This is a quickly written post listing opportunities for people to apply for funding from funders that are part of the EA community.
Update: As of 2022, Effective Thesis is maintaining a more informative and up-to-date Airtable version of this list of EA funding opportunities. You can view that here. If you want to comment on the Airtable please click here (please note other commenters will be able to see your email address). You can also suggest new funding opportunities here.
Update #2: See also my slides on The what, why, and how of applying for EA funding.
Introduction
I strongly encourage people to consider applying for one or more of these things. Given how quick applying often is and how impactful funded projects often are, applying is often worthwhile in expectation even if your odds of getting funding aren’t very high. (I think the same basic logic applies to job applications.)
I'm probably forgetting some opportunities relevant to longtermist and EA movement building work, and many opportunities relevant to other cause areas. Please comment if you know of things I’m missing!
This post doesn't include non-EA funding opportunities that would be well-suited to EA-aligned projects, though it'd probably be useful for someone to make a separate collection of such things.
I follow the name of each funding opportunity with some text from the linked page.
I wrote this post in a personal capacity, not as a representative of any of the orgs mentioned.
See also Things I often tell people about applying to EA Funds.
Currently open Open Phil funding opportunities
Request for proposals for growing the community of people motivated to improve the long-term future
“We are seeking proposals from applicants interested in growing the community of people motivated to improve the long-term future via the kinds of projects described below.
Apply to start a new project here; express interest in helping with a project here.
Applications are open until further notice and will be assessed on a rolling basis. If we plan to stop accepting applications, we will indicate it on this page at least a month ahead of time.
See this post for additional details about our thinking on these projects.”
Open Philanthropy Undergraduate Scholarship
“Apply here (see below for details regarding application deadlines).
This program aims to provide support for highly promising and altruistically-minded students who are hoping to start an undergraduate degree at one of the top universities in the USA or UK (see below for details) and who do not qualify as domestic students at these institutions for the purposes of admission and financial aid.”
Open Philanthropy Course Development Grants
“This program aims to provide grant support to academics for the development of new university courses (including online courses). At present, we are looking to fund the development of courses on a range of topics that are relevant to certain areas of Open Philanthropy’s grantmaking that form part of our work to improve the long-term future (potential risks from advanced AI, biosecurity and pandemic preparedness, other global catastrophic risks), or to issues that are of cross-cutting relevance to our work. We are primarily looking to fund the development of new courses, but we are also accepting proposals from applicants who are looking for funding to turn courses they have already taught in an in-person setting into freely-available online courses.
Applications are open until further notice and will be assessed on a rolling basis.
Early-career funding for individuals interested in improving the long-term future
“This program aims to provide support – primarily in the form of funding for graduate study, but also for other types of one-off career capital-building activities – for early-career individuals who want to pursue careers that help improve the long-term future1 and who don’t qualify for our existing program focused on careers related to biosecurity and pandemic preparedness.
Apply here.
Applications are open until further notice and will be assessed on a rolling basis.
Generally speaking, we aim to review proposals within at most 6 weeks of receiving them, although this may not prove possible for all applications. Candidates who require more timely decisions can indicate this in their application forms, and we may be able to expedite the decision process in such cases."
Open Philanthropy Biosecurity Scholarships
“This program aims to provide flexible support for a small group of people early in their careers to pursue work and study related to global catastrophic biological risks (GCBRs), events in which biological agents could lead to sudden, extraordinary, and widespread disaster. Our goal is to reduce risks to humanity’s long-run future, and this opportunity is aimed at people whose chief interest is GCBRs as they relate to the impact on the very long-run future.
Applications are due here by January 1st, 2022, at 11.59 p.m. Pacific Time. We will review applications and make decisions on a rolling basis.”
(They also previously provided a similar batch of funding: Early-Career Funding for Global Catastrophic Biological Risks — Scholarship Support (2018).)
The Open Phil AI Fellowship
“The Open Phil AI Fellowship is a fellowship for full-time PhD students focused on artificial intelligence or machine learning.
Applications are due by Friday, October 29, 2021, 11:59 PM Pacific time. Letters of recommendation are due exactly one week later, on Friday, November 5, at 11:59 PM Pacific time. Click the button below to submit your application:
Please ask your recommenders to submit letters of recommendation using this form:
SUBMIT A LETTER OF RECOMMENDATION
With this program, we seek to fully support a small group of the most promising PhD students in AI and ML who are interested in research that makes it less likely that advanced AI systems pose a global catastrophic risk. Fellows receive a $40,000 stipend, $10,000 in research support, and payment of tuition and fees, each year, starting in the year of their selection until the end of the 5th year of their PhD.
