Has your organisation lost funding due to the Good Ventures funding shift? Have you managed to replace it?

[Toby Tremlett🔹]

In June this year, Good Ventures announced that it would stop supporting certain sub-causes, and not expand into new cause areas by default. Neither Good Ventures nor Open Philanthropy included a public list of the sub-causes or organisations they were no longer supporting.

Both Good Ventures, and Alexander Berger, on behalf of Open Philanthropy, expressed (as they have before) that they would like to see more diversity of funding across the cause areas that they support.

From the Good Ventures blog: “Our hope is that other donors will be in a position to take on some of these opportunities and that, over the longer term, this will lead to healthier and more resilient ecosystems with more diversified bases of funding.”

It’s been a few months now. Wild Animal Initiative have shared the effect that the funding shift had on them, and later announced that their funding gap was being filled by The Navigation Fund, through 2026. But I haven’t heard from many other organisations.

Knowledge of the other areas where funding has been cut, and alternative funders who have stepped in, is currently diffused through the community. I think it would be valuable to share this information more widely. This could help donors find out about important funding gaps, and organisations find out about possible alternative funders.

If you represent an organisation, and you are able to share your story, please do so in the answers below. Thank you!

PS— in my opinion the EA movement wouldn’t be as vibrant and capable as it is today without Good Ventures and Open Philanthropy. I doubt people would take it as such, but I’d like to clarify that I’m not asking this question as a rhetorical dig at Good Ventures. Getting more information here would be useful, regardless of your opinions on Good Ventures’ decision to shift funding from certain sub-causes.

[Austin]

@Habryka has stated that Lightcone has been cut off from OpenPhil/​GV funding; my understanding is that OP/​GV/​Dustin do not like the rationalism brand because it attracts right-coded folks. Many kinds of AI safety work also seem cut off from this funding; reposting a comment from Oli :

Epistemic status: Speculating about adversarial and somewhat deceptive PR optimization, which is inherently very hard and somewhat paranoia inducing. I am quite confident of the broad trends here, but it’s definitely more likely that I am getting things wrong here than in other domains where evidence is more straightforward to interpret, and people are less likely to shape their behavior in ways that includes plausible deniability and defensibility.

...

As a concrete example, as far as I can piece together from various things I have heard, Open Phil does not want to fund anything that is even slightly right of center in any policy work. I don’t think this is because of any COIs, it’s because Dustin is very active in the democratic party and doesn’t want to be affiliated with anything that is right-coded. Of course, this has huge effects by incentivizing polarization of AI policy work with billions of dollars, since any AI Open Phil funded policy organization that wants to engage with people on the right might just lose all of their funding because of that, and so you can be confident they will steer away from that.

Open Phil is also very limited in what they can say about what they can or cannot fund, because that itself is something that they are worried will make people annoyed with Dustin, which creates a terrible fog around how OP is thinking about stuff.^[1]

Honestly, I think there might no longer a single organization that I have historically been excited about that OpenPhil wants to fund. MIRI could not get OP funding, FHI could not get OP funding, Lightcone cannot get OP funding, my best guess is Redwood could not get OP funding if they tried today (though I am quite uncertain of this), most policy work I am excited about cannot get OP funding, the LTFF cannot get OP funding, any kind of intelligence enhancement work cannot get OP funding, CFAR cannot get OP funding, SPARC cannot get OP funding, FABRIC (ESPR etc.) and Epistea (FixedPoint and other Prague-based projects) cannot get OP funding, not even ARC is being funded by OP these days (in that case because of COIs between Paul and Ajeya).^[2] I would be very surprised if Wentworth’s work, or Wei Dai’s work, or Daniel Kokotajlo’s work, or Brian Tomasik’s work could get funding from them these days. I might be missing some good ones, but the funding landscape is really quite thoroughly fucked in that respect. My best guess is Scott Alexander could not get funding, but I am not totally sure.^[3]

