Lewis Bollard is the Program Officer responsible for farm animal welfare at [Open Philanthropy](http://www.openphilanthropy.org/). He leads Open Philanthropy’s strategy for [Farm Animal Welfare](http://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/us-policy/farm-animal-welfare). Before joining Open Philanthropy, he worked as Policy Advisor & International Liaison to the CEO at The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS). Prior to that, he was a litigation fellow at HSUS, a law student, and an associate consultant at Bain & Company. He has a B.A. from Harvard University in Social Studies and a JD from Yale Law School.

Open Philanthropy

Lewis Bollard headshot

Lewis Bollard

Catherine is the main contact for community health support for groups, and also works on assessing and mitigating risks to the EA community. She currently sits on both the Community Health team and the Groups team at CEA, where she provides support to effective altruism groups around the world. Before joining CEA, Catherine managed the Students for High-Impact Charity program and taught science, physics, and ethics at the high school level. She was also heavily involved in EA community building across New Zealand and Australia. Catherine holds a PhD in physics from the University of Melbourne.

Centre for Effective Altruism

Catherine Low

Aurelia Adhiambo is a project management professional who currently works as the Open Wing Alliance Africa Coordinator at The Humane League. She previously worked as the Africa Regional coordinator at ProVeg International Grants Program. Aurelia works with African animal advocacy organizations, providing training, technical advice, and strategy development. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Commerce from the University of Nairobi in Kenya and is currently completing her Masters Degree program in African Women Studies.


The Humane League

Aurelia Adhiambo Profile Picture

Aurelia Adhiambo

Battery Hens in Indonesia

You can donate through the Giving What We Can website by following [this link](https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/funds/effective-altruism-funds) and clicking the “Make Payment” button on the bottom right.

You can find all information about tax-deductibility in the Payment Details. While we advise donors to give tax-effectively when possible, we believe impact is more important than tax benefits.


How do I make a donation an EA Fund?

The Animal Welfare Fund makes donations to a range of different interventions. Some are more proven interventions, while others are likely to be higher-risk, but potentially higher-return, opportunities. As such, we categorize the Fund’s risk level as “low-medium.”

For more information on how we think about grantmaking risk, please read our [Risk Profiles page](https://app.effectivealtruism.org/funds/about/risk).

What is the risk profile of the Animal Welfare Fund?

The Animal Welfare Fund makes grants on a rolling basis. You will usually have to wait 1-3 months after submitting an application until the full process is completed.

How often does the Animal Welfare Fund make grants?

Our grantmaking process consists of the following stages:

__Stage 1: Application Processing.__ When we receive an application, it's entered into our project management system along with the complete application details, history of previous applications from the applicant, evaluation rubrics, investigator assignments, and other relevant documentation. 

__Stage 2: Initial Screening__. We conduct a quick scope check to ensure applications align with our fund's mission and show potential for high impact. About 30% of applications are filtered out at this stage, typically because they fall outside our scope or don't demonstrate sufficient impact potential.

__Stage 3: Selecting Primary Grant Investigator and Depth of the Evaluation__. For applications that pass the initial screening, we assign investigators who are most suitable for a given evaluation. Based on various heuristics, such as the size of the grant, uncertainty, and potential risk, the Fund’s Chair also determines the depth of the evaluation. 

__Stage 4: In-Depth Evaluation__. Every grant application undergoes a systematic review. For each level of depth of investigation required, AWF has an evaluation template that fund managers follow. The framework balances ensuring that all key factors have been considered and that evaluations are consistent, while leaving space for additional, grant-specific crucial considerations. For the deep evaluations, (which are the vast majority of all evaluations), the primary investigator typically examines:

- Theory of Change (ToC) - examining how activities translate into improvements for animals and whether the evidence supports its merits 
- Scale of counterfactual impact - assessing the problem's scale, neglectedness, and strategic importance
- Likelihood of success - evaluating track record, team competence, and concrete plans
- Cost-effectiveness and benchmarking- conducting calculations to estimate impact per dollar and compare it to relevant benchmarks 
- Value of funding - analyzing counterfactuals and long-term sustainability
- Forecasting - forecasting the probability that the project will succeed or fail and due to what reasons (validity of the ToC or performance in achieving planned outcomes )
- In the case of evaluations that require the maximum level of depth, a secondary investigator critically reviews the completed write-up, raises additional questions and concerns, and provides alternative perspectives or recommendations. 