Decisions will be sent out before March 31, 2022.
If you have questions or concerns, please email aifellowship@openphilanthropy.org.
Read on for more information about the Open Phil AI Fellowship.”
Request for proposals for projects in AI alignment that work with deep learning systems
“As part of our work on reducing potential risks from advanced artificial intelligence, we are seeking proposals for projects working with deep learning systems that could help us understand and make progress on AI alignment: the problem of creating AI systems more capable than their designers that robustly try to do what their designers intended. We are interested in proposals that fit within certain research directions, described below, that we think could contribute to reducing the risks we are most concerned about.
Anyone is eligible to apply, including those working in academia, industry, or independently. Applicants are invited to submit proposals for up to $1M in total funding covering up to 2 years. We may invite grantees who do outstanding work to apply for larger and longer grants in the future.
Proposals are due January 10, 2022.
If you have any questions, please contact ai-alignment-rfp@openphilanthropy.org.”
Currently open funding opportunities that aren’t from Open Phil
Recall that this is not exhaustive, and that I welcome comments mentioning things I missed.
Apply for Funding from EA Funds
“If you have a project you think will improve the world, and it seems like a good fit for one of our Funds, we encourage you to apply.
Grant sizes are typically between $5,000 and $100,000, but can be as low as $1,000 and higher than $300,000. EA Funds can make grants to individuals, non-profit organizations, academic institutions, and other entities. You do not need to be based in the US or the UK to apply for a grant. If you are unsure whether you are eligible to apply for a grant, please email funds@effectivealtruism.org.
We sometimes meet people who did not apply because they thought they would not be funded. Some of them eventually applied and were funded, despite their doubts, because we were excited by their projects. Applying is fast and easy; we really do encourage it!
EA Funds is always open to applications.
EA Funds will consider funding applications from grantseekers who wish to remain anonymous in public reporting.
You can also suggest that we give money to other people, or let us know about ideas for how we could spend our money. Suggest a grant.”
Survival and Flourishing (SAF) and SFF
“Survival and Flourishing (SAF; /sæf/) is a newly formed Sponsored Project of Social and Environmental Entrepreneurs, a 501(c)(3) public charity (proof of sponsorship; proof of charity status). SAF’s mission is to secure funding and fiscal sponsorship for projects that will benefit the long-term survival and flourishing of sentient life, including but not limited to humans.
SAF works closely with the Survival and Flourishing Fund (SFF), a donor advised fund with a similar mission and overlapping leadership. While we share no formal relationship with SFF, SAF and SFF have complementary functions:
- SAF as a general rule does not make grants to 501(c)(3) public charities, while SFF does, and
- SFF as a general rule does not make grants to individuals, while SAF does.”
"Sign up to our newletter to be notified of future funded project rounds!"
Various Future of Life funding opportunities
“Emerging technologies have the potential to help life flourish like never before – or self-destruct. The Future of Life Institute is delighted to announce a $25M multi-year grant program aimed at tipping the balance toward flourishing, away from extinction. This is made possible by the generosity of cryptocurrency pioneer Vitalik Buterin and the Shiba Inu community.
COVID-19 showed that our civilization is fragile, and can handle risk better when planning ahead. Our grants are for those who have taken these lessons to heart, wish to study the risks from ever more powerful technologies, and develop strategies for reducing them. The goal is to help humanity win the wisdom race: the race between the growing power of our technology and the wisdom with which we manage it.
We are excited to offer a range of grant opportunities within the areas of AI Existential Safety, Policy/Advocacy and Behavioral Science.
Our AI Existential Safety Program is launching first. Applications for PhD and Postdoctoral Fellowships are being accepted in the fall of 2021. We are working to build a global community of AI Safety researchers who are keen to ensure that AI remains safe and beneficial to humanity. You can see who is already part of the community on our website here.
Additional programs will be rolling out later. Please subscribe to our newsletter and follow us on twitter!”
Grantmaking – Center on Long-Term Risk
We have a dedicated fund to support promising projects and individuals. The Center on Long-Term Risk Fund (CLR Fund) operates in line with our mission to build a global community of researchers and professionals working to do the most good in terms of reducing suffering.
Can you put something on here to the effect of: "Eliezer Yudkowsky continues to claim that anybody who comes to him with a really good AGI alignment idea can and will be funded."
I'm finding this difficult to interpret - I can't find a way of phrasing my question without it seeming snarky but this isn't intended.
