Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security 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 United States
Facebook page Johns-Hopkins-Center-for-Health-Security-81157515807
Websitehttp://www.centerforhealthsecurity.org/
Twitter usernameUPMC_CHS
Wikipedia pagehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johns_Hopkins_Center_for_Health_Security
Open Philanthropy Project grant reviewhttp://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/global-catastrophic-risks/biosecurity/center-health-security-biosecurity-global-health-security-and-global-catastrophic
Org Watch pagehttps://orgwatch.issarice.com/?organization=Johns+Hopkins+Center+for+Health+Security
Launch date1998

Donee donation statistics

Cause areaCountMedianMeanMinimum10th percentile 20th percentile 30th percentile 40th percentile 50th percentile 60th percentile 70th percentile 80th percentile 90th percentile Maximum
Overall 5 2,744,000 8,054,720 169,600 169,600 169,600 1,860,000 1,860,000 2,744,000 2,744,000 16,000,000 16,000,000 19,500,000 19,500,000
Biosecurity and pandemic preparedness 5 2,744,000 8,054,720 169,600 169,600 169,600 1,860,000 1,860,000 2,744,000 2,744,000 16,000,000 16,000,000 19,500,000 19,500,000

Donation amounts by donor and year for donee Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security

Donor Total 2020 2019 2018 2017 2016
Open Philanthropy (filter this donee) 40,273,600.00 1,860,000.00 19,500,000.00 169,600.00 16,000,000.00 2,744,000.00
Total 40,273,600.00 1,860,000.00 19,500,000.00 169,600.00 16,000,000.00 2,744,000.00

Full list of documents in reverse chronological order (4 documents)

Title (URL linked)Publication dateAuthorPublisherAffected donorsAffected doneesAffected influencersDocument scopeCause areaNotes
Pandemic preparedness orgs now on EA Funds (GW, IR)2020-04-09Sam Deere Effective Altruism Forum Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security Nuclear Threat Initiative Status changeBiosecurity and pandemic preparednessIn response to the 2020 coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19), many people have asked the EA Funds for the best places to donate to for biosecurty and pandemic preparedness. Sam Deere reports that the EA Funds platform now supports donations to two organizations working in the space, one being the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, and the other being the Nuclear Threat Initiative (for its biosecurity program). The addition of the two organizations makes it easy to donate to them via credit card, check, bank transfer, or cryptocurrency, and expands tax-deductibility for both orgs to the UK and the Netherlands
How Philanthropists are Tackling COVID-192020-03-18Abby Schultz Barron'sOpen Philanthropy Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Wellcome Trust Mastercard Impact Fund Schmidt Futures COVID-19 Therapeutics Accelerator Sherlock Biosciences Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security University of Washington (Institute for Protein Design) Review of current state of cause areaBiosecurity and pandemic preparednessThe article describes how private philanthropy is helping in the fight against COVID-19 and the coronavirus pandemic caused by it. The role of Open Philanthropy Project in funding Sherlock Biosciences as well as the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security in prior years is described. The article also describes the joint financing of the COVID-19 Therapeutics Accelerator by the Gates Foundation, Wellcome Trust, and Mastercard Impact Fund.
Suggestions for Individual Donors from Open Philanthropy Project Staff - 20172017-12-21Holden Karnofsky Open PhilanthropyJaime Yassif Chloe Cockburn Lewis Bollard Nick Beckstead Daniel Dewey Center for International Security and Cooperation Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security Good Call Court Watch NOLA Compassion in World Farming USA Wild-Animal Suffering Research Effective Altruism Funds Donor lottery Future of Humanity Institute Center for Human-Compatible AI Machine Intelligence Research Institute Berkeley Existential Risk Initiative Centre for Effective Altruism 80,000 Hours Alliance to Feed the Earth in Disasters Donation suggestion listAnimal welfare|AI safety|Biosecurity and pandemic preparedness|Effective altruism|Criminal justice reformOpen Philanthropy Project staff give suggestions on places that might be good for individuals to donate to. Each suggestion includes a section "Why I suggest it", a section explaining why the Open Philanthropy Project has not funded (or not fully funded) the opportunity, and links to relevant writeups.
Where should you donate to have the most impact during giving season 2015?2015-12-24Robert Wiblin 80,000 Hours Against Malaria Foundation Giving What We Can GiveWell AidGrade Effective Altruism Outreach Animal Charity Evaluators Machine Intelligence Research Institute Raising for Effective Giving Center for Applied Rationality Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security Ploughshares Fund Future of Humanity Institute Future of Life Institute Centre for the Study of Existential Risk Charity Science Deworm the World Initiative Schistosomiasis Control Initiative GiveDirectly Evaluator consolidated recommendation listGlobal health and development|Effective altruism/movement growth|Epistemic institutions|Biosecurity and pandemic preparedness|AI risk|Global catastrophic risksRobert Wiblin draws on GiveWell recommendations, Animal Charity Evaluators recommendations, Open Philanthropy Project writeups, staff donation writeups and suggestions, as well as other sources (including personal knowledge and intuitions) to come up with a list of places to donate

Full list of donations in reverse chronological order (5 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 5)Donation dateCause areaURLInfluencerNotes
Open Philanthropy1,860,000.0042020-02Biosecurity and pandemic preparednesshttps://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/global-catastrophic-risks/biosecurity/johns-hopkins-center-health-security-masters-phd-program-supportAndrew Snyder-Beattie Intended use of funds (category): Direct project expenses

Intended use of funds: Grant "to support the implementation of a Masters and PhD program. The program will focus on major biological and health security risks. This funding will support four PhD students for four years each and four masters students for one year each, as well as faculty time for advising students and a junior administrator."

