This is a digest of funders in the AI safety space. The goal is to give an overview of who is funding in the space that includes the most relevant information for people seeking funds, looking to donate, or looking to work in grantmaking.
These tables are a rough summary of the numbers in the digest and the numbers are often best guesses based on public info; more detail is in the writeup and the footnotes. For funders that do work in multiple cause areas, it only considers grantmaking and staff focused on AIS. Some of the funding may repeat between rows—e.g. Coefficient donating to BlueDot or AISTOF making grants through Manifund—but this shouldn't substantially change the big-picture numbers.
This is intended to be a living document that updates regularly. If you have any corrections, please reach out!
At a glance
Takeaways
I didn't know that much about the current AIS funding landscape before I started compiling this. The things that struck me:
- Donations in 2026 are going to be a lot higher than 2025. CG is more than doubling its donations from last year, Macroscopic is more than tripling, and from what I can tell Longview already has tripled. And OpenAI Foundation is going to start donating a lot of money.
- On the other hand, besides OpenAI Foundation, the big funders have been in the space for a long time. The rising prominence of AI in the past few years hasn't yet translated into lots of AI safety dollars from people who are newly converted.
Funder profiles
These are roughly sorted by money moved per year.
Coefficient Giving
Website
Background: Previously Open Philanthropy, it grew out of a partnership between GiveWell (founded in 2007 by Holden Karnofsky and Elie Hassenfeld) and Good Ventures (foundation started in 2011 by Cari Tuna and Dustin Moskovitz). They're mainly funded by Tuna and Moskovitz, but looking to work with more donors.
Thesis: The biggest funder in the space by far; AI safety is one of a dozen cause areas they make grants in. Grants are usually sourced through their own research rather than applications.
By the numbers:
- donations: allocating $1b to catastrophic risks in 2026
- grant sizes: $10k to $50m
- number of grants: the Navigating Transformative AI Fund lists 184 in 2025 and 46 in 2026
- staff: ~180 total. ~30/70 staff working on grants seem to be focused on AIS, and I estimated 70 total by amortizing the staff working on operations, communications, and partnerships.
Recent updates: They're hiring for DC-based roles in US AI policy; applications are due August 2.
Get involved:
- Apply for funding: they have open RFPs for:
- capacity-building (e.g. training and mentorship programs, events, groups, coworking spaces, media, online infrastructure, career advising) — decisions within 3 months
- career transition funding (e.g. graduate school, internships, or independent study for building career capacity for people working on reducing global catastrophic risk) — decisions within 6 weeks
- Donate: they are recruiting funders giving > $250k/year; reach out to [email protected]
- Apply for a job: see roles here
Longview Philanthropy
Website
Background: Founded in 2018 by barrister Natalie Cargill.
Thesis: Primarily a donor advisor: they design giving strategies for major philanthropists and move most money via grant recommendations, alongside their own discretionary funds (Frontier AI Fund, Digital Minds Fund).
By the numbers:
- donations: total of $266m to AI risk reduction since 2018
- staff: ~25 FTE, around half working on AIS gets 13
Get involved:
- Apply for funding: they post periodic RFPs here; otherwise opportunities are sourced via proactive research
- Donate: contact form; they're interested in donors giving at least $1m/year
- Apply for a job: no current open roles, but you can express interest here
OpenAI Foundation
Website
Background: A nonprofit that owns a large stake in OpenAI, spun off in 2025. Their AI resilience team is run by OpenAI cofounder Wojciech Zaremba.
Thesis: Their cause areas so far are life sciences, economic impact, AI resilience, and supporting communities. Within AI resilience, they're focused on biosecurity, cybersecurity, AI model safety, and AI's impact on young people.
By the numbers:
Get involved:
- Apply for a job: they're hiring for many roles, listed here
Macroscopic
Website
Background: Swiss nonprofit founded by Ruairi Donnelly, Jonas Vollmer, David Althaus, and Daniel Kestenholz in 2019. Formerly Center for Emerging Risk Research and Polaris Ventures.
Thesis: Within AI safety, they're focused on preventing AI misuse, AI welfare, and cooperation between advanced AI systems. They also donate to reason & democracy and animal welfare and do for-profit investing in their areas of interest.
By the numbers:
- donating: up to $100m this year
- grant sizes: $100k to $15m
- staff: ~8 FTE
Get involved:
- Apply for funding: you can email [email protected], though most grants are sourced through proactive research and they don't respond to most proposals
- Donate: they're not seeking donations, but they're happy to advise those donating > $100k
- Apply for a job: no current open roles, but you can express interest here
Survival and Flourishing Fund (SFF)
Website
Background: Founded in 2019 and funded by Jaan Tallinn.
Thesis: SFF is a virtual fund focused on organizing grant processes to support the long-term survival and flourishing of sentient life. Most grants go to reducing AI x-risk. Jaan Tallinn's priorities include efforts to restrict AI—datacenter certifications, speed limits, liability laws, labeling requirements, veto committees, and off-switches—as well as constructive efforts to set examples for the positive use of AI—AI assistance for human intelligence, AI healthcare tech, positive moralities, safety specs for AI, and hardware-level AI controls.
By the numbers:
- typically deploy around $30-40m across 100 grants in recent years
- staff: ~7 staff at Survival and Flourishing Corp. Recommendations are done by part-time recommenders.
Recent updates: The S-process grant rounds closed in April-July and recommendations will be announced in September-November.
