Recent press about our work

  1. 11/01/2024 In the Media

    Inside Philanthropy: Open Philanthropy Tackles the “Low-Hanging Fruit” in Public Health

    “[Dr. Olufemi] Adewole’s research team is just one of the recipients of a global health and wellbeing grant in 2023 from Open Philanthropy, a foundation established according to the principles of effective altruism — that is, tackling important neglected problems with evidence-based solutions that can save a high number of lives.”

     

    […]

     

    “Other grantees in the foundation’s global health and wellness portfolio, which totaled roughly $358 million in 2023, include what Open Philanthropy CEO and cofounder Alexander Berger describes as “low-hanging fruit.” “If you look at where deaths from preventable causes, especially easily preventable causes, happen around the world, they’re happening very disproportionately in low- and middle-income countries, especially to young kids,” said Berger.”

  2. 09/11/2024 In the Media

    Vanity Fair: Women Making Philanthropic Strides

    “In Cari Tuna’s assessment, the issues governments and companies aren’t paying enough attention to are an opening for impact. “Philanthropy, at its best, identifies society’s blind spots,” Tuna says. Originally a San Francisco–based Wall Street Journal reporter, she left the paper in 2011 to start Good Ventures, approaching her first year much like a reporter would: “I talked to hundreds of people across philanthropy, nonprofits, government, science, academia, trying to learn about the landscape.”

    “You can really see how her experience as a journalist has informed her approach,” French Gates says of Tuna. “She’s rigorous about looking at the data and figuring out how to be as effective as possible.” Once connected with GiveWell, she launched Open Philanthropy, a grant-making and philanthropic advisory organization.”

  3. 08/05/2024 In the Media

    Inside Philanthropy: What a Facebook Cofounder’s Latest $1.9 Billion for His Foundation Says about Philanthropy’s Future

    “Good Ventures is now among the top 20 largest foundations in the country, close on the heels of another storied philanthropy from another century, the Rockefeller Foundation.

    “Moskovitz and Tuna also offer a powerful philanthropic example to other entrants on the billionaires list, not to mention legions of other young but not-quite-so-fortunate tech entrepreneurs.”

  4. 07/03/2024 In the Media

    VoxDev Podcast: Emily Oehlsen on Open Philanthropy’s approach to choosing causes

    Recent estimates found that philanthropic grantmakers from 157,064 foundations in 23 countries disbursed over $150 billion in funding annually. Much of this giving is based on personal commitments to specific issues and geographies. In this episode of VoxDevTalks, Emily Oehlsen outlines Open Philanthropy’s different approach to prioritising causes – to help others as much as possible with the resources available to it, without any precommitments to particular issues or geographic areas.

  5. 05/23/2024 In the Media

    80,000 Hours Podcast: Matt Clancy on whether science is good

    “Suppose we make these grants, we do some of those experiments I talk about. We discover, for example — I’m just making this up — but we give people superforecasting tests when they’re doing peer review, and we find that you can identify people who are super good at picking science. And then we have this much better targeted science, and we’re making progress at a 10% faster rate than we normally would have. Over time, that aggregates up, and maybe after 10 years, we’re a year ahead of where we would have been if we hadn’t done this kind of stuff.

    “Now, suppose in 10 years we’re going to discover a cheap new genetic engineering technology that anyone can use in the world if they order the right parts off of Amazon. That could be great, but could also allow bad actors to genetically engineer pandemics and basically try to do terrible things with this technology. And if we’ve brought that forward, and that happens at year nine instead of year 10 because of some of these interventions we did, now we start to think that if that’s really bad, if these people using this technology causes huge problems for humanity, it begins to sort of wash out the benefits of getting the science a little bit faster.”