Other notes: Intended funding timeframe in months: 48; announced: 2020-03-23.
Open Philanthropy19,500,000.0012019-09Biosecurity and pandemic preparednesshttps://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/global-catastrophic-risks/biosecurity/center-health-security-biosecurity-health-security-gcrs-2019Andrew Snyder-Beattie Intended use of funds (category): Organizational general support

Intended use of funds: Grant "to support work on biosecurity, global catastrophic risks posed by pathogens, and other work related to CHS’s mission, and to support the Emerging Leaders in Biosecurity Initiative. CHS plans to use these funds to continue to conduct policy research and continue to build communications and advocacy capacity."

Donor reason for donating that amount (rather than a bigger or smaller amount): No explicit reason for amount given, but it is similar to the previous three-year support amount of $16 million

Donor reason for donating at this time (rather than earlier or later): Timing likely determined by the fact that the timeframe for the previous three-year grant (starting January 2017) is coming to an end
Intended funding timeframe in months: 36

Other notes: Announced: 2019-10-04.
Open Philanthropy169,600.0052018-06Biosecurity and pandemic preparednesshttps://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/global-catastrophic-risks/biosecurity/upmc-center-health-security-synbiobeta-2018-meetingJaime Yassif Donation process: Discretionary grant

Intended use of funds (category): Direct project expenses

Intended use of funds: $127,600 to Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security and $42,000 to SynBioBeta to support a biosecurity fellowship program and a biosecurity panel discussion at the 2018 SynBioBeta conference https://2018.synbiobeta.com/ on synthetic biology.

Other notes: Announced: 2018-07-26.
Open Philanthropy16,000,000.0022017-01Biosecurity and pandemic preparednesshttps://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/global-catastrophic-risks/biosecurity/center-health-security-biosecurity-global-health-security-and-global-catastrophicJaime Yassif Donation process: According to https://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/global-catastrophic-risks/biosecurity/center-health-security-biosecurity-global-health-security-and-global-catastrophic#Our_process "Jaime had several conversations with CHS leadership about high-level issues relevant to the grant, reviewed materials shared by CHS, and spoke to other experts in the field to get their perspectives on its work."

Intended use of funds (category): Organizational general support

Intended use of funds: Grant to support CHS's work on biosecurity, global health security, and global catastrophic risks posed by pathogens. Over the course of the grant, CHS plans to devote about one-third of its total funding and staff time to GCR-related projects and two-thirds to general health security and public health preparedness work

Donor reason for selecting the donee: According to https://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/global-catastrophic-risks/biosecurity/center-health-security-biosecurity-global-health-security-and-global-catastrophic#The_organization the grantee organization has (1) Track record of research and policy development, (2) Track record of policy impact

Donor reason for donating that amount (rather than a bigger or smaller amount): According to https://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/global-catastrophic-risks/biosecurity/center-health-security-biosecurity-global-health-security-and-global-catastrophic#Budget_and_room_for_more_funding "We do not have a detailed budget breakdown for the grant; it is mostly unrestricted and is designed to give CHS flexibility to pursue the projects it considers most important and to have the most impact." An approximate breakdown is given. Also: "Overall, we estimate that this grant will increase CHS’s annual budget from $5.3 million to approximately $8 million."

Donor retrospective of the donation: The September 2019 renewal https://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/global-catastrophic-risks/biosecurity/center-health-security-biosecurity-health-security-gcrs-2019 (3 years, for $19.5 million) suggests that Open Phil would be satisfied with the results of the grant

Other notes: Largest grant made to date by Open Phil. Grant writeup includes lengthy discussion of grant. Open Phil had previously made a grant to the organization when it was housed at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) and known as the UPMC Center for Health Security. Using the grant money, the grantee would launch a bunch of projects related to Global Catastrophic Biological Risks (GCBR); see http://www.centerforhealthsecurity.org/about-the-center/pressroom/press_releases/2017-07-27_global-catastrophic-biological-risk-definition.html (2017-07-27) for the associated press release. Intended funding timeframe in months: 36; announced: 2017-02-08.
Open Philanthropy2,744,000.0032016-10Biosecurity and pandemic preparednesshttps://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/global-catastrophic-risks/biosecurity/upmc-center-health-security-emerging-leaders-biosecurity-initiativeJaime Yassif Intended use of funds (category): Direct project expenses

Intended use of funds: Grant to support the continuation of the Emerging Leaders in Biosecurity Initiative (ELBI). For the first five years of its program, ELBI was funded by the Department of Defense (DoD). The grant page says: "Our understanding is that, for reasons unrelated to the quality of the program, DoD is not planning to renew support for it this year, and that the possibility of future DoD funding for the program is uncertain."

Donor reason for selecting the donee: The grant page says: "Our highly positive impression of ELBI is based in part on the opinion of Jaime Yassif (our Program Officer for Biosecurity and Pandemic Preparedness), in part on our observation that the program has a strong reputation throughout the field, and in part on our favorable view of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, which runs the program. Jaime is a 2012 alumna of ELBI."

Donor reason for donating that amount (rather than a bigger or smaller amount): Likely to be based on the cost of the program

Donor reason for donating at this time (rather than earlier or later): The grant page says: "Our understanding is that, for reasons unrelated to the quality of the program, DoD is not planning to renew support for it this year, and that the possibility of future DoD funding for the program is uncertain."
Intended funding timeframe in months: 36

Other notes: The recipient was housed at the time at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) and called the UPMC Center for Health Security. The grant was made to fully support the Emerging Leaders in Biosecurity Initiative (ELBI) for the next three years. The grant was based partly on the positive impression of the program by Jaime Yassif, program officer in the area who was an alumnus from 2012. Announced: 2016-10-12.