__Stage 5: Collective Review and Voting__. After the evaluation, each application undergoes a thorough collective assessment. The Fund Chair and at least two Fund Managers review the analysis. All Fund Managers without conflicts of interest can contribute additional insights and discuss key questions through dedicated channels. Finally, each Fund Manager assigns a score, which helps us systematically compare the most promising grants.

__Stage 6: Final Recommendation__
Looking at the average score, the Fund Chair approves grants that are clearly above our funding bar and rejects those clearly below it. For grants near our funding threshold, we conduct another step where all found managers compare those marginal grants against each other to select the strongest proposals.

Once decisions are finalized, approved grants move to our grants team for contracting and reporting setup.

Throughout this process, we maintain detailed documentation and apply consistent standards to ensure we select the most promising opportunities to help animals most effectively.

How Does the EA Animal Welfare Fund Make Grant Decisions?

Animal Charity Evaluators (ACE) operates two distinct funding programs that serve different purposes in the animal advocacy space. Understanding these differences can help donors choose the giving opportunity that best matches their priorities.

The first is ACE's Recommended Charity Fund, which supports a select group of evaluated, established organizations. These charities undergo comprehensive evaluation every two years to verify their strong track records of impact. The Animal Welfare Fund takes a different approach, funding both established organizations and promising early-stage projects based on expected cost-effectiveness. Many organizations we supported early, such as the Shrimp Welfare Project, and Kaffesse Turkiye, later became ACE-recommended charities. We make decisions throughout the year to respond quickly to opportunities, and while our evaluations may be less comprehensive than ACE's, this allows us to consider a wider range of projects. Our grants tend to be more hits-based, potentially offering higher marginal cost-effectiveness but with less certainty than ACE's Top Charities. Donors prioritizing proven impact might prefer ACE's Recommended Charity Fund over AWF's more maximizing expected cost-effectiveness, hits-based  approach.

ACE's second program, Movement Grants, takes a pluralistic approach to strengthen global advocacy by providing numerous smaller grants to emerging groups, especially in regions where animal advocacy is developing. AWF approaches movement building differently, funding both local and international projects based primarily on their potential impact rather than geographic distribution. While we consider movement growth, our main focus is cost-effectiveness. We provide both small (<$20,000) and large (>$150,000) grants, typically fully funding particularly promising opportunities, even if this means making fewer grants overall. Donors specifically interested in building global advocacy capacity across all regions might prefer ACE's Movement Grants over AWF's more targeted approach to cost-effectiveness.

In 2023, Giving What We Can evaluated and compared AWF and ACE's regranting work. You can see this third-party comparative analysis [here](https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/why-and-how-gwwc-evaluates-the-evaluators). Given the recent changes at AWF and ACE, it is out of date. Still, it is currently the only external evaluation available, and donors may find it informative.

What other donation opportunities exist in this space? How is the Animal Welfare Fund different from a donation to Animal Charity Evaluators’ Recommended Charities or Movement Building Grants?

The Animal Welfare Fund accepts applications on a rolling basis. If your work fits our funding scope, don’t hesitate to apply using the link below.

[Apply here](https://av20jp3z.paperform.co/?fund=Animal%20Welfare%20Fund)

If your project falls outside our scope, but you believe it can create high impact for animals, feel free to apply nonetheless or contact us with any questions at: animalwelfare@effectivealtruismfunds.org

Can I apply for funding to the Animal Welfare Fund?

Kieran Greig is the Chief Strategy Officer at Rethink Priorities. He works with the Leadership Team to advise on Rethink Priorities’ strategy and execution, at all levels. Prior to that, he was the Director of Research for Farmed Animal Funders, a group of large donors who each give over $250,000 annually to end factory farming. He previously worked as a researcher at [Animal Charity Evaluators](https://animalcharityevaluators.org/), and prior to that was a co-founder of [Charity Entrepreneurship](https://www.charityentrepreneurship.com/) and [Charity Science Health](https://www.suvita.org/). He has written about topics like [improving the welfare of farmed fish](https://animalcharityevaluators.org/research/reports/farmed-fish-welfare-report/) and [supporting plant-based alternatives to animal products](https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/eMMfBhAwrnCCxkJyz/farmed-animal-funders-custom-shallow-review-on-selecting). He has a B. Sc. from Monash University and a Masters from La Trobe University.

