For a decade the largest single source of money for evidence-based charity was Open Philanthropy, the grant-making arm funded mainly by Good Ventures, the foundation of Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz and Cari Tuna. In November 2025 it renamed itself Coefficient Giving.
Why the rename matters
The organization’s own explanation is that people assumed “Open Philanthropy” and “Good Ventures” were the same thing. That was roughly true at the start. By early 2025 it was not: money from other donors had become a core line of business, and the new name is meant to say so. The plan is to run a set of funds that outside philanthropists can join, with Coefficient doing the research and grant-making.
The numbers:
- 2024: more than $650 million in grants directed.
- 2025: more than $1 billion, its largest year, up over 50%.
- Money from donors other than Good Ventures roughly doubled, from over $100 million in 2024 to over $200 million in 2025.
- For 2026 it says it aims to scale again and to prepare for larger growth in 2027 and 2028.
It operates 13 funds spanning global health, farm animal welfare, biosecurity and pandemic preparedness, AI safety, scientific research and development economics. The former “Transformative Basic Science” and “Science for Global Health” programs were merged into a single Science and Global Health R&D fund.
Why a small donor should care
You are unlikely to give to Coefficient directly; its funds are built for large donors. But its decisions shape what small donors see:
- It is the biggest funder of GiveWell’s recommendations, allocating $175 million for 2026. When it moves money in or out, GiveWell’s funding bar moves with it (the bar stood at 8x GiveWell’s benchmark as of November 2025).
- Its farm animal welfare fund is the largest funder of the corporate campaigns that dominate Animal Charity Evaluators’ list.
- Its willingness to fund early-stage, unproven programs (lead exposure work is an example) is how ideas get enough evidence to reach the evaluators’ lists a few years later.
The risk it carries
Concentration. One funder providing a large share of a field’s money is efficient and fragile at once. If Coefficient’s priorities shift, whole program areas can lose most of their funding in a year. The rename is partly an attempt to reduce that fragility by bringing in more donors. Whether it works is a story for 2027.
Method notes
Grant totals and the description of the rename are from Coefficient Giving’s own announcements and its Wikipedia entry as of our reading. Coefficient’s pages returned an access error to our automated reader; figures were confirmed from search excerpts of those pages and from secondary summaries.
Sources
Figures come from the cited sources as of the dates shown. Cost-effectiveness estimates change as programs and evidence change; check the source before giving. We are not financial advisers and receive nothing from any charity named here.