Funding Type: Grants

Compassion in World Farming USA — Implementation of Corporate Pledges (2024)

Photo courtesy of Compassion in World Farming

Open Philanthropy recommended a grant of $1,300,000 over two years to Compassion in World Farming (CIWF) USA to support its work helping to implement corporate pledges for broiler chicken welfare and cage-free reforms. CIWF’s work involves both advocating for corporations to follow through on pledges and providing technical assistance to help them do so.

This follows our March 2023 support and falls within our focus area of farm animal welfare, specifically within our interest in cage-free reforms and broiler chicken welfare.

Conservative Animal Welfare Foundation — UK Farm Animal Welfare Advocacy

Image courtesy of the Conservative Animal Welfare Foundation

Open Philanthropy recommended a grant of £650,000 (approximately $816,400 at the time of conversion) over two years to the Conservative Animal Welfare Foundation to support advocacy to strengthen legal protections for farm animals in the UK.

This follows our May 2022 support and falls within our focus area of farm animal welfare, specifically within our interest in farm animal welfare in Europe.

Princeton University — Software Engineering LLM Benchmark

Open Philanthropy recommended a grant of $1,045,620 to Princeton University to support a project to develop a benchmark for evaluating the performance of Large Language Model (LLM) agents in software engineering tasks, led by Assistant Professor Karthik Narasimhan.

This grant was funded via a request for proposals for projects benchmarking LLM agents on consequential real-world tasks and falls within our focus area of potential risks from advanced artificial intelligence.

Effective Ventures Foundation USA — Harvard Square Coworking Space

Open Philanthropy recommended a grant of $7,644,020 to Effective Ventures Foundation USA (EVF USA) to support leasing and refurbishment costs for an office located in Harvard Square. This office will be run and managed by EVF USA and will provide coworking space for around 50 individuals working at effective altruism-affiliated organizations or related initiatives.

This follows our August 2022 support and falls within our focus area of growing and empowering the community of people focused on global catastrophic risk reduction.

International Institute of Information Technology Hyderabad — AI Systems Course

Photo courtesy of International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad

Open Philanthropy recommended a grant of $7,000 to the International Institute of Information Technology Hyderabad to support a course called “Responsible and Safe AI Systems” taught by Ponnurangam Kumaraguru.

We sought applications for this funding to support the development of courses on a range of topics that are relevant to certain areas of Open Philanthropy’s grantmaking.

This falls within our focus area of growing and empowering the community of people focused on global catastrophic risk reduction.

UC Davis — Insectary for Malaria Gene Drive Research

Open Philanthropy recommended a grant of $500,000 to UC Davis to support the construction of an insectary on the island of Príncipe. This facility will support research into the potential ecological impact of releasing genetically engineered Anopheles mosquitoes designed to prevent transmission of Plasmodium falciparum, the parasite responsible for causing malaria.

This follows our December 2021 support and falls within our focus area of scientific research, specifically within our interest in advancing human health and wellbeing.

Harvard University — Antimalarial Bednet Development and Evaluation

Open Philanthropy recommended a grant of $2,880,750 over three years to Harvard University to support Dr. Flaminia Catteruccia’s research on a novel method of malaria prevention. The project will develop bednets and sprays that target the malaria parasites within mosquitoes to prevent malaria transmission, and establish improved screening methods for more potent transmission-blocking compounds. The activity of these nets will be evaluated in proof-of-concept hut trials, and their potential impact and cost-effectiveness will be modeled, with the ultimate goal of advancing promising interventions to larger field trials. This is one of two grants we’ve made to support this work.

This falls within our focus area of global health R&D.