One reading of this offer looks something like:
Another version of this offer looks more like:
I guess maybe a way of making this concrete would be:
-have you paid out on this so far, if so, can you say what for?
-if not can you point to any existing work which you would have funded if someone had approached you asking for funding to try it?
Eliezer gave some more color on this here:
https://www.facebook.com/yudkowsky/posts/10159562959764228
There might be more discussion in the thread.
I interpreted it as the former fwiw. Skimming his FB timeline, Eliezer has recently spoken positively of Redwood Research, and in the past about Chris Olah's work on interpretability.
Should GiveWell's incubation grants be listed?
https://www.givewell.org/research/incubation-grants
(And there are other adjacent programmes like Evidence Action.)
What about Charity Entrepreneurship?
Added these to the airtable:
SoGive grants: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/3xwou3EKRerCjQgBJ/launching-sogive-grants
The Century Fellowship: https://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/other-areas/century-fellowship
University Organizer Fellowship: https://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/other-areas/university-organizer-fellowship
Thanks so much!
Just added SFF grant to airtable: http://survivalandflourishing.fund
AI Safety Impact Markets
Description provided to me by one of the organizers:
I'll add suggested things to the post itself if people provide me with full text I can directly copy in (like the name with a link to the relevant page, followed by a summary). Otherwise I'll let the comments cover things, to save myself time.
Also, JJ Hepburn has now created an Airtable with similar info, which you can view the outputs of here. That currently complements this post, and could supersede this post if someone takes ownership of adding things there, updating the info, and ironing out potential glitches. Please contact me if you're interested in doing that.
CEEALAR: "We make grants to individuals and charities in the form of providing free or subsidised serviced accommodation and board, and a moderate stipend for other living expenses, at our hotel in Blackpool, UK."
I'd recommend putting the airtable at the top of your post to make it the schelling point
Thanks for making this. Did you consider making this into an Airtable? It could also be a Google spreadsheet, but I think an Airtable would work better.
An Airtable would be slightly easier to manage and update over time than a post, and it would also be easier to filter and scan through (i.e. if you had columns for cause areas, usual grant amounts, and application deadlines)
Yeah, I think complementing this with an Airtable would indeed be handy, and I'd be in favour of someone making such an Airtable based on this post (and then maybe giving me edit access as well, so I can help maintain it) :)
I've already started doing this. Will get in contact with you.
Thanks again for doing that!
Just in case other commenters were wondering: JJ usefully started this, and then we all mutually agreed to have Effective Thesis take over maintenance of the Airtable, so I've now added to the top of the post an update linking to the latest version of the Airtable.
$20 Million in NSF Grants for Safety Research
New opportunity: Announcing the Clearer Thinking Regrants program
What about individual Earning To Givers?
Is there some central place where all the people doing Earning To Give are listed, potentially with some minimal info about their potential max grant size and the type of stuff they are happy to fund?
If not, how do ETGers usually find non-standard funding opportunities? Just personal networks?
The AI Safety Fundamentals opportunities board, filtered for "funding" as the opportunity type, is probably also useful.
AI Safety Support have a list of funding opportunities. I'm pretty sure all of them are already in this post + comments section, but it's plausible that'll change in future.
See also An Overview of the AI Safety Funding Situation for indications of some additional non-EA funding opportunities relevant to AI safety (e.g. for people doing PhDs or further academic work).
Announcing Manifund Regrants
Welcome to Apply: The 2024 Vitalik Buterin Fellowships in AI Existential Safety by FLI!
I've just now learned of www.futurefundinglist.com, which seems also relevant (though I haven't looked at it closely or tried to assess how useful it'd be to people)
Nonlinear Support Fund: Productivity grants for people working in AI safety
Clearer Thinking also gives out "micro grants": https://www.clearerthinking.org/post/submit-an-idea-to-our-2nd-annual-micro-grants-program-to-win-up-to-595
Another opportunity: Amplify creative grants
Some info from that post:
Apply to >30 AI safety funders in one application with the Nonlinear Network
See also this detailed breakdown of potential funding options for EA (community-building-type) groups specifically.
Adjacent opportunity: grants from Scott Alexander / Astral Codex Ten https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/apply-for-an-acx-grant
Also the adjacent Emergent Ventures grants https://www.mercatus.org/emergent-ventures
Open Phil is seeking applications from grantees impacted by recent events
First part of the post:
"We (Open Phil) are seeking applications from grantees affected by the recent collapse of the FTX Future Fund (FTXFF) who fall within our long-termist focus areas (biosecurity, AI risk, and building the long-termist EA community). If you fit the following description, please fill out this application form.
