org/grants/niskanen-center-for-general-operating-support-0/-- For General Operating Support.
Hewlett Foundation200,000.0082017-03-11Environmentalismhttps://hewlett.org/grants/niskanen-center-for-the-energy-and-climate-program-0/-- For The Energy And Climate Program.
Hewlett Foundation200,000.0082016-05-18Environmentalismhttps://hewlett.org/grants/niskanen-center-for-the-energy-and-climate-program/-- For The Energy And Climate Program.
Hewlett Foundation400,000.0022016-03-21Politicshttps://hewlett.org/grants/niskanen-center-for-general-operating-support/-- For General Operating Support.
Open Philanthropy360,000.0052015-10Migration policy/politicshttps://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/us-policy/immigration-policy/niskanen-immigrationAlexander Berger Donation process: https://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/us-policy/immigration-policy/niskanen-immigration#Our_review_process says: "We approached Niskanen in June 2015 to discuss funding opportunities relating to advocacy for lower-skill immigration, and a series of conversations about its work culminated in a request for funding. We solicited background feedback about the Center from a few other sources prior to making a decision about funding it." The immigration policy counsel proposal https://files.givewell.org/files/shallow/international-migration/grants/Niskanen-Immigration-Policy-Counsel-Proposal.pdf is what the grant would ultimately fund; the Sources section includes links to that and to many conversations in the "series of conversations" mentioned.

Intended use of funds (category): Direct project expenses

Intended use of funds: https://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/us-policy/immigration-policy/niskanen-immigration#Budget_and_proposed_activities says: "Niskanen asked us for $360,000 over two years, which would be enough to pay for an additional full-time Immigration Policy Counsel along with associated costs." https://files.givewell.org/files/shallow/international-migration/grants/Niskanen-Immigration-Policy-Counsel-Proposal.pdf is the full Immigration Policy Counsel Proposal.

Donor reason for selecting the donee: https://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/us-policy/immigration-policy/niskanen-immigration#Case_for_the_grant says: "Our conversations with staff from the Niskanen Center gave us the sense that they share our goal of allowing significantly more migration, including by lower-skilled people and those from low-income countries. [...] The Niskanen Center’s strategy is to try to get information, arguments, and new policy ideas directly into the hands of key decision-makers, rather than building long-term interest group alignment or changing public opinion. [...] We can imagine a scenario in which Niskanen is able to popularize a proposal that ends up as part of comprehensive immigration reform package in 2017, or is able to provide information that leads to a tweak in enacted legislation, and believe that the grant is likely to be very worthwhile in such a case. Our impression is that the Niskanen Center is plausibly well-positioned to execute this strategy successfully [...]."

Donor reason for donating that amount (rather than a bigger or smaller amount): The amount is as requested in the immigration policy counsel proposal https://files.givewell.org/files/shallow/international-migration/grants/Niskanen-Immigration-Policy-Counsel-Proposal.pdf that also includes a breakdown.

Donor reason for donating at this time (rather than earlier or later): https://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/us-policy/immigration-policy/niskanen-immigration#Our_review_process gives a hint about the timing by giving the start of investigation and the process: "We approached Niskanen in June 2015 to discuss funding opportunities [...] We solicited background feedback about the Center from a few other sources prior to making a decision about funding it."
Intended funding timeframe in months: 24

Donor thoughts on making further donations to the donee: https://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/us-policy/immigration-policy/niskanen-immigration#Plans_for_learning_and_follow-up includes goals for learning and follow-up, key folllow-up questions, and follow-up expectations. It ends with: "We expect to provide an update on this grant after one year either by publishing public notes or by producing a brief writeup. After the grant is spent down, we plan to attempt a more holistic and detailed evaluation of the grant’s performance. However, we may abandon either or both of these follow-up expectations or perform more follow-up than planned if the circumstances call for it."

Donor retrospective of the donation: Followup conversations with the grantee include: https://www.openphilanthropy.org/sites/default/files/David_Bier_12-14-2015_%28public%29.pdf (David Bier, 2015-12-14), https://www.openphilanthropy.org/sites/default/files/Niskanen_Center_07-22-16_%28public%29.pdf (many people, 2016-07-22), https://www.openphilanthropy.org/files/Conversations/Niskanen_Center_02-14-17_(public).pdf (many people, 2017-02-14), and https://www.openphilanthropy.org/sites/default/files/Niskanen_Center_06-22-17_%28public%29.pdf (Kristie De Peña and Matthew La Corte, 2017-06-22). Followup grants would be made: https://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/us-policy/immigration-policy/niskanen-immigration-2018 (2018-01) and https://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/us-policy/immigration-policy/niskanen-center-research-on-immigration-policy-2020 (2020-01) with the latter being an exit grant.

Other notes: Affected countries: United States; announced: 2015-10-29.