[Question] How can I donate to biorisk prevention?

[Richard Möhn]

I just spent half an hour trying to give $100 to biorisk mitigation specifically, but couldn’t find a good place.

• OpenPhil lists a bunch of grantees in this area, but it doesn’t look like a private person like me can donate to them: https://​​www.openphilanthropy.org/​​grants/​​?focus-area=biosecurity-pandemic-preparedness

• https://​​securebio.org/​​, where I donated last year, appears to not be taking donations anymore.

• On EA Funds etc. there are only general x-risk funds, nothing specific to biorisk. I don’t want to put more money in AI safety since I already do that in other ways.

[Davidmanheim]

https://​​centerforhealthsecurity.org/​​make-a-gift-to-the-center-for-health-security

[Rowan Clements 🔸]

This would have been my other recommendation :)

They’ve been funded by Open Phil, are listed on the GWWC website, and are recommended by Founder’s Pledge

[Richard Möhn]

Thanks! Donated.

[Rowan Clements 🔸]

NTI bio would be another option. They also do work on nuclear security, but you can allocate your donation to their biorisk programme.

They’re recommended by Founder’s Pledge, have been funded by Open Phil, and are a GWWC listed charity

[Richard Möhn]

Thanks! I’ve written it down for next time.

[Davidmanheim]

As someone who runs an organization that does a lot of biorisk work, it’s incredibly expensive in staff time and logistics to receive small donations—but if you’re giving more than, say, $5,000, you could just email the organizations to ask, and I’m sure they could figure it out.

But as I answered, CHS does have a donation page. (And NTI does allow donations, with a box to indicate where you’d like the money to go, but it’s unclear to me if that actually lets you direct it only to bio.)

[Richard Möhn]

Good to know about the small donations! Although I wonder: There are lots of (small) AI safety orgs that have a donate thing on their website and it’s easy to donate a small amount. Is this also secretly very inefficient? To make bigger donations I would have to save up and then make a good decision. I prefer a drive-by spray-and-pray approach, personally.

NTI is a good suggestion, too! Even if it’s not just bio, at least it’s not AI safety. (Nothing against AI safety – as I stated above: I already donate in other ways.)

[Davidmanheim]

I think it’s fine, if orgs are set up for getting the donations. If they have a “donate” button or page, they are set up to get the money, less credit card fees, etc. They problem is that setting up that sort of thing is anywhere from easy to legally very complex.

[Richard Möhn]

I see. Thanks for explaining!