Introducing For Future—A Platform to Discover and Collaborate on Longtermist Solutions
Executive Summary
For Future connects individuals and organizations to collaborate on protecting humanity’s long-term future. It’s a social network meets classifieds where you can discover and contribute to these issues with your talent, money, time, or other resources.
Key features include:
A directory of longtermism organizations* including nonprofits, think tanks, funds and for-profits
A directory of opportunities* to volunteer, donate, or partner with organizations
A directory of contributors* offering their skills and time
Content, thought leadership and discussions on longtermist issues
Social networking to connect around shared priorities
Rewards and recognition for community participation
For Future’s mission is to build a mass movement by mainstreaming regular engagement with longtermist issues, aggregating resources and enabling collective action. Through these efforts, we aim to expedite progress in safeguarding humanity’s future. This post provides an overview of the platform, theory of change, status, and plans.
*For Future serves organizations, contributors, and opportunities, that are including but not limited to those who are aligned with the principles of effective altruism.
Theory of Change
Growing interest
There is growing interest among the general public in positively shaping long-term outcomes for civilization:
59% of respondents believe that we should do everything necessary to address climate change.
78% of Americans are excited about human enhancement. Of this group, ~28% are equally excited and concerned.
53% of the global population think artificial intelligence is good for society and 33% think it is bad.
69% of Americans believe it’s “essential” to be a world leader in space exploration, with 56% citing Mars exploration an important priority for NASA.
There is also growing investor interest:
Climate tech investing grew 58% from 2019 to 2021.
Biotech investing globally was up 47.7% in 2021 from 2020.
AI investment globally is up 115% since 2020, led by Healthcare AI (18% of the total funding).
Unmet Needs – General Population
Despite this interest, people are feeling helpless. In a survey of 10,000 young people in 10 countries, more than 50% reported feeling sad, anxious, angry, powerless, helpless, or guilty about climate change. 83% said that they think people have failed to take care of the planet and 58% of respondents said governments are “betraying me, future generations, [or both].”
Further, it is estimated that only 6.7% of the US adult population had heard of effective altruism in 2021. According to Davidmanheim, Head of Research and Policy @ ALTER, the number of individuals who strongly embrace Effective Altruism is at most 10,000.
Unmet Needs – Organizations & Solutions
Private companies, research institutions, and nonprofits are actively working towards solutions. The number of longtermist organizations has grown 40x since 2010, to over 82,000 today. This market is projected to grow 23% annually through 2033.
However, these organizations struggle to access the resources needed to scale solutions. In a survey by Tech Nation in 2022, climate startups cited challenges like finding partners (cited by 73% of respondents), setting a business strategy (68%), hiring talent to scale (62%), and raising Series A investment (49%).
Mainstreaming Longtermism
The goal of For Future is to create a mass movement to safeguard humanity’s future. Posts by Davidmanheim of ALTER, Luke Freeman of Giving What We Can, and Shakeel Hashim of the Centre for Effective Altruism mentioned the potential benefits of mainstreaming EA ideas and creating a mass movement.
Creating a mass movement requires features that address unmet needs identified by various EA posts, as well as our own research:
Unmet Needs:
Lack of contribution opportunities leading to decreased engagement [1, 2, 3]
Lack of inclusivity of different talents [6]
Difficulty finding longtermist organizations (there is currently a user-created database of EA-aligned orgs relevant to longtermist/x-risk work)
Difficulty finding help with impact missions.
Organization’s resourcing needs as mentioned above
For Future’s features aim to address these unmet needs and create a mass movement:
Mainstreaming complex issues via digestible content
Enabling micro-actions like sharing articles
User-created groups based on professions, interests, philosophies (not just the EA community), locations to help people find their tribe.
Providing community, rewards and habit-forming experiences
Improved content aggregation and resource navigability
About For Future
The goal of For Future is to empower more people to protect humanity’s potential through three key channels:
Enabling discovery—Providing directories, content, and social tools for users to easily explore and learn about relevant organizations. This increases awareness and engagement.
Facilitating contributions—Listing organizational needs and contributor offerings makes it simpler to offer skills, time, and resources. This grows resources available to the ecosystem.
