Preparing for a Flush Future: Work, Giving, and Conduct

[All opinions are my own.] 

Following Jeff Kaufman’s Front-Load Giving Because of Anthropic Donors and Jenn’s Funding Conversation We Left Unfinished, I think there is a real likelihood that impactful causes will receive significantly more funding in the near future. As background on where this new funding could come from:

• Coefficient Giving announced:
• A recent NYT piece covered rumors of an Anthropic valuation at $350 billion. Many of Anthropic’s cofounders and early employees have pledged to donate significant amounts of their equity, and it seems likely that an outsized share of these donations would go to effective causes.
• A handful of other sources have the potential to grow their giving:
  • Founders Pledge has secured $12.8 billion in pledged funding, and significantly scaled the amount it directs.^[1]
  • The Gates Foundation has increased its giving following Bill Gates’ announcement to spend down $200 billion by 2045.
  • Other aligned funders such as Longview, Macroscopic, the Flourishing Fund, the Navigation Fund, GiveWell, Project Resource Optimization, Schmidt Futures/Renaissance Philanthropy, and the Livelihood Impacts Fund have increased their staffing and dollars directed in recent years.
  • The OpenAI Foundation controls a 26% equity stake in the for-profit OpenAI Group PB. This stake is currently valued at $130 billion, and it’s possible that some of this funding may be directed to effective nonprofits.

Of course, nothing is certain; Anthropic is an illiquid company with quickly-changing valuations, the stock market could always plummet, and we’re living in a time of fast-changing politics. But for a movement that has historically directed about a billion dollars per year, it seems fairly likely that some causes EAs prioritize may receive significantly more money soon than ever before. 

Below are a few directional shifts the EA community might make in anticipation of a flush future:

Work 

In my opinion, now is a great time to transition to a “direct work” career. In particular, founding new orgs or piloting projects that may be able to cost-effectively absorb lots of future funding may be especially valuable. I predict there will be more “direct work” opportunities in the coming years, and that working directly on causes that eventually receive more funding may enable you to fill positions bottlenecked by a lack of experienced talent later on. 

Movement-building may also become comparatively more valuable, with both a higher likelihood of matching new aligned talent with impactful full time roles, and potentially greater impact per role filled. For the university EA group I help organize, I plan to tell students what I wrote in the previous paragraph so that they’re aware the set of direct work opportunities may grow substantially by the time they graduate.

Conversely, I expect that earning to give will become relatively less impactful in future years than it has been. It’s difficult to estimate the extent to which returns to marginal funding diminishes over time, but it doesn’t seem far-fetched to think that with twice as much funding in a cause area, the marginal opportunity may only be half as cost-effective.

Giving

As Jeff Kaufman writes, money donated now may be more impactful than money donated later. An additional consideration is that the relative value of hard-dollar political donations may increase, since there is a cap to what each person (regardless of wealth) can contribute. Even 501c4 donations may become more attractive options since:

1. Anthropic employees can only get donations to c3s matched through Anthropic’s donation match (which is 3:1 for early employees).
2. It seems unlikely that the OpenAI Foundation will donate to c4s.
3. In certain cases (e.g., for optics), grantees may not want the majority of its c4 funds to come from Coefficient Giving.

For US citizens/permanent residents interested in political donations to support AI Safety, they can join the Americans for Responsible Innovation (ARI) or AI Policy Network (AIPN) mailing lists.

Conduct

As effective giving grows, so does the importance of high-integrity conduct. Directionally, there is more at stake with new UHNW donors exploring impactful causes, a greater need to attract new talent, and increased media attention. Movement reputation is a commons; with more funding, orgs may want to invest more on the margin in:

• Compliance,
• Conflict of interest policies,
• Vetting prospective hires for past instances of harassment or misconduct. 

As individuals, living the values of epistemic modesty, generous collaboration, warmth and inclusiveness can support downstream movement growth. Research on the Messenger Effect suggests that engagement with and perception of ideas is meaningfully influenced by who the ideas are associated with.^[2] In my community building work, the “New York Times test” (how would this action, message or post look in the New York Times?) has often been a helpful sense-check for conduct. 

Before working at an EA org, I underrated the extent to which building trust within the EA community helps create impact. When individuals develop a reputation of being pleasant, respectful, easy to work with, and calibrated about risk, leaders at an organization can entrust more decision-making and external relationship management to them, which helps the organization get more done. 

Those already involved in direct work could ask their manager about growth paths and projects that may lead to high-trust opportunities down the line. Those interested in getting involved with direct work could grow their track record of helpful collaboration. Accessible places to build professional relationships and find mission-driven projects include EA virtual programs, High Impact Professionals, city or university EA groups, the EA opportunities board, the EA Anywhere Slack, conference volunteering, Hive, and Catalyst.

People involved in effective altruism right now may still be among the earliest to contribute to the most important causes of our time. Most of us don’t control the billions of dollars looming on the horizon, but all of us can choose how we treat others. I’m proud to be an effective altruist, and I feel lucky to contribute to the good our movement is capable of in the coming years. 

1. ^{^}

   One striking piece of anecdata from their website: In the first two weeks of 2025, we [Founders Pledge] moved more money to charity than in our first six years.

2. ^{^}

   Anecdotally, the authors of this post have now persuaded nearly 10% of the students at their university to take a GWWC pledge (trial or full), while the pledge rate at most universities is well under 1%. After getting to know these authors, I believe this incredible success is due to their kindness, charisma, passion and integrity - not because the audience at their university is fundamentally different than at other universities.