Rethink Priorities

Kieran Greig Headshot 2020

Kieran Greig

Alexandria is the Director of the [Open Wing Alliance (OWA)](https://www.openwingalliance.org/) at [The Humane League](https://thehumaneleague.org/). She oversees a global coalition of more than 70 organizations working to end the abuse of chickens worldwide, with a focus on institutional campaigns to ban battery cages for egg-laying hens. Since 2017, Alexandria has led the coalition's growing grant program and overseen the distribution of over 3.7 million dollars to support OWA groups’ corporate cage-free and broiler welfare campaigns.

Open Wing Alliance

Alexandria Beck Headshot 2021

Alexandria Beck

Karolina is the Chair of the EA AWF, where she has worked as a part-time Fund Manager since 2019. Previously, she was the Co-founder and Co-Executive Director at Ambitious Impact (formerly Charity Entrepreneurship). For her work, Karolina was [recognized](https://www.vox.com/23892694/joey-savoie-karolina-sarek-charity-entrepreneurship-future-perfect-50-2023) in Vox's Future Perfect 50 list. She also served as a board member and advisor for various nonprofits, including Shrimp Welfare Project, Animal Policy International, and Fish Welfare Initiative.

Earlier in her career, she co-founded an organization to improve the impact of nonprofits, worked on measurement and evaluation, and was involved in research for IBM and the Jagiellonian University (JU). While still a student, she became a university teaching fellow, lecturing at JU's Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science. She graduated with a Postgraduate Diploma in Psychology and Neuroscience from Kings College London.

EA Animal Welfare Fund

Karolina

Karolina Sarek

Dr. Neil Dullaghan is a Senior Research Manager at Rethink Priorities' farmed animal welfare team, with expertise in European Union policy. He holds a PhD in Political & Social Science from the European University Institute, an MPhil in European Politics & Society from the University of Oxford and a BA in International Relations from Dublin City University. He has volunteered for Charity Entrepreneurship & Animal Charity Evaluators.


Neil Dullaghan

Zoë Sigle is the Director of Programs at Farmed Animals Funders, a donor learning community made up of foundations and individuals donating $250,000+ annually to end factory farming. She builds high-quality member programming and guides charitable giving with a focus on effectiveness. Prior to that, Zoë led the global corporate engagement program at Mercy For Animals and conducted corporate policy outreach at The Humane League. She holds a Master of Food and Agriculture Law and Policy degree from Vermont Law School and a BA from the University of Colorado Boulder.

Farmed Animal Funders

Zoë Sigle

Ula is a Communication & Outreach Expert. She was formerly a Senior Recruitment & Digital Media Manager at Charity Entrepreneurship. She holds a PhD in Philosophy, specializing in the moral status of animals, and published a book on the topic in Polish. Before joining CE, she worked as a Project & Marketing Manager for startups affiliated with the co-founder of The Witcher game series. She also served as an application evaluator and Representative of the Humanities at the Ethics Committee for Animal Experiments in Warsaw.

Urszula Zarosa

The EA Animal Welfare Fund's mission is to alleviate the suffering of non-human animals globally through effective grantmaking.

Our grants portfolio prioritizes interventions that can collectively have the highest impact and help the greatest number of animals.

__[Donate](https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/charities/animal-welfare-fund?utm_source=eafunds):__
By contributing to the Animal Welfare Fund (AWF), you'll support grants focused on:

- Reducing suffering and improving the lives of animals in factory farms
- Bringing factory farming to an end
- Positively affecting other groups of animals on a large scale
- Supporting these goals by researching and piloting novel approaches and interventions

We have room for more funding in 2024. 

__[Apply for Funding](https://av20jp3z.paperform.co/?fund=Animal%20Welfare%20Fund)__: 
If you have a project that seems like a good fit for our funds, we encourage you to apply. EA Funds can make grants to individuals, nonprofit 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 for a grant, please simply apply.


Fund Chair

Karolina Sarek, Fund Chair, AW

Fund Manager

Ren is a research scientist with particular expertise in quantitative skills, including data analysis, statistical programming, and biological and economic modelling. They work as a Research Scientist at Animal Ask. Before that, Ren worked in academia and as a fisheries scientist in government, and they also provided their skills to the Animal Justice Party. Ren is passionate about social justice, politics, and protecting animals in the long-term future. Ren's PhD and publications explored fisheries, effective philanthropy, and animal sentience. They also hold a Graduate Certificate in Applied Economics and a Bachelor of Science (Advanced) in Ecology.