Building community—Social features motivate participation while rewards and recognition reinforce it. This fosters a culture of action.
Supporting a broad definition of effective altruism, where people are encouraged to be conscious of their actions without overanalyzing. The platform also guides users towards more effective decisions, like which organizations to contribute to.
Together this significantly increases funding, talent, and grassroots mobilization for crucial work on risks like climate change and AI safety.
Comparing For Future to Existing Solutions
There are currently several tools that address the various user needs For Future aims to fulfill, but none provide an integrated solution:
Directories of organizations: HIP Professionals, CoImpact Labs, user-created databases
Directories of contribution opportunities: 80,000 Hours, Democracy Lab, Catch A Fire
Directories of contributors: HIP Professionals, CoImpact Labs
Discussion forums: Effective Altruism Forum, Reddit
Social networking: Various groups on Facebook, Slack, LinkedIn with affiliations ranging from Effective Altruism to Fridays For Future to other miscellaneous interests.
For Future brings these elements together on one platform, similar to how startup ecosystems like AngelList and Startups.com offer tools like social networking, job boards, and expert advice to serve entrepreneur needs.
Risks & Objections
One concern is that by facilitating contributions to non-EA vetted organizations, we may not ensure the most effective giving and could potentially support harmful organizations. As an open network, there is also the potential to inadvertently support organizations that may do harm.
Our response to this concern is that we do not currently have the capability or intention to gatekeep contributions. We also believe in supporting all impact-driven organizations. However, we plan to implement features such as a “blue checkmark” to indicate organizations that have been vetted, and we will provide links to an organization’s impact reports to help users make informed decisions about their contributions.
Another objection is that For Future may prioritize popular topics and organizations over those that are truly impactful.
For Future’s main newsfeed is designed to display posts from across the network, regardless of whether the account is followed or not. This approach helps to avoid echo chamber effects and ensures a diverse range of content is accessible to users. Additionally, the platform utilizes an algorithm that allows posts to be upvoted or downvoted by users, which further helps to determine the visibility and prominence of content.
Progress So Far
For Future went live on September 2. Our user research involved:
50+ interviews with individuals (not necessarily EA-aligned) including ex-Techstars MD, advisor at Rocket Lab and university students
10+ interviews with longtermism organizations
50+ EAs signed up
59% interested in using For Future in a survey of 148 people under 55 years old with high school education or above in the US
Roadmap
In the next year, we are focused on:
Phase 1 (May – Aug 2023) [Done]
Conduct user research with various groups
Build and launch platform
Milestone
30+ interviews with users
10+ interviews with organizations
Launch platform
Phase 2 (Sep – Dec 2023)
Acquire initial users, content creators and organizations
Engage and retain users via content and social media
Iterate on platform based on feedback
Fundraise
Milestone
20% user retention
1,000+ monthly active users
US$100,000+ in seed funding
Potential Next Steps & Milestones
By the end of 2023, aim to have 3,387 registered users or 0.01% of the population interested in climate change in key cities/states such as London, California, and New York. By the end of year 2, target 2.4 million registered users in key cities/states.
Implement rewards for engagement
Produce edutainment content on issues and organizations
Build donation and crowdfunding features
Develop content creation capabilities to assist organizations
Develop impact measurement and communication
Establish board of experts and vetting processes
Explore monetization like ads, commissions, and premium memberships
Success will be measured by active users, repeat contributions, and total impact created. The goal is establishing For Future as the go-to platform for longtermism engagement and contribution.
Get Involved
For Future welcomes organizations and contributors interested in shaping a flourishing future. You can:
Organizations: Sign up and share your needs
Individuals: Sign up, post content, contribute to organizations
Content Creators and thought leaders: Sign up and post content
Give us feedback/advice
Please contact ruby@forfuture.ventures with any questions or feedback.
This looks like a really cool project, how’s it going? Is there an update or log somewhere?
I have some suggestions I hope this is welcome here and received in the spirit it’s given. I like the idea of For Futures and it seems to me like there should be way better discussion around it.