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.
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Country |
| Cause area | Count | Median | Mean | Minimum | 10th percentile | 20th percentile | 30th percentile | 40th percentile | 50th percentile | 60th percentile | 70th percentile | 80th percentile | 90th percentile | Maximum |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 1 | 17,500,000 | 17,500,000 | 17,500,000 | 17,500,000 | 17,500,000 | 17,500,000 | 17,500,000 | 17,500,000 | 17,500,000 | 17,500,000 | 17,500,000 | 17,500,000 | 17,500,000 |
| Scientific research | 1 | 17,500,000 | 17,500,000 | 17,500,000 | 17,500,000 | 17,500,000 | 17,500,000 | 17,500,000 | 17,500,000 | 17,500,000 | 17,500,000 | 17,500,000 | 17,500,000 | 17,500,000 |
| Donor | Total | 2017 |
|---|---|---|
| Open Philanthropy (filter this donee) | 17,500,000.00 | 17,500,000.00 |
| Total | 17,500,000.00 | 17,500,000.00 |
| Title (URL linked) | Publication date | Author | Publisher | Affected donors | Affected donees | Affected influencers | Document scope | Cause area | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GiveWell’s Top Charities Are (Increasingly) Hard to Beat | 2019-07-09 | Alexander Berger | Open Philanthropy | Open Philanthropy | GiveDirectly Against Malaria Foundation Schistosomiasis Control Initiative Target Malaria JustLeadershipUSA | GiveWell | Broad donor strategy | Global health and development|Criminal justice reform|Scientific research | In the blog post, Alexander Berger discusses how, originally, Open Philanthropy Project donations for near-term human well-being (primarily in the areas of criminal justice reform and scientific research) are compared against a cost-effectiveness benchmark of direct cash transfers, which is set as 100x (every $1 donated should yield $100 in benefits). However, since GiveWell has recently made its cost-effectiveness calculations for top charities more thorough, and now estimates that top charities are 5-15x as cost-effective as cash (or 500-1500x, with 1000x as a median), Berger is now comparing all the existing near-term human well-being grants against the 1000x benchmarks. He finds that, using the back-of-the-envelope calculations (BOTECs) done at the time of justifying the grants, many of the criminal justice reform grants do not clear the bar; in total only $32 million of the grants clears the bar, and about half of it is a single grant to Target Malaria. Berger links to https://docs.google.com/document/d/1GsE2_TNWn0x6MWL1PTdkZT2vQNFW8VFBslC5qjk4sgo/edit?ts=5cc10604 for some sample BOTECs. |
| Giving in the Light of Reason | 2018-05-17 | Marc Gunther | Stanford Social Innovation Review | Open Philanthropy Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Future Justice Fund Good Ventures | The Humane League Direct Action Everywhere Target Malaria University of Washington (Institute for Protein Design) Alliance for Safety and Justice The Marshall Project | Third-party coverage of donor strategy | Criminal justice reform|Animal welfare|Scientific research | An in-depth profile of the Open Philanthropy Project and its grantmaking, with a particular focus on discussion of the top grants in animal welfare and scientific research. The organizational history, grantmaking process, and internal culture are also discussed. Referenced in https://nonprofitchronicles.com/2018/05/18/the-most-unorthodox-big-foundation-in-america/ by the same author. | |
| Update on Investigating Neglected Goals in Biological Research | 2017-11-30 | Nick Beckstead | Open Philanthropy | Open Philanthropy Good Ventures/not recommended by GiveWell or Open Philanthropy Project | Target Malaria | Broad donor strategy | Scientific research,Global health,Biosecurity and pandemic preparedness,Agriculture | The blog post describes the way the Open Philanthropy Project is identifying neglected goals in biological research. Previously the hope was to investigate sub-areas deeply and produce write-ups. Now, the approach is more "opportunistic": rather than do public write-ups, staff look out for good opportunities for shovel-ready or highly promising grants in the specific topics identified as having strong potential. |
Graph of top 10 donors (for donations with known year of donation) by amount, showing the timeframe of donations
| Donor | Amount (current USD) | Amount rank (out of 1) | Donation date | Cause area | URL | Influencer | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Open Philanthropy | 17,500,000.00 | 1 | Scientific research/malaria/gene drive testing and governance | https://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/scientific-research/miscellaneous/target-malaria-general-support | -- | Donation process: As explained in https://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/scientific-research/miscellaneous/target-malaria-general-support#Our_process the donation process included conversations with Target Malaria, the Gates Foundation, Kevin Esvelt, Stephanie James, and several other people, and review by scientific advisors Chris Somerville and Daniel Martin-Alarcon Intended use of funds (category): Organizational general support Intended use of funds: Grant to help the project develop and prepare for the potential deployment of gene drive technologies to help eliminate malaria in Sub-Saharan Africa, if feasible, ethical, safe, approved by the regulatory authorities, and supported by the affected communities. This grant will support training and outreach programs, research into the potential ecological effects of releasing gene drives, operational development, regulatory support, and an unrestricted funding reserve. Donor reason for selecting the donee: As described in https://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/scientific-research/miscellaneous/target-malaria-general-support#Case_for_the_grant (1) Gene drives, and Target Malaria's work in particular, seem important and tractable as a malaria elimination strategy, (2) Target Malaria has a lot of room for more funding, (3) Even a few weeks of speed-up of the work would likely have good cost-effectiveness. More explicit quantification is available in the back-of-the-envelope calculation (BOTEC) at https://docs.google.com/document/d/1GsE2_TNWn0x6MWL1PTdkZT2vQNFW8VFBslC5qjk4sgo/edit?ts=5cc10604#heading=h.g3c8stqygqae Quantification related to (3) is also in the spreadsheet https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1E8qu474nUUvPjK21oBqGkdQ9FuXanigOgSGfumhL3_c/edit#gid=1061406209 Donor reason for donating that amount (rather than a bigger or smaller amount): The reasoning for the amount is not articulated, but it is likely related to the budget https://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/scientific-research/miscellaneous/target-malaria-general-support#Budget_and_proposed_activities as well as the cost-effectiveness calculations. One factor helping with the size of the grant is that the organization is also heavily funded by the Gates Foundation (grant of $36 million over 3.5 years) so that the Open Philanthropy Project will be under 50% of the grantee's funds, and can also piggyback on th vetting already done by the Gates Foundation Donor reason for donating at this time (rather than earlier or later): The timing is probably affected by two factors: (a) The belief that even a few weeks of speed-up of the work would likely have good cost-effectiveness, qunaitified in the spreadsheet https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1E8qu474nUUvPjK21oBqGkdQ9FuXanigOgSGfumhL3_c/edit#gid=1061406209 (b) The timing of the Gates Foundation grant and the scaling up of the project Intended funding timeframe in months: 48 Donor thoughts on making further donations to the donee: Key questions for follow-up are listed at https://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/scientific-research/miscellaneous/target-malaria-general-support#Key_questions_for_follow-up but there is no explicit discussion of follow-up grants Donor retrospective of the donation: In the July 2019 blog post https://www.openphilanthropy.org/blog/givewells-top-charities-are-increasingly-hard-beat the grant is mentioned as one of the few grants that crosses the 1000x cost-effectiveness barrier in expected cost-effectiveness as of the time of making the grant, and also as accounting for over half of the total money volume of such grants Other notes: The grant is discussed in https://ssir.org/articles/entry/giving_in_the_light_of_reason as part of an overview of the Open Philanthropy Project grantmaking strategy. Announced: 2017-05-17. |