Brian Tomasik donations made

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 donor information

ItemValue
Country United States
Affiliated organizations (current or former; restricted to potential donees or others relevant to donation decisions)Foundational Research Institute
Facebook username brian.tomasik
LinkedIn username briantomasik
Websitehttp://briantomasik.com/
Donations URLhttp://reducing-suffering.org/my-donations-past-and-present/
Twitter usernamereducesuffering
Effective Altruism Hub usernamebrian-tomasik
GitHub usernameBrian-Tomasik
Data entry method on Donations List WebsiteManual (no scripts used)
Org Watch pagehttps://orgwatch.issarice.com/?person=Brian+Tomasik

Donor donation statistics

Cause areaCountMedianMeanMinimum10th percentile 20th percentile 30th percentile 40th percentile 50th percentile 60th percentile 70th percentile 80th percentile 90th percentile Maximum
Overall 10 12,000 7,401 0 0 0 10 2,000 12,000 12,000 12,000 12,000 12,000 12,000
Animal welfare 6 12,000 8,000 0 0 0 0 12,000 12,000 12,000 12,000 12,000 12,000 12,000
AI safety 4 2,000 6,503 10 10 10 2,000 2,000 2,000 12,000 12,000 12,000 12,000 12,000

Donation amounts by cause area and year

If you hover over a cell for a given cause area and year, you will get a tooltip with the number of donees and the number of donations.

Note: Cause area classification used here may not match that used by donor for all cases.

Cause area Number of donations Number of donees Total 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008
Animal welfare (filter this donor) 6 3 48,000.00 0.00 0.00 12,000.00 12,000.00 12,000.00 12,000.00 0.00 0.00
AI safety (filter this donor) 4 1 26,010.00 2,000.00 10.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 12,000.00 12,000.00
Total 10 4 74,010.00 2,000.00 10.00 12,000.00 12,000.00 12,000.00 12,000.00 12,000.00 12,000.00

Graph of spending by cause area and year (incremental, not cumulative)

Graph of spending should have loaded here

Graph of spending by cause area and year (cumulative)

Graph of spending should have loaded here

Donation amounts by subcause area and year

If you hover over a cell for a given subcause area and year, you will get a tooltip with the number of donees and the number of donations.

For the meaning of “classified” and “unclassified”, see the page clarifying this.

Subcause area Number of donations Number of donees Total 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008
Animal welfare/diet change/veganism 4 1 36,000.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 12,000.00 12,000.00 12,000.00 0.00 0.00
AI safety 3 1 14,010.00 2,000.00 10.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 12,000.00
AI safety/suffering reduction 1 1 12,000.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 12,000.00 0.00
Animal welfare/factory farming/meta/charity evaluator 1 1 12,000.00 0.00 0.00 12,000.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
Animal welfare/environmentalism 1 1 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
Classified total 10 4 74,010.00 2,000.00 10.00 12,000.00 12,000.00 12,000.00 12,000.00 12,000.00 12,000.00
Unclassified total 0 0 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
Total 10 4 74,010.00 2,000.00 10.00 12,000.00 12,000.00 12,000.00 12,000.00 12,000.00 12,000.00

Graph of spending by subcause area and year (incremental, not cumulative)

Graph of spending should have loaded here

Graph of spending by subcause area and year (cumulative)

Graph of spending should have loaded here

Donation amounts by donee and year

Donee Cause area Metadata Total 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008
Vegan Outreach (filter this donor) Animal welfare/Diet change/Veganism/Leafleting FB Tw WP Site 36,000.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 12,000.00 12,000.00 12,000.00 0.00 0.00
Machine Intelligence Research Institute (filter this donor) AI safety FB Tw WP Site CN GS TW 26,010.00 2,000.00 10.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 12,000.00 12,000.00
Animal Charity Evaluators (filter this donor) Animal welfare/factory farming/meta/charity evaluator FB Tw WP Site TW 12,000.00 0.00 0.00 12,000.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
Natural Resources Defense Council (filter this donor) FB Tw WP Site 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
Total -- -- 74,010.00 2,000.00 10.00 12,000.00 12,000.00 12,000.00 12,000.00 12,000.00 12,000.00

Graph of spending by donee and year (incremental, not cumulative)

Graph of spending should have loaded here

Graph of spending by donee and year (cumulative)

Graph of spending should have loaded here

Donation amounts by influencer and year

If you hover over a cell for a given influencer and year, you will get a tooltip with the number of donees and the number of donations.

For the meaning of “classified” and “unclassified”, see the page clarifying this.

