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.
As with many of our blog posts, this is a cross-post from Open Philanthropy, our partner organization. It’s a slightly unusual cross-post because we weren’t the sole funder for the initiative; many other funders… Read More
Topics: Global Health and Wellbeing, Global Public Health PolicyJapan spent more than $19.6 billion on overseas development assistance (ODA) in 2023, making it the third largest single-country donor behind the US and Germany. Open Philanthropy’s Global Aid Policy (GAP) team, which is devoted to increasing government aid and guiding it toward more cost-effective approaches, believes there may… Read More
Topics: Global Aid PolicyIt’s September 2016, and Aaron Ross is in the quiet Parisian suburb of Massy, sitting in a sleek conference room at Carrefour’s headquarters. Carrefour is either the largest or second-largest retailer in France, depending on the metric. Ross stands, adjusting his tailored suit as executives shuffle in. For years, he… Read More
Topics: Farm Animal WelfareWe 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: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: Forecasting