We envision a world in which philanthropists increasingly document and share their research, reasoning, results, and mistakes to help each other learn more quickly and serve others more effectively.
In this space, we often cross-post items from the blog of our partner, Open Philanthropy, to give readers a fuller picture of the reasoning behind our work.
We are happy to announce that we have added forecasting as an official grantmaking focus area. As of January 2024, the forecasting team comprises two full-time employees: myself and Javier Prieto. In August 2023, I joined Open Phil to lead our forecasting grantmaking and internal processes. Prior to that, I worked on… Read More
Topics: ForecastingWe are writing to share that while we generally plan to continue increasing our grantmaking in our existing focus areas via our partner Open Philanthropy, we have decided to exit a handful of sub-causes (amounting to less than 5% of our annual grantmaking), and we are no longer… Read More
Topics:Emily Oehlsen, our Managing Director for Global Health and Wellbeing (GHW), recently published a paper in the Journal of Economic Perspectives that explains Open Philanthropy’s approach to cause prioritization within our GHW portfolio. Here’s the abstract: Many foundations decide how much and where to give based on their founders’ personal precommitments… Read More
Topics:Open Philanthropy’s Global Health and Wellbeing (GHW) portfolio now spans eight different programs working to improve health, raise incomes, and reduce suffering around the world. Our most recent program, global public health policy, launched in November 2023. It can be difficult to fully grasp all the work we do within the… Read More
Topics:I have bittersweet news to announce: Holden Karnofsky, who cofounded Open Philanthropy and helped to run it through July 2023, is leaving to become a Visiting Scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, effective today. At Carnegie, Holden will continue his work to reduce risks from artificial intelligence. … Read More
Topics:Open Philanthropy commissioned a report from Stefan Dercon on economic growth as the main driver of poverty reduction. In the report, Dercon highlights a set of overlooked policies that can help boost economic growth in developing countries, as well as key reasons why these policies aren’t always… Read More
Topics:Like many organizations, Open Philanthropy has had multiple founding moments. Depending on how you count, we will be either seven, ten, or thirteen years old this year. Regardless of when you start the clock, it’s possible that we’ve changed more in the last two… Read More
Topics:Since Holden formally stepped down as co-CEO of Open Philanthropy last July, I’ve been working to build out our new leadership team. This post introduces the folks joining me (CEO) and Cari Tuna (President) as OP leadership: Emily Oehlsen became Managing Director for our work on Global Health and Wellbeing (GHW) in July 2023… Read More
Topics:In past years, we sometimes published suggestions for individual donors looking for organizations to support. This post shares new suggestions from Open Philanthropy program staff who chose to provide them. Similar caveats to previous years apply: These are reasonably strong options in the relevant focus area, and shouldn’t be taken as outright recommendations… Read More
Topics:This post originally appeared in the monthly farm animal welfare newsletter written by Lewis Bollard, program officer for farm animal welfare. Sign up here to receive an email each month with Lewis’ research and insights into farm animal advocacy. Note that the… Read More
Topics: Farm Animal WelfareBoth GiveWell and Open Philanthropy (OP) have been longtime supporters of charities that distribute long-lasting insecticide-treated bednets (LLINs), such as the Against Malaria Foundation. Open Philanthropy continues to believe that these are some of the best charitable giving opportunities in the world — on the order of … Read More
Topics: Global Health & DevelopmentWe’re pleased to announce that we’ve added a new cause area to our Global Health and Wellbeing portfolio: Global Public Health Policy. The program will be overseen by Santosh Harish, Chris Smith, and James Snowden. Santosh will lead the majority of grantmaking for the program. We believe that some of… Read More
Topics: Global Public Health PolicyLast year, we committed $350 million to GiveWell’s evidence-backed, cost-effective recommendations in global health and development. This year, we’re committing $300M to support GiveWell’s recommendations over the next three years. This returns our annual support to its 2020 level ($100M/year). And it brings us to more than $1 billion in… Read More
