tl;dr: We’re extending the deadline for submissions to Open Philanthropy’s Cause Exploration Prizes by a week, from August 4 to August 11, 2022 (23:00 Pacific Time). We’ll be announcing winners on or before September 9.
Meeting a new thought collaborator this weekend at EAG San Francisco? Had another idea for how we should spend our money? We’re extending the deadline for Open Philanthropy’s Cause Exploration Prizes by a week to give you more time to let us know what new cause we should be working on (including new strategies to address existing cause areas) within our wider Global Health and Wellbeing portfolio.
There are many participation awards ($200 each) remaining for submissions made in good faith, and we encourage people to submit their ideas even if they are not fully developed or polished.
*** Original blog post material below as a reminder ***
At Open Philanthropy, we aim to give as effectively as we can. To find the best opportunities, we’ve looked at many different causes, some of which have become our current focus areas.
Even after a decade of research, we think there are many excellent grantmaking ideas we haven’t yet uncovered. So we’ve launched the Cause Exploration Prizes around a set of questions that will help us explore new areas.
We’re most interested in responses to our open prompt: “What new cause area should Open Philanthropy consider funding?”
We also have prompts in the following areas:
We’re looking for responses of up to 5,000 words that clearly convey your findings. It’s fine to use bullet points and informal language. For more detail, see our guidance for authors. To submit, go to this page.
We hope that the Prizes help us to:
- Identify new cause areas and funding strategies.
- Develop our thinking on how best to measure impact.
- Find people who might be a good fit to work with us in the future.
You can read more about the Cause Exploration Prizes on our dedicated website. You’ll also be able to read all of the submissions on the Effective Altruism Forum later this summer – stay tuned!
Prizes, rules, and deadlines
All work must be submitted by 11:00 pm PDT on August 11, 2022.
You are almost certainly eligible. We think these questions can be approached from many directions; you don’t need to be an expert or have a PhD to apply.
There’s a $25,000 prize for the top submission, and three $15,000 prizes. Anyone who wins one of these prizes will be invited to present their work to Open Phil’s cause prioritization team in San Francisco (with compensation for time and travel). And we will follow up with authors if their work contributes to our grantmaking decisions!
We will also award twenty honorable mentions ($500), and a participation award ($200) for the first 200 submissions made in good faith and not awarded another prize.
All submissions will be shared on the Forum to allow others to learn from them. If participants prefer, their submission can be published anonymously, and we can handle the logistics of posting to the Forum. See more detail here.
For full eligibility requirements and prize details, see our rules and FAQs.
If you have any questions not answered by that page, contact us at [email protected]