Get involved:
- Apply for funding: instructions for applying to a Speculation Grant
- Speculation Grants are faster grants of typically up to $400k outside the S-Process timeline.
- Submitting an application also puts you in consideration for the next S-Process Grant round.
- Donate: They don't appear to be actively soliciting cofunders, but consider reaching out to [email protected].
- Apply for a job: They are currently hiring for a software engineer role.
Lightcone Commons
Website
Background: Announced by Oliver Habryka in 2026. Initial funding is coming from Jaan Tallinn, Dustin Moskovitz, LTFF, and others.
Thesis: Lightcone Commons is using the same S-process used by SFF, but aiming to make the application and evaluation processes less time-intensive and run four rounds a year.
By the numbers:
- donating around $20m in the first round
- staff: recommendations done by part-time evaluators
Recent updates: Applications for the first round are due by August 23 and recommendations will come out October 23.
Get involved:
- Apply for funding: here
- They also import applications from grantmaking.ai, Manifund, and LTFF.
- Donate: They are looking to onboard donors giving at least $50k: book an onboarding call here.
Schmidt Sciences
Website
Background: Science-focused foundation funded by Eric and Wendy Schmidt.
Thesis: They fund several different areas of science, focused on academic research. Their broader AI portfolio is more focused on beneficial AI in a broad sense and on accelerating AI capabilities, but they also fund research on AI safety.
By the numbers:
Get involved:
- Apply for funding:
- They currently have a joint RFP on multi-agent safety with Google DeepMind, Cooperative AI Foundation, and others with applications due August 8.
- Otherwise, they don't accept unsolicited proposals.
- Apply for a job: They are hiring for scientists, engineers, and technical advisors in AI here.
AI Safety Tactical Opportunities Fund (AISTOF)
Background: Founded by JueYan Zhang (former BlackRock PM) in 2023.
Thesis: A multi-donor fund focused on moving fast to fill time-sensitive gaps.
By the numbers:
- funds raised: > $30m
- grants made: > 150 since fall 2023
- staff: ~1 FTE
Recent updates: Grants in the past month:
- $150,000 for AI safety workshops for middle schoolers in India
- $77,000 for Sparse Concept Anchoring
- $30,000 for a European AI safety conference
- $6700 for AI nutrition labels
Get involved:
- Apply for funding: there's no open application, but consider posting a proposal on Manifund
- Donate: there's no formal way to do so, but you could reach out to JueYan on LinkedIn
Manifund
Website
Background: Founded in 2023 by Austin Chen (formerly Manifold Markets).
Thesis: Manifund is an open platform where everything is public, grants can be turned around in days, and regrantors make independent calls.
By the numbers:
- in 2026 so far:
- $3.7m donated
- ~100 projects funded
- grant sizes between $0-$500k
- staff: ~1 FTE
Get involved:
- Apply for funding: make a public project proposal at manifund.org
- Donate: you can donate to projects yourself, or donate to regrantors here
BlueDot Impact
Website
Background: Founded in 2022 as an AI safety training organization. They started making grants in 2026.
Thesis: They give fast grants to people and projects working in AI safety, aimed at new projects and individuals.
By the numbers:
- donated: $3.8m (2026 YTD)
- grants made: ~500
- staff: ~10 FTE, but most not working on grants
Get involved:
- Apply for funding: they have two grant programs:
- Career Transition Grants for people switching to work full-time on AI safety — application: 45 minutes, decision time: 17 days
- Rapid Grants: up to $10k for concrete AI safety projects — application: 5 minutes, decision time: 3 days
Long-Term Future Fund (LTFF)
Website
Background: Started in 2017 as a project of Centre for Effective Altruism.
Thesis: Focused on giving small grants of $5k-$200k for individuals, independent researchers, and new projects. They're currently in a transitional period, so funding may be delayed.
By the numbers:
- donating: historically around $6m/year
- number of grants: 100-200/year
- grant size: between $5k-$200k
- staff: all part-time, ~1 FTE
Recent updates:
- They haven't posted grant updates since 2024 Q1. As of April 2026, they announced that they were in the process of hiring new leadership and were in a transitional period.
- They are donating $2M to this Lightcone Commons round.
Get involved:
Not included
- Astralis Foundation
- They seem fairly new with not a ton of public info. They're not taking unsolicited funding requests.
- Based on this job posting from earlier in the year, they have a fund focused on international AI governance aiming to deploy $15m this year.
- Navigation Fund
- Jed McCaleb's foundation.
- At one point they announced they were giving $20m/year to AI safety, but this seems to have not materialized and it's now gone from their website.
- AI Risk Mitigation Fund
- They announced a spinoff from LTFF in 2023, but haven't made any updates or grant announcements on their website. They're one of the funders of Lightcone Commons.
- FLI
- They were previously more active in grantmaking and still have a PhD fellowship program, but seem to be less focused on grantmaking these days.
- Frontier Model Forum AI Safety Fund
- It was funded with $10m in 2023. Most of this was distributed in 2024 and 2025 and they now appear to be winding down and spending their remaining funds.
- Foresight AI for Safety and Science
- They award $3m annually across AI safety & science.
- Astera
- Their webpage mentions that they're primarily backing Simplex.
- grantmaking.ai
- New initiative housed under Manifund, with an initial $1m, see launch post.
Other resources
See another database of AIS funding at https://aisafety.com/funding and subscribe to their newsletter at https://aisafetyfunding.substack.com/.