Topics: Potential GiveWell Top Charities, Global Health & DevelopmentIn March 2023, we launched the Open Philanthropy AI Worldviews Contest. The goal of the contest was to surface novel considerations that could affect our views on the timeline to transformative AI and the level of catastrophic risk that transformative AI systems could pose. We received 135 submissions. Today we… Read More
Topics:On behalf of Open Philanthropy’s board, I’m excited to announce that Alexander Berger is now sole CEO of Open Philanthropy! Alexander has served as co-CEO since 2021 and has run the organization during my leave of absence. I’ve been blown away by his talent, dedication and values ever… Read More
Topics:This post was originally shared on the Effective Altruism Forum. You can see further discussion on the original post. In 2019, Open Philanthropy commissioned a set of forecasts on AI progress from Metaculus.[1] The questions were run in parallel on Hypermind, but… Read More
Topics: Potential Risks from Advanced AIThis post originally appeared in the monthly farm animal welfare newsletter written by Lewis Bollard, program officer for farm animal welfare. Sign up here to receive an email each month with Lewis’ research and insights into farm animal advocacy. Note that the… Read More
Topics: Farm Animal Welfare2022 was a big year for Open Philanthropy: We recommended over $650 million in grants — more, by far, than in any other year of our history. [More] We hired our first program officers for three new focus areas in our Global Health and Wellbeing portfolio. [More] Within… Read More
Topics:In February, we launched the Regranting Challenge, aiming to add $150 million in funding to the budgets of outstanding grantmakers at other foundations. We saw the Challenge as an opportunity to maximize our impact, by: Adding funding to high-impact work that… Read More
Topics: Global Health & Development1. Preamble This post is a shallow investigation, as described here. As we noted in the civil conflict investigation and telecommunications in LMICs investigation we shared earlier this year, we have not shared many shallow investigations in the last few years but are moving towards sharing… Read More
Topics:This post originally appeared in the monthly farm animal welfare newsletter written by Lewis Bollard, program officer for farm animal welfare. Sign up here to receive an email each month with Lewis’ research and insights into farm animal advocacy. Note that… Read More
Topics: Farm Animal WelfareOpen Philanthropy’s Global Health and Wellbeing team continues to investigate potential areas for grantmaking. One of those is education in poorer countries. These countries have massively expanded schooling in the last half century. but many of their students lack minimal numeracy and literacy. To support the team’s assessment of the… Read More
Topics: Education, Global Health & DevelopmentWe were gratified to receive over 150 good-faith submissions to Open Philanthropy’s Cause Exploration Prizes, where we invited people to suggest a new area for us to support or respond to our suggested questions. We hoped that these submissions would help us find new ways to carry out our mission —… Read More
Topics: Global Health & DevelopmentWe recently published two shallow investigations on potential focus areas to the Effective Altruism Forum. Shallow investigations, which are part of our cause selection process, are mainly intended as quick writeups for internal audiences and aren’t optimized for public consumption. However, we’re sharing… Read More
Topics: Global Health & DevelopmentEarlier this year, I wrote that Open Philanthropy was looking for someone to help us direct funding for our newest cause area: We are searching for a program officer to help us launch a new grantmaking program. The program would support… Read More
Topics: Global Health & DevelopmentHistorically, economic growth has had huge social benefits, lifting billions out of poverty and improving health outcomes around the world. This leads some to argue that accelerating economic growth, or at least productivity growth,[1] should be a major philanthropic and social priority going forward. Read More
Topics:When investigating a grant, Open Philanthropy staff often make probabilistic predictions about grant-related outcomes they care about, e.g. “I’m 70% confident the grantee will achieve milestone #1 within 1 year.” This allows us to learn from the success and failure of our past predictions and get better… Read More
Topics:Update: We’ve now announced the recipients of these prizes. At Open Philanthropy, we aim to give as effectively as we can. To find the best opportunities, we’ve looked at many different causes, some of which have become our current focus areas. Even after a decade of research, we think… Read More
Topics:This post compares our progress with the goals we set forth a year ago, and lays out our plans for the coming year. In brief: We recommended over $400 million worth of grants in 2021. The bulk of this came from recommendations to support GiveWell’s top charities and from our… Read More