I cannot think of anyone who I would credit with the creation or shaping of the field of AI Safety or Rationality who could still get OP funding. Bostrom, Eliezer, Hanson, Gwern, Tomasik, Kokotajlo, Sandberg, Armstrong, Jessicata, Garrabrant, Demski, Critch, Carlsmith, would all be unable to get funding^[4] as far as I can tell. In as much as OP is the most powerful actor in the space, the original geeks are being thoroughly ousted.^[5]

In-general my sense is if you want to be an OP longtermist grantee these days, you have to be the kind of person that OP thinks is not and will not be a PR risk, and who OP thinks has “good judgement” on public comms, and who isn’t the kind of person who might say weird or controversial stuff, and is not at risk of becoming politically opposed to OP. This includes not annoying any potential allies that OP might have, or associating with anything that Dustin doesn’t like, or that might strain Dustin’s relationships with others in any non-trivial way.

Of course OP will never ask you to fit these constraints directly, since that itself could explode reputationally (and also because OP staff themselves seem miscalibrated on this and do not seem in-sync with their leadership). Instead you will just get less and less funding, or just be defunded fully, if you aren’t the kind of person who gets the hint that this is how the game is played now.

And to provide some pushback on things you say, I think now that OPs bridges with OpenAI are thoroughly burned after the Sam firing drama, OP is pretty OK with people criticizing OpenAI (since what social capital is there left to protect here?). My sense is criticizing Anthropic is slightly risky, especially if you do it in a way that doesn’t signal what OP considers good judgement on maintaining and spending your social capital appropriately (i.e. telling them that they are harmful for the world, or should really stop, is bad, but doing a mixture of praise and criticism without taking any controversial top-level stance is fine), but mostly also isn’t the kind of thing that OP will totally freak out about. I think OP used to be really crazy about this, but now is a bit more reasonable, and it’s not the domain where OP’s relationship to reputation-management is causing the worst failures.

I think all of this is worse in the longtermist space, though I am not confident. At the present it wouldn’t surprise me very much if OP would defund a global health grantee because their CEO endorsed Trump for president, so I do think there is also a lot of distortion and skew there, but my sense is that it’s less, mostly because the field is much more professionalized and less political (though I don’t know how they think, for example, about funding on corporate campaign stuff which feels like it would be more political and invite more of these kinds of skewed considerations).

Also, to balance things, sometimes OP does things that seem genuinely good to me. The lead reduction fund stuff seems good, genuinely neglected, and I don’t see that many of these dynamics at play there (I do also genuinely care about it vastly less than OPs effect on AI Safety and Rationality things).

Also, Manifold, Manifund, and Manifest have never received OP funding—I think in the beginning we were too illegible for OP, and by the time we were more established and OP had hired a fulltime forecasting grantmaker, I would speculate that were seen as too much of a reputational risk given eg our speaker choices at Manifest.

[Zachary Robinson🔸]

Open Phil does not want to fund anything that is even slightly right of center in any policy work

This is false.

[Habryka]

It would be great if you could provide evidence (beyond your word) for that! Even saying that you talked to people at OP, or any other epistemic status would be helpful.

I have talked to multiple people at OP and close to OP who seem to agree that OP is very hesitant to fund anything right-coded. The correlations are extremely obvious, Dustin has made relatively concrete statements to this affect, and I really can’t reconcile this kind of extremely sparse and confident public communication with the very obvious and clear feedback I get from people working closely with OP and looking at OPs actual granting track record.

I am also frustrated with then Max giving as a counter-example a Norwegian think tank, which of course has nothing to do with what I meant by left/​right coded, since what it means to be right or left coded of course is drastically different in different countries, and the underlying cause here is US political polarization and reputation management, which does not generally extend to foreign countries.

Look, it’s really hard to provide any kind of commentary or transparency on organizations like OP. The communication around the whole Dustin/​GV/​OP shift has been extremely limited, and the power-dynamics are extremely tense and messy. It really doesn’t help to have someone show up and just plain contradict something I said without any further evidence, arguing purely from authority.

