This is a digest of funders in the AI safety space. The goal is to give an overview of who is funding in the space that includes the most relevant information for people seeking funds, looking to donate, or looking to work in grantmaking.
These tables are a rough summary of the numbers in the digest and the numbers are often best guesses based on public info; more detail is in the writeup and the footnotes. For funders that do work in multiple cause areas, it only considers grantmaking and staff focused on AIS. Some of the funding may repeat between rows—e.g. Coefficient donating to BlueDot or AISTOF making grants through Manifund—but this shouldn't substantially change the big-picture numbers.
This is intended to be a living document that updates regularly. If you have any corrections, please reach out!
| Funder | $ donated in 2025 | # grants in 2025 | Expected $ in 2026 | FTE | General applications | Open RFPs | Accepting donations |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
I didn't know that much about the current AIS funding landscape before I started compiling this. The things that struck me:
These are roughly sorted by money moved per year.
Background: Previously Open Philanthropy, it grew out of a partnership between GiveWell (founded in 2007 by Holden Karnofsky and Elie Hassenfeld) and Good Ventures (foundation started in 2011 by Cari Tuna and Dustin Moskovitz). They're mainly funded by Tuna and Moskovitz, but looking to work with more donors.
Thesis: The biggest funder in the space by far; AI safety is one of a dozen cause areas they make grants in. Grants are usually sourced through their own research rather than applications.
By the numbers:
Recent updates: They're hiring for DC-based roles in US AI policy; applications are due August 2. Get involved:
Background: Founded in 2018 by barrister Natalie Cargill.
Thesis: Primarily a donor advisor: they design giving strategies for major philanthropists and move most money via grant recommendations, alongside their own discretionary funds (Frontier AI Fund, Digital Minds Fund).
By the numbers:
Get involved:
Background: A nonprofit that owns a large stake in OpenAI, spun off in 2025. Their AI resilience team is run by OpenAI cofounder Wojciech Zaremba.
Thesis: Their cause areas so far are life sciences, economic impact, AI resilience, and supporting communities. Within AI resilience, they're focused on biosecurity, cybersecurity, AI model safety, and AI's impact on young people.
By the numbers:
Get involved:
Background: Swiss nonprofit founded by Ruairi Donnelly, Jonas Vollmer, David Althaus, and Daniel Kestenholz in 2019. Formerly Center for Emerging Risk Research and Polaris Ventures.
Thesis: Within AI safety, they're focused on preventing AI misuse, AI welfare, and cooperation between advanced AI systems. They also donate to reason & democracy and animal welfare and do for-profit investing in their areas of interest.
By the numbers:
Get involved:
Background: Founded in 2019 and funded by Jaan Tallinn.
Thesis: SFF is a virtual fund focused on organizing grant processes to support the long-term survival and flourishing of sentient life. Most grants go to reducing AI x-risk. Jaan Tallinn's priorities include efforts to restrict AI—datacenter certifications, speed limits, liability laws, labeling requirements, veto committees, and off-switches—as well as constructive efforts to set examples for the positive use of AI—AI assistance for human intelligence, AI healthcare tech, positive moralities, safety specs for AI, and hardware-level AI controls.
By the numbers:
Recent updates: The S-process grant rounds closed in April-July and recommendations will be announced in September-November.
Get involved:
Background: Announced by Oliver Habryka in 2026. Initial funding is coming from Jaan Tallinn, Dustin Moskovitz, LTFF, and others.
Thesis: Lightcone Commons is using the same S-process used by SFF, but aiming to make the application and evaluation processes less time-intensive and run four rounds a year.
By the numbers:
Recent updates: Applications for the first round are due by August 23 and recommendations will come out October 23.
Get involved:
Background: Science-focused foundation funded by Eric and Wendy Schmidt.
Thesis: They fund several different areas of science, focused on academic research. Their broader AI portfolio is more focused on beneficial AI in a broad sense and on accelerating AI capabilities, but they also fund research on AI safety.
By the numbers:
Get involved:
Background: Founded by JueYan Zhang (former BlackRock PM) in 2023.
Thesis: A multi-donor fund focused on moving fast to fill time-sensitive gaps.
By the numbers:
Recent updates: Grants in the past month:
Get involved:
Background: Founded in 2023 by Austin Chen (formerly Manifold Markets).
Thesis: Manifund is an open platform where everything is public, grants can be turned around in days, and regrantors make independent calls.
By the numbers:
Get involved:
Background: Founded in 2022 as an AI safety training organization. They started making grants in 2026.
Thesis: They give fast grants to people and projects working in AI safety, aimed at new projects and individuals.
By the numbers:
Get involved:
Background: Started in 2017 as a project of Centre for Effective Altruism.
Thesis: Focused on giving small grants of $5k-$200k for individuals, independent researchers, and new projects. They're currently in a transitional period, so funding may be delayed. By the numbers:
Recent updates:
Get involved:
See another database of AIS funding at https://aisafety.com/funding and subscribe to their newsletter at https://aisafetyfunding.substack.com/.
Using public grants on [https://coefficientgiving.org/funds](https://coefficientgiving.org/funds) for the Navigating Transformative AI Fund and the GCR Opportunities Fund. I don't know what the total of nonpublic AIS grants was; total giving in 2025 was reported as around $1B. [↩︎](https://www.lesswrong.com/feed.xml#fnref-dMi5LPmmmqW9vaGCF-1)
grants listed on [https://coefficientgiving.org/funds](https://coefficientgiving.org/funds) [↩︎](https://www.lesswrong.com/feed.xml#fnref-dMi5LPmmmqW9vaGCF-2)
Per this post from a Longview team member, they directed over $60M in 2025, more than 2x their 2024 figure. ↩︎
The number on Longview's website went up from $89M as of year-end to $266M as of June, multiplied by 2 for a full-year estimate. ↩︎
Estimate: they've announced that they've made $130M in grants so far, and that they're planning to give away $1B across all cause areas in 2026. ↩︎
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/topics/macroscopic-ventures ↩︎ Macroscopic's job posting says they are planning to donate $100M this year. ↩︎
Per SFF's announcement, they are planning to give $20–40M. ↩︎ https://www.schmidtsciences.org/new-10-million-ai-safety-science-program-launched-for-foundational-research/ ↩︎
https://www.schmidtsciences.org/new-10-million-ai-safety-science-program-launched-for-foundational-research/ ↩︎
Estimate: total for previous 2026 RFP not published. ↩︎
$30M funds raised so far over 3 years; amount deployed not reported. [↩︎](https://www.lesswrong.com/feed.xml#fnref-dMi5LPmmmqW9vaGCF-15)
Around $3M in first half of year. [↩︎](https://www.lesswrong.com/feed.xml#fnref-dMi5LPmmmqW9vaGCF-18)
According to this LinkedIn post, where they say they're planning to 10x their $400k in grants. ↩︎
Past payouts have been higher, but they haven't posted a payout report in a long time, and they are in a transitional period. ↩︎