Animal Welfare Guest Fund Manager

Ren Ryba

Animal Welfare

Nicole conducts analysis on broad community health questions and provides internal consultation to other teams at the Centre for Effective Altruism (CEA). Before joining CEA, Nicole worked at the Open Philanthropy Project, GiveWell, and the Center for Healthcare Ethics at Cedars-Sinai.


Nicole Ross Headshot

Nicole Ross

Jesse coordinates work to provide scalable support to university effective altruism groups around the world. Prior to joining CEA, he worked on criminal justice reform at Just Impact and Open Philanthropy. He has an MTS from Harvard Divinity School and studied political science at Carleton College.

Jesse Rothman

[Jonas](https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonasvollmer/) serves as an advisor at EA Funds. He is a co-founder at the [Atlas Fellowship](https://www.atlasfellowship.org/), a program for talented young people, and previously led EA Funds as its Executive Director. He also co-founded and led the [Center on Long-Term Risk](https://web.archive.org/web/20220207010703mp_/https://longtermrisk.org/), a research group and grantmaker aiming to reduce long-term risks from artificial intelligence. He holds degrees in medicine and economics with a focus on public choice, health economics, and development economics. He previously ran a ballot initiative that [doubled Zurich's development aid](https://web.archive.org/web/20220206055332mp_/https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/dTdSnbBB2g65b2Fb9/eaf-s-ballot-initiative-doubled-zurich-s-development-aid), helped launch an ongoing [campaign](https://web.archive.org/web/20220206055332mp_/https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/animal-rights_swiss-to-vote-on-banning-factory-farming/45233958) to ban factory farming in Switzerland, and played a key part in establishing the effective altruism community in continental Europe.

Executive Director at Effective Altruism Funds

Atlas Fellowship

Jonas Vollmer headshot

Jonas Vollmer

Participants at EA Global

The EA Infrastructure Fund makes donations to a range of different interventions. Some of these are likely to be higher-risk, but potentially higher-return opportunities. The nature of the space means that impact may be less certain, and some projects are new, and may not yet have a long track record. Overall, we classify the Fund as 'medium' risk.

[Read more about how we think about risk at EA Funds](/funds/about/risk).

What is the risk profile of the EA Infrastructure Fund?

__Expert team with a strong track record__

Sourcing and evaluating any effective charity is complex and time-consuming for individual donors. Doing the same for meta charities is typically even more challenging. This fund is managed by a team of experts with over 25 years’ combined experience researching and donating to meta organizations. The team has a strong network across the effective altruism community, which is extremely valuable in identifying and evaluating new opportunities. All team members have a track record of being early donors to promising opportunities such as the [Centre for Effective Altruism](https://www.centreforeffectivealtruism.org/) and [80,000 Hours](https://80000hours.org/).

__Due diligence and context__

While meta organizations can offer very promising opportunities for impact, some projects may take too many risks and could potentially cause lasting damage to the brand of effective altruism. Due diligence and sufficient context are highly important. The expert team offers donors extensive and valuable experience in assessing meta projects and identifying potential risks.

#### Gain knowledge

An aspirational aim of the fund is to use the team’s knowledge and experience to support donors to learn more about EA meta organizations and expand their giving in this area. The fund will publish triannual updates on capital distributions and the reasoning behind the grants made.

#### Save charities' time

Donors often take up large amounts of time for senior management at charities. While there are benefits to these interactions up to a point, beyond that it can become an excessive cost to the team. By donating together, we can work more efficiently and reduce this effect.


Why donate to the EA Infrastructure Fund instead of donating directly to individual organizations?

EA Funds is a platform supported by [Effective Ventures](https://ev.org/) (EV), a registered non-profit which aims to build a strong effective altruism community. As such, it is a potential recipient of funding from the EA Infrastructure Fund.

The Centre for Effective Altruism (CEA), an EV organization, has previously been granted funding from the EA Infrastructure Fund, both as unrestricted funding for general operations, as well as restricted funding for specific projects, in particular its [EA Community Building Grants](https://www.centreforeffectivealtruism.org/community-building-grants) program. CEA may be a recipient of grants in the future. In addition, the Fund has granted to independent projects that are legally part of EV, including [80,000 Hours](https://80000hours.org/) and the [Forethought Foundation](https://www.forethought.org/), and may do so in the future.