Influencer Number of donations Number of donees Total 2015 2013 2012
Nick Cooney 2 2 24,000.00 0.00 12,000.00 12,000.00
Luke Muehlhauser 1 1 2,000.00 2,000.00 0.00 0.00
Vegan Outreach 1 1 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
Classified total 4 3 26,000.00 2,000.00 12,000.00 12,000.00
Unclassified total 6 3 48,010.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
Total 10 4 74,010.00 2,000.00 12,000.00 12,000.00

Graph of spending by influencer and year (incremental, not cumulative)

Graph of spending should have loaded here

Graph of spending by influencer and year (cumulative)

Graph of spending should have loaded here

Donation amounts by disclosures and year

Sorry, we couldn't find any disclosures information.

Donation amounts by country and year

Sorry, we couldn't find any country information.

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

Title (URL linked)Publication dateAuthorPublisherAffected donorsAffected doneesAffected influencersDocument scopeCause areaNotes
Does the Against Malaria Foundation Reduce Invertebrate Suffering?2016-02-01Brian Tomasik Against Malaria Foundation Evaluator review of doneeGlobal health/malariaBrian Tomasik reviews the Against Malaria Foundation, tentatively claiming that it is a good donation target, because by saving human lives, it causes a net reduction in invertebrate lives and therefore a erduction in invertebrate suffering. He thinks that deworming charities are unlikely to yield similar benefits because they simply reduce poverty rather than increase human population

Full list of donations in reverse chronological order (10 donations)

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

Graph of donations and their timeframes
DoneeAmount (current USD)Amount rank (out of 10)Donation dateCause areaURLInfluencerNotes
Machine Intelligence Research Institute2,000.0072015AI safety--Luke Muehlhauser Thank you for a helpful conversation with outgoing director Luke Muehlhauser; information conveyed via private communication and published with permission.
Machine Intelligence Research Institute10.0082014AI safety---- Part of a donation drive; information conveyed via private communication and published with permission.
Animal Charity Evaluators12,000.0012013Animal welfare/factory farming/meta/charity evaluatorhttp://reducing-suffering.org/my-donations-past-and-present/Nick Cooney Called Effective Animal Activism (EAA) at the time; switch from Vegan Outreach to this was because of belief in higher leverage per dollar. Employer match: Microsoft matched 12,000.00; Percentage of total donor spend in the corresponding batch of donations: 100.00%.
Vegan Outreach12,000.0012012Animal welfare/diet change/veganismhttp://reducing-suffering.org/my-donations-past-and-present/Nick Cooney Asked for donation to be used in online vegan ads research; inspired by conversation with Nick Cooney of The Humane League. Employer match: Microsoft matched 12,000.00; Percentage of total donor spend in the corresponding batch of donations: 100.00%.
Vegan Outreach12,000.0012011Animal welfare/diet change/veganismhttp://reducing-suffering.org/my-donations-past-and-present/-- Same reasons as in 2010. Employer match: Microsoft matched 12,000.00; Percentage of total donor spend in the corresponding batch of donations: 100.00%.
Vegan Outreach12,000.0012010Animal welfare/diet change/veganismhttp://reducing-suffering.org/my-donations-past-and-present/-- Stopped MIRI donations due to concern of insufficient suffering focus; excited about Vegan Outreach for long-term benefits of raising profile of animal suffering. Employer match: Microsoft matched 12,000.00; Percentage of total donor spend in the corresponding batch of donations: 100.00%.
Machine Intelligence Research Institute12,000.0012009AI safety/suffering reductionhttp://reducing-suffering.org/my-donations-past-and-present/-- Donation earmarked for suffering reduction work that would not have happened counterfactually; at the time, the organization was called the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence (SIAI). Employer match: Microsoft matched 12,000.00; Percentage of total donor spend in the corresponding batch of donations: 100.00%.
Machine Intelligence Research Institute12,000.0012008AI safetyhttp://reducing-suffering.org/my-donations-past-and-present/-- Percentage of total donor spend in the corresponding batch of donations: 100.00%.
Vegan Outreach----2005Animal welfare/diet change/veganismhttp://reducing-suffering.org/my-donations-past-and-present/Vegan Outreach Monthly donations from 2005 to 2007. Percentage of total donor spend in the corresponding batch of donations: 100.00%.
Natural Resources Defense Council----2004Animal welfare/environmentalismhttp://reducing-suffering.org/my-donations-past-and-present/-- Donations to this and similar organizations environmentalist orgs; belief that environment/natural preservation is related to animal welfare; since repudiated.

Similarity to other donors

Sorry, we couldn't find any similar donors.