Topics:We are searching for a program officer to help us launch a new grantmaking program. The program would support projects and organizations in the effective altruism community (EA) with a focus on improving global health and wellbeing (GHW). Background We have an existing program in effective altruism community growth. Like our new… Read More
Topics: Effective Altruism, Global Health & DevelopmentIn this post, “we” refers to Good Ventures and Open Philanthropy, who work as partners. Open Philanthropy is running a $150 million Regranting Challenge, aiming to add funding to the grantmaking budgets of one to five outstanding programs at other foundations. We believe there are some excellent individual programs and whole foundations out… Read More
Topics: Economic Empowerment, Global Health & DevelopmentWe are launching South Asian Air Quality and Global Aid Advocacy as our first two new causes in more than five years. Read More
Topics: Global Health & DevelopmentThis post originally appeared in the monthly farm animal welfare newsletter written by Lewis Bollard, our program officer for farm animal welfare. Sign up here to receive an email each month with Lewis’ research and insights into farm animal advocacy. Note that… Read More
Topics: Farm Animal WelfareAlexander Berger outlines our 2021 allocation to GiveWell top charities and explains why we're giving more going forward. Read More
Topics: Global Health & DevelopmentZachary Robinson and Alexander Berger announce that our Criminal Justice Reform program is now an independent organization: Just Impact. Read More
Topics: Criminal Justice ReformThis post originally appeared in the monthly farm animal welfare newsletter written by Lewis Bollard, our program officer for farm animal welfare. Sign up here to receive an email each month with Lewis’ research and insights into farm animal advocacy. Note that… Read More
Topics: Farm Animal WelfareWe’re excited to announce that Open Philanthropy co-founder Alexander Berger has been promoted to co-CEO! Read More
Topics:We're excited to introduce the new members of the Open Philanthropy team. Read More
Topics:Holden Karnofsky compares Open Philanthropy's progress with the goals it set forth a year ago, and lays out plans for the coming year. Read More
Topics:GiveWell recommended $100 million in grants to its top and standout charities this year. Read More
Topics: Global Health & DevelopmentHolden Karnofsky compares Open Philanthropy's progress with the goals it set forth a year ago, and lays out plans for the coming year. Read More
Topics:We're excited to introduce the new members of the Open Philanthropy team. Read More
Topics:GiveWell recommended $54.6 million in grants to its top and standout charities this year. Read More
Topics: Global Health & DevelopmentOpen Philanthropy Farm Animal Welfare Program Officer Lewis Bollard discusses whether companies will follow through on their cage-free pledges. Read More
Topics: Farm Animal WelfareOpen Philanthropy Communications Director Michael Levine discusses the questions our program officers ask themselves before making our grant. Read More
Topics:Open Philanthropy Managing Director Alexander Berger discusses how the organization is thinking about near-term, human-centered giving opportunities now. Read More
Topics:Open Philanthropy Science Program Officers Chris Somerville and Heather Youngs discuss Sherlock Biosciences in the context of preventing pandemics. Read More
Topics: Scientific ResearchHolden Karnofsky compares Open Philanthropy's progress with the goals it set forth a year ago, and lays out plans for the coming year. Read More
Topics:We're excited to introduce the new members of the Open Philanthropy team. Read More
Topics:Holden Karnofsky reflects on how the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs may have played a role in reducing the risk of nuclear war. Read More
Topics: History of Philanthropy, Global Catastrophic RisksOpen Philanthropy Project staff give personal recommendations for individual donations. Read More
Topics:GiveWell recommended $64 million in grants to its top and standout charities this year. Read More
Topics: Global Health & DevelopmentThis new case study from our History of Philanthropy project focuses on the role of philanthropy in the campaign to secure marriage equality in the U.S. Read More
Topics: History of PhilanthropyNote: We're experimenting with writing shorter, more accessible versions of key Open Philanthropy blog posts for the Good Ventures blog. For a more detailed version of this essay, see the original. In this post, "we" refers to Good Ventures and the Open Philanthropy Project, who work as partners. Good… Read More
Topics:Michael Levine discusses some challenges surrounding the funder-grantee relationship. Read More
