We’re committed to sharing what we learn, with detail and honesty, as we give.

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.

  1. 04/16/2024 Blog: Give & Learn

    Development through Economic Growth

    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

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  2. 03/27/2024 Blog: Give & Learn

    Our Progress in 2023 and Plans for 2024

    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

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  3. 02/19/2024 Blog: Give & Learn

    New Grantmaking Program: Forecasting

    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
  4. 02/01/2024 Blog: Give & Learn

    Introducing Open Philanthropy’s New Leadership Team

    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

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  5. 12/19/2023 Blog: Give & Learn

    Suggestions for Individual Donors from Open Philanthropy Staff – 2023

    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

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  6. 12/14/2023 Blog: Give & Learn

    A Year of Wins for Farmed Animals

    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 Welfare
  7. 12/01/2023 Blog: Give & Learn

    A Case Study on Insecticide-Treated Bednets

    Both 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 & Development
  8. 11/22/2023 Blog: Give & Learn

    New Grantmaking Program: Global Public Health Policy

    We’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 Policy
  9. 10/05/2023 Blog: Give & Learn

    Our Planned Allocation to GiveWell’s Recommendations for the Next Few Years

    Last 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 & Development
  10. 09/29/2023 Blog: Give & Learn

    Announcing the Winners of the 2023 Open Philanthropy AI Worldviews Contest

    In 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

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