FundsEffective Altruism Infrastructure Fund
Effective Altruism Infrastructure Fund
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.
Impact
The EA Infrastructure Fund has recommended several million dollars worth of grants, to a range of organizations, including:
Created a tool for cross-cause prioritization in giving portfolios
Published a book on scholarship strategy promoting EA opportunities
About the fund
The Effective Altruism Infrastructure Fund (EA Infrastructure Fund) recommends grants that aim to improve the work of projects using principles of effective altruism, by increasing their access to talent, capital, and knowledge.
The EA Infrastructure Fund has historically attempted to make strategic grants to incubate and grow projects that attempt to use reason and evidence to do as much good as possible. These include meta-charities that fundraise for highly effective charities doing direct work on important problems, research organizations that improve our understanding of how to do good more effectively, and projects that promote principles of effective altruism in contexts like academia.
The EA Infrastructure Fund was formerly named the Effective Altruism Meta Fund.
Focus areas
The Effective Altruism Infrastructure Fund recommends grants that aim to improve the work of projects that use the principles of effective altruism, by increasing their access to talent, capital, and knowledge. While the other three Funds support direct work on various causes, this Fund supports work that could multiply the impact of direct work, including projects that provide intellectual infrastructure for the effective altruism community, run events, disseminate information, or fundraise for effective charities. This will be achieved by supporting projects that:
- Directly increase the number of people who are exposed to principles of effective altruism, or develop, refine or present such principles
- Support the recruitment of talented people who can use their skills to make progress on important problems
- Aim to build a global community of people who use principles of effective altruism as a core part of their decision-making process when deciding how they can have a positive impact on the world
- Conduct research into prioritizing between or within different cause areas
- Raise funds or otherwise support other highly-effective projects
- Improve community health by promoting healthy norms for interaction and discourse, or assist in resolving grievances
This includes a broad range of projects in global wellbeing (including animal welfare), longtermism, as well as cause-general work.
Featured grants with outstanding outcomes
Hear This Idea
$6,196.87
2024 Q3
Ongoing support for Hear This Idea, a podcast about ideas for solving important problems
$6,196.87
2024 Q3
Effective Altruism Australia
$93,000
2024 Q4
Stipend support for the first paid CEO at Effective Altruism Australia (EAA) to further grow the EA movement in Australia
$93,000
2024 Q4
Rethink Wellbeing
$50,000
2024 Q4
Funding to run a proven, cost-effective mental health program for ~175 EAs: well-being & productivity gains worth ~30 FTEs/yr
$50,000
2024 Q4
Alfredo Parra
$59,000
2024 Q4
6-month salary to do prioritization research and community building focused on reducing extreme pain in humans
$59,000
2024 Q4
Effective Altruism Poland
$5,000
2023 Q3
A 12-month budget to grow and promote an effective fundraising platform in Poland, similar to effektiv-spenden.de
$5,000
2023 Q3
Payout reports
Payout date
Total grants
No. of grantees
Payout report
2024 Q2
$1,386,854
41
2023 Q2
$2,079,927
83
2022 Q1
$2,445,941
2021 Q4
$1,700,346
2021 Q2
$1,221,178
Payouts over time
Applications
Why donate to this fund?
Choosing to give to highly effective charities can greatly increase the positive impact of your donations. ‘Infrastructure’ refers to the idea that creating additional resources and support to projects aiming to improve the world can multiply this impact.
Donating to improve the infrastructure available to effective projects (instead of to the projects carrying out this work directly) is sometimes called 'meta charity'.
Three of the best opportunities to multiply impact (of which we are currently aware) are through improving the quality and quantity of talent, information and capital available to solve the world’s biggest problems.
Why you might choose not to donate to this fund
01You don’t agree with the rationale for the Fund, or the views of the Fund management team02You have concerns about conflicts of interest or grantmaker independence
The main reason you might choose not to donate to this fund is if you do not agree with the views of the fund management team. For example, you may not be convinced of the arguments in favour of supporting meta charities, or you may want to donate only to a select subset of meta charities. In particular, you may prefer that your money go directly toward helping others, with as little ambiguity as possible.
Fund managers
Harri Besceli
Fund Manager
Jamie Harris
Fund Manager
Fund advisors
Nicole Ross
Fund Advisor
Catherine Low
Fund Advisor
Jesse Rothman
Fund Advisor
Jonas Vollmer
Fund Advisor at Effective Altruism Infrastructure and Long-Term Future Fund
Peter Wildeford
Fund Advisor