A prominent technology billionaire couple today made an unusual pledge: offering money to expand programs foundations have started that are demonstrating early success.
Open Philanthropy, a grant-making effort started by Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz and his wife, Cari Tuna, today said it would offer challenge grants totaling $150 million to up to five grant makers.
The challenge is open to foundations working on climate change, economic development, and health both in the United States and globally. Open Philanthropy did not provide more specific guidance on approaches within those broad categories.
“Those are the three broad buckets here which could capture a wide swath of activities that we are not currently funding or especially familiar with,” says Michael Levine, a spokesman for the effort. “We want to add to excellent grant making. It’s already underway in those areas.”
Seeking to Learn More
The idea is that Open Philanthropy, which has a wide range of grant-making program areas, including artificial intelligence, criminal justice, and farm animal welfare, may be missing opportunities to generate social change, Levine says. By adding dollars to foundation programs already underway, Open Philanthropy can broaden its understanding of how to make philanthropy more effective, he says.
In some ways the approach is reminiscent of the MacArthur Foundation’s 100&Change challenge.
After MacArthur in 2015 winnowed the number of programs it supports, it set aside $100 million for successive challenges to support social-change efforts in areas outside of its expertise. 100&Change, and its spin-off nonprofit Lever of Change are two of many “big bet” philanthropic efforts created in recent years.
To be eligible for the Open Philanthropy challenge, foundations must have devoted $10 million annually for at least three years to the program they think would benefit from a surge of support. The goal, Levine says, is to double the grant-making ability for up to five organizations for three years. But fewer winners could be selected and eligible for larger grants.
Open Philanthropy leaders will make the selections; Levine said no external advisory panel is involved in the process. Foundations must provide Open Philanthropy with an expression of interest by March 15, a process that should take less than two hours and will be used to cull applicants that don’t meet the guidelines of the challenge, Levine says.
"We don’t want to take up their time with a long application if it turns out that they just don’t meet some basic criteria,” he says
In a more formal application to follow, applicants will be asked to provide more information about the history of their grant efforts and early impact. The 10 finalists Open Philanthropy will pick in August will need to submit further material to highlight why a cash infusion would help their efforts, and Open Philanthropy will interview the philanthropy staff.
The awards will be paid through one of the giving vehicles set up and largely funded by Moskovitz and Tuna. They include the Open Philanthropy Project, the Open Philanthropy Project LLC, which is a private company, and the Open Philanthropy Project fund, a donor-advised fund at the Silicon Valley Community Foundation.