The EA Infrastructure Fund management team is independent of EV, and goes through the normal, public application procedure when applying for grants. Potential conflicts of interest are governed by the EA Funds Conflict of Interest policy, and Fund managers who are closely associated with potential grant recipients are required to recuse themselves from advocating for grants.

Will the EA Infrastructure Fund make grants to Effective Ventures Foundation or related projects?

The EA Infrastructure Fund accepts applications for funding. Please submit your application by using the link below.

[Apply here](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeID5kjD9zsvlwgqB3hlX54EINg6_pY6sYl4hm7s-bYuDGiwA/viewform)

Can I apply for funding to the EA Infrastructure Fund?

Harri previously worked at the Centre for Effective Altruism, as project lead of the Community Building Grants programme, which provided funding for professional effective altruism community builders. He studied Philosophy and Psychology at Oxford University, where he also ran the effective altruism student group.

Guest Fund Manager

EA Funds

Harri Headshot

Harri Besceli

Tom is an applied researcher at Founders Pledge. He has previously worked on community building at EA Warwick.

Founders Pledge

Tom Barnes picture

Tom Barnes

Alejandro is a freelance AI governance researcher. Previously, he ran EA Oxford for a year, and while studying set up and ran the EA Bristol student group.

Visting Fund Manager

Alejandro

Alejandro Ortega

Peter Wildeford is the Co-Executive Director and co-founder of [Rethink Priorities](https://rethinkpriorities.org/), a think tank dedicated to figuring out the best ways to make the world a better place. Peter has been heavily involved in the EA community since 2012 and is excited about building a large and robust social movement around improving well-being for people across the world, for nonhuman animals, and for future generations. Prior to working in EA, Peter was a data scientist in industry for five years.


Peter Wildeford

The Effective Altruism Infrastructure Fund aims to increase the impact of projects that use the principles of effective altruism, by increasing their access to talent, capital, and knowledge.

_The EA Infrastructure Fund was formerly named the EA Meta Fund. [See our EA Forum post for more information](https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/5vGy5uDkd9M5Txg9m/the-ea-meta-fund-is-now-the-ea-infrastructure-fund)._

EA Infrastructure

Associate Fund Manager

Visiting Fund Manager

Advisor

Peter Wildeford, Fund Manager, EAI

Effective Altruism Infrastructure

Asya Bergal works as a Program Associate at [Open Philanthropy](https://www.openphilanthropy.org/). Previously, she worked as a researcher at [AI Impacts](https://aiimpacts.org/) and as a trader and software engineer for a crypto hedgefund, She's also written for the [AI alignment newsletter](https://rohinshah.com/alignment-newsletter/) and been a research fellow at the Centre for the Governance of AI at the Future of Humanity Institute (FHI). She has a BA in Computer Science and Engineering from MIT.

Asya Bergal headshot

Asya Bergal

Silhouetted figure looking at starry night sky

Because of the speculative nature of the space in which the Fund operates, and the difficulty of making judgements about which actions are likely to positively impact the long-term future, grants made by the fund are likely to be higher risk than those made by other Funds.

For more information on how we think about grantmaking risk, please read our [Risk Profiles page](/funds/about/risk).

What is the risk profile of the Long-Term Future Fund?

To make an effective donation, individual donors must spend a lot of time answering questions about which interventions are most likely to make progress in this area, which organizations are most effectively executing these interventions, and which organizations have funding gaps that are unlikely to be filled through other sources.

For areas such as global health and development or animal welfare, donors can get guidance from charity evaluators like GiveWell or Animal Charity Evaluators. No such organizations exist which focus on improving the long-term future.

Finding promising opportunities in this area is therefore especially challenging for individual donors. The fund managers have strong networks in this area which they can use to identify and evaluate new opportunities. In particular, they have a track record of being early funders of promising organizations like [CSER](https://www.cser.ac.uk/) and [FLI](https://futureoflife.org/). These opportunities are very hard for individual donors to find without first building strong networks in the space.

Why donate to the Long-Term Future Fund instead of donating directly to individual organizations?

The Long-Term Future Fund accepts applications for funding. Please submit your application by using the link below.

