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Monthly Newsletter
Welcome to our December 2025 newsletter — our first as Coefficient Giving!
In case you missed it: As of last month, Open Philanthropy is officially Coefficient Giving, a name that better reflects our role as a philanthropic funder and advisor working with many donors.
Read about how we chose our new name here. For more on our future plans, read this essay by our CEO and co-founder Alexander Berger ([link removed]) ([link removed]).
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 the past month ([link removed])!
— Jeremy Klemin
Highlights
In addition to launching Coefficient Giving, we:
* More than doubled the size of our Abundance & Growth team — welcome to Alex, Dylan, and Willow ([link removed]) ([link removed]) ([link removed]) ([link removed])!
* Published new explainers on concepts essential to our grantmaking: worldview diversification, hits-based giving, and strategic cause selection ([link removed]) ([link removed]) ([link removed]).
* Published a shallow investigation on hepatitis D (produced by Douglas Chukwu Junior of the Global Health & Wellbeing Cause Prioritization team). Our goals were to estimate the attributable disease burden, learn more about barriers to addressing it, and identify potential funding opportunities ([link removed]).
* Opened a request for proposals for projects that use AI to improve probabilistic forecasting and support sound decision-making ([link removed]).
* Published a guide that explains our process and underlying framework for drafting back-of-the-envelope calculations (BOTECs) ([link removed]).
Coefficient Giving in the News
Media coverage of our work
* The Associated Press, Vox, Forbes, and Inside Philanthropy covered the launch of Coefficient Giving ([link removed]) ([link removed]) ([link removed]) ([link removed]).
* Vox included Oliver Kim, research fellow in GHW Cause Prioritization, in its Future Perfect 25 list, describing his work as "approachable without being glib, and rigorous without disappearing into mathiness" ([link removed]).
* Inside Philanthropy mentioned our support for YIMBY groups in a broader piece about the movement's need for philanthropic backing ([link removed]).
* Penn State University's College of Engineering conducted a Q&A with Professor Rui Zhang about his research on mitigating LLM "sandbagging" — when models attempt to appear less capable than they are ([link removed]) ([link removed]).
Interviews with Coefficient staff
* Alexander Berger, our CEO and co-founder, spoke to Vox about Open Philanthropy becoming Coefficient Giving ([link removed]).
* Jacob Trefethen, managing director in Global Health & Wellbeing, released a new episode of Hard Drugs covering the history of vaccines ([link removed]).
* Abhi Flores-Kumar, senior program associate in Farm Animal Welfare, appeared on the Wageningen Alternative Protein Podcast to discuss alternative protein policy and funding ([link removed]).
* Deena Mousa, strategy fellow in GHW Cause Prioritization, joined the High-Impact Growth Podcast to discuss our philanthropic approach, as well as recent insights on AI's potential in global health settings ([link removed]).
Writing by Coefficient staff
* The Stanford Social Innovation Review published an essay by Alexander Berger, our CEO and co-founder, on four lessons from 10+ years of grantmaking ([link removed]).
* Jordan Dworkin, associate program officer in Abundance & Growth, wrote for the Institute for Progress about allocating government funding toward replication studies ([link removed]).
* Lewis Bollard, managing director in Farm Animal Welfare, wrote about how to make the increased demand for protein more animal-friendly ([link removed]).
* Catherine Brewer, senior program associate in AI Governance & Policy, recently gave a talk to the Oxford AI Safety Initiative; slides and transcripts of the talk are available on their blog ([link removed]).
* Alex Lawsen, senior program officer in AI Governance & Policy, published a blog post about how skillfully synthesizing others' expertise — rather than just deferring to consensus — is a crucial skill in fields like AI governance ([link removed]).
* Oliver Kim, research fellow in GHW Cause Prioritization, made the case in The Argument that hyperinflation did not directly lead to the rise of the Third Reich ([link removed]).
Grantee Updates
Photo courtesy of Kendon Photography
* Sentinel won the MacArthur Foundation's 100&Change competition, receiving $100 million to scale its outbreak surveillance framework ([link removed]) ([link removed]).
* Waitlist Zero played a key role in helping to pass New York's Living Donor Support Act, which has just been implemented. The program reimburses New Yorkers who donate a kidney to another resident ([link removed]).
* Graduates of the MATS Program continue to produce impressive papers, including recent research on how much LLMs believe facts they've been given, the ability of LLMs to conduct potentially harmful side tasks, and fine-tuned models ([link removed]) ([link removed]) ([link removed]).
* Biovac received regulatory approval to begin clinical trials of its oral cholera vaccine, which we supported via our 2022 Regranting Challenge. If successful, South Africa would become the first African country to manufacture a cholera vaccine end-to-end, with potential approval by 2028 ([link removed]) ([link removed]).
Jobs and Other Opportunities
* A Communications Officer to support our work on AI safety (deadline January 17) ([link removed]).
* A Program Officer/Senior Program Officer to help build the strategic communications capacity of the AI governance field (deadline January 19) ([link removed]).
* Operations roles based in either SF or D.C. (rolling deadline) ([link removed]).
As always, please consider referring candidates — if we hire someone you referred, we'll give you $5,000 ([link removed]) ([link removed]).
We also have:
* A variety of funding opportunities, including fellowships, scholarships, support for group organizers, and funding for career development and transition ([link removed]) ([link removed]).
* A general application to let us know you'd be interested in working at Coefficient Giving ([link removed]).
Want to learn more about Coefficient? You can explore our full portfolio of funds, apply for a grant, or work with us as a funding partner ([link removed]) ([link removed]) ([link removed]).
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