Topics:A review of the Open Philanthropy Project's progress in 2017 and its plans for 2018. Read More
Topics:Morgan Davis gives an update on the Open Philanthropy Project's thinking behind its grant evaluations. Read More
Topics:This new case study from our History of Philanthropy project focuses on the role of CBPP in state-level Earned Income Tax Credit programs. Read More
Topics: History of PhilanthropyLewis Bollard discusses fish welfare as a branch of farm animal welfare. Read More
Topics: Farm Animal WelfareOpen Philanthropy Project staff give personal recommendations for individual donations. Read More
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Heather Youngs discusses our search for projects within scientific research through a request for proposals to NIH transformative research applicants. Read More
Topics: Scientific ResearchNick Beckstead gives an update on Open Philanthropy's work investigating biological research, an area it believes is underfunded. Read More
Topics: Scientific ResearchPart one of David Roodman's summary of his review of the evidence on the impacts of incarceration on crime for the Open Philanthropy Project. Read More
Topics: Criminal Justice ReformAjeya Cotra re-examines the evidence on hen welfare in different housing systems. Read More
Topics: Farm Animal WelfareThe Open Philanthropy Project and Good Ventures support the most promising work according to different perspectives. Read More
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The Open Philanthropy Project and Good Ventures try to maximize our impact by taking risks and learning from failure. Read More
Topics:Holden Karnofsky discusses project-based, people-based, and process-based approaches to delegating the task of finding giving opportunities. Read More
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Lewis Bollard reflects on the success of US corporate cage-free campaigns. Read More
Topics: Farm Animal WelfareA review of the Open Philanthropy Project's progress in 2016 and its plans for 2017. Read More
Topics: Scientific Research, Global Catastrophic Risks, Global Health & Development
Holden Karnofsky discusses the Open Philanthropy Project's views on empathy and moral concern. Read More
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The Open Philanthropy Project responds to requests for giving recommendations in the wake of recent executive orders. Read More
Topics:This new case study from our History of Philanthropy project focuses on the founding and growth of the Center for Global Development. Read More
Topics: History of Philanthropy, Global Health & DevelopmentA review of the Open Philanthropy Project's progress in 2015 and its plans for 2016. Read More
Topics: Scientific Research, Global Catastrophic Risks, Global Health & DevelopmentHolden Karnofsky outlines the Open Philanthropy Project's giving strategy: hits-based giving. Read More
Topics:Lewis Bollard discusses the reasoning behind the Open Philanthropy Project's recent support of corporate cage-free campaigns. Read More
Topics: Farm Animal Welfare
The Open Philanthropy Project has recommended a grant of $1.75 million to launch the Alliance for Safety and Justice. Read More
Topics: Criminal Justice ReformOpen Philanthropy Project staff recommendations for individual donors interested in giving to organizations in Open Philanthropy focus areas. Read More
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We are excited to announce our grants to GiveWell’s “top charities” for the 2015 giving season. Read More
Topics: Global Health & DevelopmentHolden Karnofsky lays out our working framework for deciding how much Good Ventures should give to GiveWell top charities this year. Read More
Topics: Global Health & DevelopmentShould the Open Philanthropy Project be recommending more/larger grants at this stage? Holden Karnofsky lays out the case for and against. Read More
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David Roodman examines a new study on the Mariel boatlift and concludes that it doesn't give cause to change our view of the benefits of immigration. Read More
Topics:Some thinking on the question of "differential technological development": is it desirable to accelerate progress on certain technologies over others? Read More
Topics: Scientific Research, Global Catastrophic Risks
An update on the progress we've made over the last six months at the Open Philanthropy Project. Read More
Topics: Scientific Research, Global Catastrophic RisksWe're excited to announce that Lewis Bollard plans to join us as a Program Officer, working on the treatment of animals in industrial agriculture. Read More
Topics: Farm Animal Welfare
On the process of and reasoning behind hiring our Program Officer for criminal justice reform, Chloe Cockburn. Read More