[Apply here](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScdg63O8i7N2HR4LCJeqF0G7OYqEtyLlZ5kvZzvqUqXebmV9w/viewform)

Can I apply for funding to the Long-Term Future Fund?

Oliver Habryka is the current project lead for [LessWrong.com](https://lesswrong.com), where he tries to build infrastructure for making intellectual progress on global catastrophic risks, cause prioritization, and the art of rationality. He used to work at the Centre for Effective Altruism US as strategic director, ran the EA Global conferences for 2015 and 2016, and is an instructor for the Center for Applied Rationality. He has generally been involved with community organizing for the Effective Altruism and Rationality communities in a large variety of ways. He studied Computer Science and Mathematics at UC Berkeley, and his primary interests are centered around understanding how to develop communities and systems that can make scalable progress on difficult philosophical and scientific problems.

LessWrong.com

12366212 1063363557039550 8500607927180344392 n (3)

Oliver Habryka

The Long-Term Future Fund aims to positively influence the long-term trajectory of civilization by making grants that address global catastrophic risks, especially potential risks from advanced artificial intelligence and pandemics. In addition, we seek to promote, implement, and advocate for longtermist ideas, and to otherwise increase the likelihood that future generations will flourish.


Oliver Habryka, Fund Manager, LTF

Linchuan Zhang works at EA Funds. Before, he was a senior researcher and research manager at Rethink Priorities, where he researched forecasting, cultured meat, scalable interventions to address artificial pandemics, and civilizational collapse. Previously, he was a software engineer at Google Travel and data science intern at Impossible Foods. He has an undergraduate degree in Mathematics and Economics, with a minor in International Relations.

Linchuan Zhang

Caleb previously worked on epistemic community health at the Centre for Effective Altruism. He also worked on EA community building and global health policy and occasionally assists researchers and the Global Priorities Institute with mathematical modelling. Caleb has a BEng in Computer Systems Engineering from the University of Sheffield.


Project Lead

Caleb Parikh

Lawrence Chan is a researcher at METR, working on safety standards for AI companies. Before joining METR, he worked at Redwood Research and as a PhD Student at the Center for Human Compatible AI at UC Berkeley.

Researcher

Lawrence Chan

Thomas is the executive director of the Center for AI Policy, where he works on developing and advocating for AI regulation. He previously did alignment research at MIRI and has an undergraduate degree in Computer Science and Mathematics from the University of Michigan.

Thomas Larsen

Lauro Langosco is a PhD student with David Krueger at the University of Cambridge. His work focused broadly on AI Safety, in particular on demonstrations of alignment failures, forecasting AI capabilities, and scalable AI oversight.

Lauro Langosco

Clara Collier is the Editor in Chief at Asterisk, a quarterly journal focused on topics related to effective altruism, among others.

Editor in Chief

Clara Collier

Daniel's research focuses on AI governance, and he is additionally involved in public communication efforts related to AI existential risk. He was previously a Senior Research Scholar at the Future of Humanity Institute, and he has a PhD in Materials Science and Engineering from UCLA. He is currently an independent contractor.

Daniel Eth

Eli Lifland is a researcher working on AI forecasting. He cofounded and advises Sage, which works on AI explainers and forecasting tools.

Eli Lifland

Long-Term Future

Families receiving antimalarial bednets in Senegal

The Global Health and Development Fund makes grants across a number of risk profiles.

It is currently looking for higher-risk, but potentially higher-return opportunities to grant to. These will typically be opportunities that GiveWell researchers have identified as having the potential to be very effective, but that are not established enough to be recommended as GiveWell top charities.

If the Fund cannot find any higher-risk, higher-return projects to grant to, it will periodically publish updates, and may choose to either roll the money forward and put it towards future opportunities, or to grant it to GiveWell top charities.

You can read a recent update about the Fund's grantmaking approach [here](https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/F42BX8su2ZEquaicL/a-change-to-the-grantmaking-schedule-of-the-effective). For more information on how we think about grantmaking risk, please read our [Risk Profiles page](/funds/about/risk).



What is the risk profile of the Global Health and Development Fund?

The Global Health and Development Fund will make grants as it identifies promising opportunities.

To ensure timely disbursement, it plans to allocate all unallocated funds in a six month period to GiveWell top charities in February and August. However, it may choose to hold funds for longer if it has already granted out a substantial proportion of the funds available during the preceding six months or is close to concluding an investigation into a promising grant.