Like, what is the next step of this conversation supposed to be? I have shared my observations, I commented extensively on why I believe what I believe, and I clarified what I mean by my statements in a huge amount of detail, only for you to show up and give a contextless “This is false”. I think it’s useful for you to share what you believe, but I think it’s really clear that in this domain it is extremely rarely appropriate to just make a blanket statement like this. At least say something like “I don’t currently think this is true” as opposed to this weirdly aggressive, authoritative and contextless statement from high up.

Ideally you would say something like “while it is true that OP has become much more hesitant to fund right-leaning political organizations, I think saying that OP does not want to fund ‘anyone even close to right of center’ is too strong. It is true there is a large left-leaning bias, but I think we will see OP overcome those in many cases if something looks good enough by theirs and Dustin’s values, such that describing it as much as a hard line as you are doing here seems more heat than light-producing”.

Like, I am pretty sure you believe something like this, because you are not blind and you see the same evidence as I have, but your comment sure does not communicate that.

[Austin]

That’s good to know—I assume Oli was being somewhat hyperbolic here. Do you (or anyone else) have examples of right-of-center policy work that OpenPhil has funded?

[anormative]

Habryka clarifies in a later comment:

Yep, my model is that OP does fund things that are explicitly bipartisan (like, they are not currently filtering on being actively affiliated with the left). My sense is in-practice it’s a fine balance and if there was some high-profile thing where Horizon became more associated with the right (like maybe some alumni becomes prominent in the republican party and very publicly credits Horizon for that, or there is some scandal involving someone on the right who is a Horizon alumni), then I do think their OP funding would have a decent chance of being jeopardized, and the same is not true on the left.

Another part of my model is that one of the key things about Horizon is that they are of a similar school of PR as OP themselves. They don’t make public statements. They try to look very professional. They are probably very happy to compromise on messaging and public comms with Open Phil and be responsive to almost any request that OP would have messaging wise. That makes up for a lot. I think if you had a more communicative and outspoken organization with a similar mission to Horizon, I think the funding situation would be a bunch dicier (though my guess is if they were competent, an organization like that could still get funding).

More broadly, I am not saying “OP staff want to only support organizations on the left”. My sense is that many individual OP staff would love to fund more organizations on the right, and would hate for polarization to occur, but that organizationally and because of constraints by Dustin, they can’t, and so you will see them fund organizations that aim for more engagement with the right, but there will be relatively hard lines and constraints that will mostly prevent that.

[Max Nadeau]

https://​​www.openphilanthropy.org/​​focus/​​global-aid-policy/​​

“Build right-of-center support for aid, such as Civita’s work to create and discuss development policy recommendations with conservative Norwegian lawmakers.”

[Habryka]

What you linked to is a Norwegian Think Tank.

Yes, it has “right of center” in the text of the article you linked, but of course my commentary was about US politics, and a Norwegian think tank doesn’t interface with that. What is “right of center” in Norway is completely different from what is “right of center” in the US.

---

Commenting on the broader topic brought up by the top-level comment, I sent over the spreadsheet of all grants from Open Philanthropy in 2024 to GPT-o1-preview asking the following question:

Here is a spreadsheet of all of Open Philanthropy’s grants since January 2024. Could you identify whether any of them might meaningfully constitute a grant to a “right of center” political think tank or organization within the United States?

GPT-o1-preview responded with:

After reviewing the list of grants provided, none appear to meaningfully constitute a grant to a “right of center” political think tank or organization within the United States. The grants are primarily directed toward universities, research institutions, and non-profit organizations focused on areas such as global health, animal welfare, artificial intelligence safety, and effective altruism. While some organizations are U.S.-based, none are identifiable as right-of-center political think tanks or organizations.

It’s not perfect (and I just used the first wording that came to mind, which might be off in various ways), and of course it’s been less than a year since there was a large shift in how Open Phil related to GV and as such is under tighter constraints here, and so we shouldn’t expect there to necessarily be much counterevidence even if the underlying observation is false, but I don’t think there currently exist any counterexamples, or at least none that are publicly available.^[1]

1. ^

   (Asking for confirmation, GPT-o1-preview said:

   Based on the list of grants provided, there do not appear to be any organizations or grants that would serve as a counterexample to the assertion:

   > Open Phil does not want to fund anything that is even slightly right of center in any policy work.