Topics: Criminal Justice ReformWe recently published a case study on the impact of philanthropy on the passage of the Affordable Care Act. Read More
Topics: History of PhilanthropyWhat if a big geomagnetic storm does hit? Part 4 in David Roodman's series. Read More
Topics: Global Catastrophic RisksNick Beckstead discusses our work on global catastrophic risks, & how we think about what size of risks are most worth worrying about. Read More
Topics: Global Catastrophic RisksDavid Roodman investigates whether increasing alcohol tax rates would save lives. Read More
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Our investment is meant to accelerate GiveDirectly’s growth and build its capacity to partner with major international aid agencies. Read More
Topics: Economic Empowerment, Global Health & DevelopmentPart 3 in our series on fundamental questions for philanthropists: things to keep in mind when making and evaluating grants. Read More
Topics:David Roodman uses extreme value theory to estimate the risk of an outsized geomagnetic storm: part 3 of a series. Read More
Topics: Global Catastrophic RisksHow to hire program staff and choose focus areas? Part 2 in our series on fundamental questions for philanthropists. Read More
Topics:What does the history of geomagnetic storms tell us about the risk? Part 2 of David Roodman's series. Read More
Topics: Global Catastrophic RisksWhat's the right role for a grantmaker, beyond providing funding? The first post in a series on fundamental, under-discussed questions about philanthropy. Read More
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Are geomagnetic storms a global catastrophic risk? Part 1 of David Roodman's investigation. Read More
Topics: Global Catastrophic RisksChloe Cockburn is joining the Open Philanthropy Project as a Program Officer, leading our work on criminal justice reform. Read More
Topics: Criminal Justice ReformThe second case study from our history of philanthropy project focuses on the Pew Charitable Trusts' drug safety legislation program. Read More
Topics: History of PhilanthropyUnlike for-profit companies, it seems that many major nonprofits are initiated by funders. We give some examples and possible explanations. Read More
Topics:Holden Karnofsky outlines the steps we're taking to determine our priorities in science philanthropy. Read More
Topics: Scientific ResearchWe outline a vision for a think tank devoted to addressing systemic issues in the world of biomedical sciences. Read More
Topics: Scientific ResearchKaitlyn Trigger and Mike Krieger discuss why they're partnering with the Open Philanthropy Project. Read More
Topics:Kaitlyn and Mike will be learning with us and supporting the work of the Open Philanthropy Project over the next two years. Read More
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A compilation of our biggest lessons to date, for people who want to quickly absorb what we've learned. Read More
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Holden Karnofsky discusses the difficulty of securing support for "breakthrough fundamental science" in the current life sciences ecosystem. Read More
Topics: Scientific ResearchIs there a "valley of death" between academic biomedical research and clinical application? Holden Karnofsky discusses what we've learned about this topic. Read More
Topics: Scientific ResearchHolden Karnofsky discusses the process and challenges of investigating neglected goals in scientific research. Read More
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Holden Karnofsky provides an update on Open Philanthropy Project's progress in 2014 and plans for 2015. Read More
Topics:Holden Karnofsky provides an update on Open Philanthropy Project's progress and plans for work on global catastrophic risks. Read More
Topics: Global Catastrophic RisksHolden Karnofsky provides an update on Open Philanthropy Project's progress and plans for work on U.S. policy causes. Read More
Topics:Holden Karnofsky provides a basic guide to understanding biomedical research and examines common misperceptions regarding scientific research. Read More
Topics: Scientific ResearchHolden Karnofsky examines the track record of the Sandler Foundation and whether or not its success is a product of an atypical approach to philanthropy. Read More
Topics:Holden Karnofsky writes about the November convening on possible Open Philanthropy Project U.S. policy priorities. Read More
Topics: Criminal Justice Reform, Macroeconomic Policy
Cari Tuna explains the reasoning behind our grants to GiveWell's recommended charities for the 2014 giving season. Read More
Topics: Global Health & Development
Holden Karnofsky gives an update on our work to choose focus areas for the Open Philanthropy Project. Read More
Topics: Global Catastrophic RisksHolden Karnofsky considers the benefits of developing deep expertise in a few causes compared with getting involved in many causes. Read More
