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Welcome to our second quarterly newsletter of 2025!
We recently announced that Justin Sandefur has joined Open Philanthropy to lead our new program on Economic Growth in Low- & Middle-Income Countries, and Matt Clancy will lead our work on Abundance & Growth. We’re delighted to have found leaders who will help these programs fulfill their potential.
We are continuing to grow our team — see here or the end of the newsletter for open roles and opportunities to get involved. And keep reading for more updates and highlights from this quarter!
Best,
Jeremy Klemin
Content Editor
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In addition to filling two senior grantmaking roles, we:
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Open Philanthropy in the News
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Media coverage of our programs and grantees:
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Interviews with Open Philanthropy staff:
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Cari Tuna, Open Philanthropy’s chair, spoke about our approach to grantmaking at Stanford’s Philanthropy Innovation Summit.
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Jacob Trefethen, program director in Global Health & Wellbeing, launched Hard Drugs, a new podcast about medical innovation. The podcast is a collaboration between Jacob and Saloni Dattani of Works in Progress.
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Matt Clancy, senior program officer in Abundance & Growth, was quoted in an Inside Higher Education piece on science policy.
- Ajeya Cotra, senior advisor in Potential Risks from Advanced AI, sat down with Open Philanthropy grantee and AI Snake Oil co-author Arvind Narayanan to discuss the pace of AI development. The exchange was published by Asterisk Magazine.
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Writing by Open Philanthropy Staff
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Lewis Bollard and Emma Buckland of our Farm Animal Welfare team co-wrote a piece about the 2025 cage-free deadline for many of the world’s largest companies.
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Matt Clancy, senior program officer in Abundance & Growth, wrote about the case for funding R&D in developing countries.
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Deena Mousa, interim lead researcher in GHW Cause Prioritization, wrote about detecting airborne pathogens for Asimov Press and AI art residencies for The Verge.
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David Roodman, senior advisor in GHW Cause Prioritization, wrote about his experience serving as the hypothetical “judge” of a dispute over the results of an economics paper. You can read his full write-up on the dispute here.
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Joe Carlsmith, senior research analyst in GCR Worldview Investigations, released the sixth article in his series on solving the AI alignment problem.
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Julian Hazell, program associate in Potential Risks from Advanced AI, launched Secret Third Thing, a new blog about transformative AI. So far, he has written about building defensive technology and the importance of AI security.
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Alex Lawsen, senior program associate in Potential Risks from Advanced AI, wrote about how he uses large language models in his work.
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James Hu, program associate in Global Public Health Policy, co-wrote a piece for Works in Progress about recent advances in the battle against lead poisoning.
- Jacob Trefethen, program director in Global Health & Wellbeing, wrote about some of his favorite science writing from the last two years.
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The Clinton Health Access Initiative announced a landmark agreement to provide affordable access to sickle cell disease diagnosis in low- and middle-income countries.
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Innovate Animal Ag published a report showing the rapid adoption of in-ovo chicken sexing, which has led to 175 million male embryos being removed from eggs before hatching (instead of being slaughtered as chicks).
- Humane Society International has been securing wins across Asia: companies representing ~270 restaurants in Japan and Thailand have nearly or entirely transitioned to cage-free supply chains.
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The Lead Exposure Elimination Project released an exciting annual review, including major advances toward lead paint reduction in Pakistan and Nigeria.
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Photo courtesy of YIMBY Melbourne
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We announced a number of grants, including:
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In Effective Giving & Careers:
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In Potential Risks from Advanced AI:
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In Global Catastrophic Risks Capacity Building:
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The London Initiative for Safe AI (LISA) for general support. LISA is a U.K. charity and research center that works to advance education in AI safety, reduce risks from uncontrolled or misused AI systems, and contribute to the safe development, use, and governance of AI.
- The University of Chicago to support the Existential Risk Laboratory (formerly known as the Chicago School of Existential Risk), a summer research fellowship for undergraduate and graduate students focused on reducing existential risks.
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In Scientific Research:
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UC Berkeley to support work led by Professor Amy Pickering to develop and evaluate low-cost in-line water chlorination devices to improve drinking water quality and reduce the burden of diarrheal diseases.
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Stanford University to support work led by Professor Mark Davis to develop an in vitro immunological system for characterizing the efficacy of vaccine candidates.
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In Biosecurity & Pandemic Preparedness:
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Brown University’s Pandemic Center for operational support. The Pandemic Center works to reduce vulnerabilities and increase resilience to pandemics, other biological emergencies, and the second-degree harms they pose.
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In Global Public Health Policy:
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In Forecasting:
- FutureSearch to support research on automating the generation of forecasting questions.
- The Forecasting Research Institute to support its work on projects to advance the science of forecasting and to increase the relevance of forecasting for high-stakes policy decisions.
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To see more grants we've awarded, visit our grants page.
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Jobs and Other Opportunities
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We’re hiring for:
As always, please consider referring candidates to these roles — if we hire someone you referred, we’ll give you $5,000.
We also have:
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