   All the grants listed are directed toward organizations that are generally considered non-partisan, centrist, or left-of-center in the United States. They primarily include universities, research institutions, and non-profit organizations focused on areas such as global health, animal welfare, biosecurity, artificial intelligence safety, and effective altruism.

   No grants are identifiable as supporting U.S. right-of-center political think tanks or organizations. Therefore, based on the information provided, the assertion appears to hold true within the context of U.S.-based organizations.

   )

[Jeff Kaufman 🔸]

Since the GPT-o1-preview response reads to me as “these grants don’t look politically coded” I’d be curious if you’d also get a similar response to:

Here is a spreadsheet of all of Open Philanthropy’s grants since January 2024. Could you identify whether any of them might meaningfully constitute a grant to a “left of center” political think tank or organization within the United States?

[Habryka]

Sure! I continued the same chat and gave it the query:

What fraction of these grants would meaningfully be described as “left of center” policy work? Apply the same standard that you applied with the right of center policy work

It’s response:

Certainly! To determine what fraction of these grants could meaningfully be described as “left-of-center” policy work in the United States, I’ll follow the same standard applied earlier for identifying “right-of-center” policy work:

• Focus on U.S.-based organizations engaged in policy work that aligns with left-of-center positions.

• Exclude international organizations or those not primarily engaged in policy advocacy.

• Consider the political affiliations and policy areas traditionally associated with left-of-center ideologies.

Identifying Left-of-Center Policy Work Grants

After reviewing the list, the following grants meet these criteria:

1. YIMBY Law — General Support (2024)

   • Amount: $180,000

   • Date: June 2024

   • Focus Area: Land Use Reform

   • Description: YIMBY Law is a U.S.-based organization advocating for housing policy reforms to increase housing supply and affordability. Their work often aligns with progressive or left-of-center policy positions focused on reducing housing inequality.

2. YIMBY Action — Housing Advocacy in California (2024)

   • Amount: $120,000

   • Date: June 2024

   • Focus Area: Land Use Reform

   • Description: Similar to YIMBY Law, YIMBY Action promotes policies to address the housing crisis through advocacy and community organizing, aligning with left-of-center ideals on affordable housing.

3. Clinton Health Access Initiative — Effectiveness Improvements for Health Multilaterals

   • Amount: $250,000

   • Date: June 2024

   • Focus Area: Global Aid Policy

   • Description: The Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI) is affiliated with the Clinton Foundation, associated with Democratic Party figures. CHAI works on global health policies, a domain often linked with left-of-center advocacy for international aid and public health initiatives.

4. Clinton Health Access Initiative — Aid Efficacy Support

   • Amount: $743,775

   • Date: March 2024

   • Focus Area: Global Aid Policy

   • Description: Another grant to CHAI supporting policy work to improve the effectiveness of global health aid.

5. Plant Based Foods Association — Advocacy and Corporate Engagement

   • Amount: $2,500,000

   • Date: January 2024

   • Focus Area: Alternatives to Animal Products

   • Description: The PBFA advocates for policies supporting plant-based foods, including lobbying against restrictive labeling laws and promoting sustainable agriculture—positions often associated with left-of-center environmental and public health policies.

6. Plant Based Foods Institute — International Regranting Against Labeling Laws (2024)

   • Amount: $257,000

   • Date: January 2024

   • Focus Area: Alternatives to Animal Products

   • Description: This grant supports advocacy against laws that limit labeling of plant-based products, aligning with left-of-center views on consumer rights and environmental sustainability.

7. Harvard Animal Law & Policy Clinic — Global Farmed Animal Benchmark

   • Amount: $350,000

   • Date: June 2024

   • Focus Area: Farm Animal Welfare

   • Description: Engaged in policy work to improve farm animal welfare, a cause typically championed by left-of-center groups advocating for animal rights and ethical treatment.