The Fund has committed to publishing updates at least twice a year, explaining how it has decided to allocate its money.

_Previously, the Fund disbursed funds three times a year. You can read the rationale for updating the Fund's grantmaking schedule [here](https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/F42BX8su2ZEquaicL/a-change-to-the-grantmaking-schedule-of-the-effective)._

How often does the Global Health and Development Fund make grants?

The Global Health and Development Fund is managed by Elie Hassenfeld, [GiveWell](http://www.givewell.org)'s co-founder. GiveWell is an organization that conducts research into the most promising and effective charitable giving opportunities, with a focus on Global Health and Development.

This fund supports charities that the fund manager believes may be better in expectation than those recommended by [GiveWell](http://www.givewell.org/), a charity evaluator focused on outstandingly effective giving opportunities. For example, by pooling the funds of many individual donors, the Fund can support new but promising global health charities in getting off the ground (e.g. [Charity Science Health](http://www.charitysciencehealth.com/) or the [Innovation in Government Initiative](https://www.givewell.org/research/incubation-grants/innovation-in-government-initiative/december-2018-grant)).

If no such options are available, the Fund will likely donate to GiveWell for regranting. This means we think there is a strong likelihood that donating to the fund will be at least as impactful as donating in accordance with GiveWell’s recommendations, but could be better in expectation.

How is this Fund different from donating to GiveWell's top charities?

The Global Health and Development Fund is managed by Elie Hassenfeld, [GiveWell](http://www.givewell.org)'s co-founder. GiveWell is an organization that conducts research into the most promising and effective charitable giving opportunities, with a focus on Global Health and Development.

Elie believes GiveWell's top charities are excellent giving opportunities, which are evidence-based, cost-effective and could productively use additional funding to directly help people living in poverty. Donors who would prefer to exclusively fund this type of opportunity should either give to GiveWell for regranting to top charities at its discretion, or give directly to one of GiveWell's top charities.

More recently, GiveWell has been doing more [exploratory research](https://blog.givewell.org/2019/02/07/how-givewells-research-is-evolving/) to identify promising giving opportunities outside its traditional criteria, such as organizations working to assist in the creation of effective policy, or early-stage organizations. Donations to this fund are intended to support opportunities identified through that work, which was previously funded by Open Philanthropy through [GiveWell Incubation Grants](http://www.givewell.org/research/incubation-grants).

Thus, until GiveWell finds opportunities that surpass Open Philanthropy's available funding, donations to this fund are most likely to either:

(a) displace Open Philanthropy funding of Incubation Grant-like opportunities (and cause that funding to instead go to GiveWell's top charities), or

(b) go directly to GiveWell's top charities.

Nonetheless, donating to this fund is valuable because it helps demonstrate to GiveWell that there is donor demand for higher-risk, higher-reward global health and development giving opportunities.

If the Fund is managed by the head of GiveWell, why doesn't it just recommend that people give to GiveWell or its top charities?

The Global Health and Development Fund is not currently accepting applications for funding.

Can I apply for funding to the Global Health and Development Fund?

Elie Hassenfeld is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of GiveWell.

He helps set the strategy and oversee the work of Open Philanthropy, in addition to leading the History of Philanthropy project and serving as co-Executive Director of GiveWell. Elie has a degree in religion from Columbia University and spent several years in the hedge fund industry before co-founding GiveWell in mid-2007.

GiveWell

Elie Hassenfeld

[GiveWell](https://www.givewell.org/) is a research organization that searches for the most cost-effective ways to help people living in low- and middle-income countries and publishes all its research online to help donors decide where to give.

GiveWell's research team supports fund recommendations in the following ways:

1. investigating new, high-impact giving opportunities in both direct intervention and policy; 
2. making recommendations for seed or scaling grants to promising charities that may eventually be recommended by GiveWell; and 
3. maintaining an ongoing understanding of the future needs and funding gaps of current recommended charities in order to recommend grants that maximize donor impact.

Givewell Staff Logo / Headshot

GiveWell Staff

The Global Health and Development Fund aims to improve the health or economic empowerment of people around the world as effectively as possible.

Our funds open to you

Global Development Fund

Animal Welfare Fund

Long-Term Future Fund

EA Infrastructure Fund