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LTFF and EAIF are unusually funding-constrained right now
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Linch·calebp99
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Rating inherited from publication venue: LessWrong
Published in 2023, this post reflects a pivotal moment in AI safety funding infrastructure when key grant-making funds faced unusual capital constraints, offering insight into how community-level funding mechanisms for AI safety research operate and adapt under pressure.
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lesswrong
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LongtermismGrants & Fundraising OpportunitiesCommunity
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Importance: 42/100blog postnews
Summary
The Long-Term Future Fund (LTFF) and EA Infrastructure Fund (EAIF) announced a critical funding shortage in 2023, seeking ~$4.4M over six months after Open Philanthropy shifted from guaranteed funding to a 2:1 matching model. Fund managers highlighted unusually high-quality, time-sensitive grant opportunities—particularly for AI safety researchers and SERI MATS participants—that could not be funded without additional donations.
Key Points
- •LTFF and EAIF face a combined ~$4.4M funding gap over six months due to Open Philanthropy shifting from guaranteed funding to a temporary 2:1 matching arrangement.
- •Fund managers describe currently available grants as unusually strong opportunities, especially for SERI MATS alumni and AI safety researchers seeking career support.
- •The funding constraint is time-sensitive: opportunities may be lost if donations don't arrive quickly enough to match identified grant candidates.
- •Post includes transparency on operational costs, fund manager profiles, highlighted grants, and a candid discussion of potential downsides and areas for improvement.
- •Context reflects broader shifts in EA/longtermist funding landscape following the FTX collapse and recalibration of major philanthropic commitments.
Cited by 1 page
| Page | Type | Quality |
|---|---|---|
| EA Epistemic Failures in the FTX Era | -- | 84.0 |
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# LTFF and EAIF are unusually funding-constrained right now
By Linch, calebp99
Published: 2023-08-30
### **UPDATE 2023/09/13: **
Including only money that has already landed in our bank account and extremely credible donor promises of funding, LTFF has raised ~1.1M and EAIF has raised ~500K. After Open Phil matching, this means LTFF now has ~3.3M additional funding and EAIF has ~1.5m in additional funding.
From my (Linch)'s perspective, this means both LTFF nor EAIF are no longer *very* funding constrained for the time period we wanted to raise money for (the next ~6 months), however both funds are still funding constrained and can productively make good grants with additional funding.
See [this comment](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/gRfy2Q2Pg25a2cHyY/ltff-and-eaif-are-unusually-funding-constrained-right-now?commentId=DPWNvR3q3BatGdJBZ) for more details.
**Summary**
===========
EA Funds aims to empower thoughtful individuals and small groups to carry out altruistically impactful projects - in particular, enabling and accelerating small/medium-sized projects (with grants <$300K). We are looking to increase our level of independence from other actors within the EA and longtermist funding landscape and are seeking to raise ~$2.7M for the Long-Term Future Fund and ~$1.7M for the EA Infrastructure Fund (~$4.4M total) over the next six months.
**Why donate to EA Funds? **EA Funds is the largest funder of small projects in the longtermist and EA infrastructure spaces, and has had a solid operational track record of giving out hundreds of high-quality grants a year to individuals and small projects. We believe that we’re well-placed to fill the role of a significant independent grantmaker, because of a combination of our track record, our historical role in this position, and the quality of our fund managers.
**Why now? **We think now is an unusually good time to donate to us, as a) we have an unexpectedly large funding shortage, b) there are [great projects on the margin that we can’t currently fund](https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/7RrjXQhGgAJiDLWYR/what-does-a-marginal-grant-at-ltff-look-like-funding), and c) more stabilized funding now can give us time to try to find large individual and institutional donors to cover future funding needs.
Importantly, Open Philanthropy is no longer providing a guaranteed amount of funding to us and [instead will move over to a (temporary) model of matching our funds](https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/zt6MsCCDStm74HFwo/ea-funds-organisational-update-open-philanthropy-matching) 2:1 ($2 from them for every $1 from you, up to 3.5M from them per fund).
**Where to donate: **If you’re interested, you can donate to either Long-Term Future Fund (LTFF) or EA Infrastructure Fund (EAIF) [here](https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/funds/effective-altruism-funds?utm_source=eafunds).[^\[1\]^](https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/PAco5oG579k2qzrh9/ltff-and-eaif-are-unusually-funding-constrained-right-no
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