We’re open to applications from:
SFF Speculation Grants as an expedited funding source
"Hi everyone, SFF has received numerous emails recently from organizations interested in expedited funding. I believe a number of people here already know about SFF Speculation Grants, but since we've never actually announced our existence on the EA Forum before:
The Survival and Flourishing Fund has a means of expediting funding requests at any time of year, via applications to our Speculation Grants program:
https://survivalandflourishing.fund/speculation-grants
For instructions on how to apply, please visit the link above.
For general information about the Survival and Flourishing Fund, see:
https://survivalandflourishing.fund/"
What follows was previously a section of this post, but I've moved it into the comments instead to keep the post more focused on the most useful content.
Previously open Open Phil funding opportunities
One reason I’m compiling these is that I imagine some might be run again in future. But that’s just a guess.
But note that, in any case, people interested in these funding opportunities may find that one of the currently open opportunities suits them, such as the “Early-career funding for individuals interested in improving the long-term future” grants program.
Open Philanthropy Technology Policy Fellowship
“Open Philanthropy is seeking applicants for a US policy fellowship program focused on high-priority emerging technologies, especially AI and biotechnology. Selected applicants will receive policy-focused training and mentorship and be supported in matching with a host organization for a full-time, fully-funded fellowship based in the Washington, DC area. Potential host organizations include executive branch offices, Congressional offices, and think tank programs.
Fellowship placements are expected to begin in early or mid-2022 and to last 6 or 12 months (depending on the fellowship category), with potential renewal for a second term. Fellowship opportunities are available for both entry-level and mid-career applicants, and for people both with and without prior policy experience.
The application deadline has now passed.”
Funding for Study and Training Related to AI Policy Careers
“This program aims to provide flexible support for individuals who want to pursue or explore careers in AI policy1 (in industry, government, think tanks, or academia) for the purpose of positively impacting eventual societal outcomes from “transformative AI,” by which we mean potential future AI that precipitates a transition at least as significant as the industrial revolution (see here). This program is part of our grantmaking focus area related to transformative AI (explained here).
The application window is now closed.”
From the EA Groups Newsletter:
"Group Support Funding is now MUCH faster and easier! Please apply!
You can now apply for a lump sum to spend flexibly – no need to have your budget sorted in advance. Or you can apply for rapid funding to get funds within 2 or 7 days.
Group Support Funding covers event costs like food and venue hire, as well as advertising, books, software, subscriptions, and other group costs. These funds are available for all EA groups that are not already on a CEA Community Building Grant, including city groups, university groups, national groups, online groups, and specialist groups such as cause or career specific groups.
We believe most groups could usefully spend more money than they have in the past, so we encourage you to apply!
Group Support Grant
The main type of funding is now the flexible Group Support Grant
You apply for a lump sum of money to pay for future expenses for up to 12 months. You don’t need to know your expenses or your total budget in advance – just apply for a lump sum and use our guidelines to help you decide how to spend it.
You can reapply when your funding gets low, and if you don’t spend all your funds you can return the money or ask to use the funds in your next application.
There is no specific limit on the amount of money groups can request, but we’ve set some suggested amounts, which range from 3000 USD per year for small groups, through to 12,000 USD per year for larger groups.
The application and review processes require far less information than in the past.
Groups will get their funds within 2 weeks (US, UK), or 3 weeks (other countries), but you can request for your grant to be processed faster if needed.
We think most groups should apply for a Group Support Grant!
Rapid Group Support Funding
We are also offering Rapid Group Support Funding, which is for urgent requests for reimbursement or for costs that need to be paid within 1 month. You should get your funds within 2 working days (US, UK groups), or 7 working days (other countries)."
Also apparently Global Challenges Project is offering fast funding for student EA groups.
Here's more info on Open Phil's 4 requests for proposals for certain areas of technical AI safety work, copied from the Alignment Newsletter.
Also CEA's community building grants https://www.centreforeffectivealtruism.org/community-building-grants
Is the Center on Long-Term Risk still taking grant applications? Their application links to this EA Forum post which says "Please submit your application before August 12, 2019."
Yes, the CLR Fund is still accepting applications. I will see that we clarify this in the appropriate places.
I'm pretty sure - they've definitely made grants since that date (though possibly just to things that applied before then?), and they've changed the fund management team recently (which would be odd if they're not taking applications). Though I'm not totally sure.
You can also apply for a EA web3 grant here!
https://docs.fttdao.com/grants/apply-for-a-grant