8. Albright Stonebridge Group — Korean Global Aid Advocacy

   • Amount: $1,000,000

   • Date: January 2024

   • Focus Area: Global Aid Policy

   • Description: Co-founded by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, a Democrat, the firm engages in policy advocacy consistent with left-of-center perspectives on international cooperation and aid.

9. Peterson Institute for International Economics — Indian Economic Policy Reform (2024)

   • Amount: $680,000

   • Date: April 2024

   • Focus Area: Global Health & Development

   • Description: A U.S.-based think tank that leans centrist to center-left, focusing on economic policy research and advocacy.

10. Government Relations Group — Global Health Aid Study Tour in Ghana

    • Amount: $250,000

    • Date: May 2024

    • Focus Area: Global Aid Policy

    • Description: Engages in policy advocacy to promote global health aid, aligning with left-of-center values on international development and public health.

11. Government Relations Group — Japanese Support for NTD Elimination

    • Amount: $40,200

    • Date: June 2024

    • Focus Area: Global Aid Policy

    • Description: Advocacy work to secure support for neglected tropical diseases elimination, consistent with left-of-center emphasis on global health equity.

Calculating the Fraction

• Total Number of Grants Listed: 151

• Number of Grants Identified as Left-of-Center Policy Work in the U.S.: 11

Fraction:

Fraction=Number of Left-of-Center Policy Work GrantsTotal Number of Grants=11151≈0.0728 or 7.28%\text{Fraction} = \frac{\text{Number of Left-of-Center Policy Work Grants}}{\text{Total Number of Grants}} = \frac{11}{151} \approx 0.0728 \text{ or } 7.28\%Fraction=Total Number of GrantsNumber of Left-of-Center Policy Work Grants​=15111​≈0.0728 or 7.28%

Weighted by Grant Amount

To provide a weighted perspective based on grant sizes:

Step 1: Sum Total Amount of All Grants

From the previous calculation, the total funding amount is approximately $161,888,000.

Step 2: Sum Total Amount of Left-of-Center Policy Work Grants

Adding up the amounts for the identified grants:

1. YIMBY Law — $180,000

2. YIMBY Action — $120,000

3. Clinton Health Access Initiative — $250,000

4. Clinton Health Access Initiative — $743,775

5. Plant Based Foods Association — $2,500,000

6. Plant Based Foods Institute — $257,000

7. Harvard Animal Law & Policy Clinic — $350,000

8. Albright Stonebridge Group — $1,000,000

9. Peterson Institute for International Economics — $680,000

10. Government Relations Group — $250,000

11. Government Relations Group — $40,200

Total Amount for Left-of-Center Policy Work Grants:

$180,000+$120,000+$250,000+$743,775+$2,500,000+$257,000+$350,000+$1,000,000+$680,000+$250,000+$40,200=$6,370,975$$\begin{array}{cc}& \$180,000+\$120,000+\$250,000+\$743,775+\$2,500,000+\$257,000\\ & +\$350,000+\$1,000,000+\$680,000+\$250,000+\$40,200\\ =& \$6,370,975\end{array}$$=​$180,000+$120,000+$250,000+$743,775+$2,500,000+$257,000+$350,000+$1,000,000+$680,000+$250,000+$40,200$6,370,975​

Step 3: Calculate Weighted Ratio

Weighted Ratio=$6,370,975$161,888,000×100%≈3.94%\text{Weighted Ratio} = \frac{\$6,370,975}{\$161,888,000} \times 100\% \approx 3.94\%Weighted Ratio=$161,888,000$6,370,975​×100%≈3.94%

Final Answer

• Approximately 7% of the grants are directed toward left-of-center policy work in the U.S. when considering the number of grants.

• Approximately 4% of the total funding amount is allocated to left-of-center policy work in the U.S. when weighted by grant size.