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Holden Karnofsky reflects on the biggest challenges of being public and open about giving decisions. Read More
Topics:We commissioned David Roodman to examine how increasing immigration to the U.S. would impact wages for current U.S. residents. Read More
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Cari Tuna writes about the Open Philanthropy Project, a new name to describe the collaboration between Good Ventures and GiveWell. Read More
Topics:Good Ventures has awarded $3 million to The Pew Charitable Trusts as part of our work on criminal justice reform. Read More
Topics:Alexander Berger writes about the areas we currently see as most promising with the goal of reducing global catastrophic risks. Read More
Topics: Global Catastrophic Risks
A blog post by Holden Karnofsky about the specific causes we're considering as possible focus areas in U.S. policy advocacy. Read More
Topics:A blog post by Holden Karnofsky about how we've investigated the space of policy-oriented philanthropy. Read More
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A blog post by Cari Tuna and Natalie Crispin about their recent trip to Myanmar and thoughts on the value of site visits. Read More
Topics: Global Health & DevelopmentA blog post by Holden Karnofsky about how committing to causes will help us learn. Read More
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A blog post by Elie Hassenfeld about our research into opportunities to support malaria control and elimination. Read More
Topics: Global Health & Development
A blog post by Holden Karnofsky about our research into the cause of criminal justice reform. Read More
Topics: Criminal Justice ReformThe first case study from our history of philanthropy project focuses on the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Health Care for the Homeless program. Read More
Topics: History of Philanthropy
Read about the progress we've made toward identifying focus areas and our plans for 2014. Read More
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Good Ventures announces its plans for the 2013 giving season, including $5 million in matching funds for GiveDirectly. Read More
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Effective altruism isn't about having the "right" answers. It’s about continuous learning and being open to any cause or approach to doing good. Read More
Topics: Effective AltruismGood Ventures shares a report it commissioned on the drug policy reform landscape. Read More
Topics:A blog post by Cari Tuna about Good Ventures' grant to the Center for Global Development to learn about the history of philanthropy. Read More
Topics: History of Philanthropy, Global Health & Development
An update on Good Ventures' grant to Population Services International Myanmar. Read More
Topics: Global Health & Development
Cari Tuna writes about Good Ventures' search for opportunities to fund the delivery of immunizations and micronutrient supplements. Read More
Topics: Global Health & Development
A blog post by Cari Tuna about key questions that shape every donor's giving decisions. Read More
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A blog post by Cari Tuna about Good Ventures' learning grants in policy advocacy in support of drug policy reform and marriage equality. Read More
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A blog post by Cari Tuna announcing Good Ventures’ $2 million in year-end grants to GiveWell’s top charities, including the Against Malaria Foundation. Read More
Topics: Global Health & Development
A blog post by Cari Tuna about Good Ventures’ grant to the US Cochrane Center, which publishes systematic reviews of medical research. Read More
Topics: Meta-Research
A blog post by Cari Tuna about the project Good Ventures is co-funding with the Gates Foundation to slow the spread of drug-resistant malaria in Myanmar. Read More
Topics: Global Health & Development
A blog post by Cari Tuna about Good Ventures’ first co-funding effort, an anti-malaria initiative with the Gates Foundation. Read More
Topics: Global Health & Development
A blog post by Cari Tuna about Good Ventures’ grants to “standout” charities identified by GiveWell in 2011. Read More
Topics: Education, Global Health & Development
A blog post by Cari Tuna about increasing transparency in philanthropy by publishing notes from Good Ventures’ key conversations. Read More
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A blog post by Cari Tuna about Good Ventures’ decision to team up with GiveWell, a nonprofit researching philanthropic opportunities, on similar goals. Read More
Topics: Effective Altruism
A blog post by Cari Tuna about Good Ventures' vision, mission and initial approach to grantmaking. Read More
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