Summary

• Number of Grants: 11 out of 151 grants (~7%)

• Total Funding for Left-of-Center Policy Work: $6,370,975

• Weighted Fraction of Total Funding: ~4%

Conclusion

Applying the same standard as before, a small fraction of Open Philanthropy’s grants could be meaningfully described as supporting left-of-center policy work in the United States. This represents about 7% of the grants by number and 4% when weighted by grant amount.

---

Note: These calculations are based solely on the information provided in the grant list. The categorization of organizations as “left-of-center” is based on typical associations with political ideologies in the U.S. context. Some organizations may engage in non-partisan work or have a broader focus that spans the political spectrum.

Honestly, this response doesn’t seem great, and I might ask it to look more closely in to the AI-related grants (some of which are I think left leaning in a way o1 could figure out), but I have to head out. Someone else could also try to reproduce it (you can download the spreadsheets of all OP grants from the OP website).

[Jeff Kaufman 🔸]

Thanks for trying this!

Reviewing its judgements:

• I think YIMBY is not very left or right. Here’s how Claude put it:

  JK: Where does the YIMBY movement fall on the left-right spectrum in the US? The YIMBY (Yes In My Backyard) movement tends to fall on the center-left to center-right of the political spectrum in the US. YIMBYs generally support increasing housing supply and density to address housing affordability, which aligns with liberal/​progressive goals. However, their support for market-based solutions and property rights puts them at odds with some further left positions. Overall, YIMBY is considered a centrist or “third way” approach to housing and urban development issues.

• I don’t know much about the CHAI or ASG, but given that they were founded by politicians on the US left it seems reasonable to guess they’re left of center. Like, I think if OP were recommending grants to equivalent international orgs founded by US right politicians we’d count that the other way? Though I think “political think tank or organization within the United States” doesn’t really apply.

• It seems like it thinks animal advocacy and global health are left coded, which on one hand isn’t totally wrong (I expect global health and animal advocates to be pretty left on average), but on the other isn’t really what we’re trying to get at here.

[kierangreig🔸]

A few months ago, Good Ventures, the primary funder behind Open Philanthropy, decided to exit grantmaking in the areas of farmed invertebrates and wild animals, which had supported much of Rethink Priorities’ work over the last 18 months, including recent publications on shrimp welfare and farmed insect welfare. While The Navigation Fund has committed to sustaining our insect welfare portfolio through 2026, other invertebrate and wild animal projects lack secure funding, making additional support crucial for their continuation. The switch in funding approaches has also (in my albeit speculative estimation) resulted in a loss of significant funding for digital sentience for Rethink Priorities as well. Some funds have been raised there in lieu but no long-term commitments secured. My main concern is the long-term outlook for these areas; while there is some short-term interest for the next year or two, sustained funding remains uncertain, and the overall impact opportunities in these areas now seem significantly diminished by the more uncertain and reduced funding landscape.

[Angelina Li]

Based on this, it appears shrimp welfare was an area affected by this, and that TNF has filled SWP’s funding gap until the end of 2026.

I’d be interested in updates about funding for the welfare of smaller animals in general!

[Aaron Boddy🔸]

Thanks Angelina :) Yeah just to confirm The Navigation Fund (TNF) plans to fill SWP’s funding gap left by OP, at least through the end of 2026. Our OP grant was set to end at the end of 2025, so the TNF commitment equates to approximately 1 year of funding for us.

OP is SWP’s biggest funder, representing 80-90% of our overall funding. So this grant covers SWP’s overhead expenses, in addition to a few electrical stunners.

We’re keen on diversifying our funding, in order to not continue relying on a single funder, as well as to raise more money in order to deploy more stunners through our Humane Slaughter Initiative (SWP is in the unusual position in the animal movement that marginal dollars are often more impactful than the average dollar donated to SWP—as this funding can go directly to expanding the HSI program).

[Bob Fischer]

OP funded several scientists working on insect sentience and welfare. Arthropoda Foundation was formed to centralize and assist in the funding situation for those scientists. However, we’ve not yet replaced all the funding from GVF. For more on our funding priorities, see our post for Marginal Funding Week.