Open Philanthropy Is Now Coefficient Giving

Open Philanthropy, the effective-altruism-influenced research funder long known for its Transformative Basic Science and Global Health and Development grantmaking, changed its name to Coefficient Giving in November 2025. The mission, staff, and “important, neglected, tractable” grantmaking framework are unchanged; what changed is the organizational structure, moving from a single-donor vehicle for Good Ventures into a multi-donor platform of “funds” that other philanthropists can join. This guide covers the current organization under its current name, notes the legacy program names researchers may still encounter, and explains how the funding programs actually work for someone submitting or being considered for a grant.

From Open Philanthropy to Coefficient Giving: what changed

Open Philanthropy traces back to 2011, when it began as “GiveWell Labs,” an offshoot of the charity evaluator GiveWell created to research higher-risk, higher-reach giving opportunities beyond GiveWell’s core top-charities work. It spun off as an independent organization in 2017. Throughout the Open Philanthropy era, its primary capital came from Good Ventures, the foundation established by Cari Tuna and Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz, and its grantmaking method was closely associated with the effective altruism movement’s emphasis on cause prioritization using an importance/neglectedness/tractability framework.

In November 2025, the organization announced it was renaming itself Coefficient Giving. Per the organization’s own announcement and independent philanthropy-press coverage (Inside Philanthropy, the Effective Altruism Forum), the rebrand reflects a structural shift already underway: rather than functioning as the giving arm of one donor (Good Ventures), the organization had been directing a growing share of funding from other major donors — over $100 million in 2024 from donors besides Good Ventures, more than doubling in 2025 — and its former “program areas” became “funds” that other philanthropists can join and co-fund alongside Good Ventures. Good Ventures remains a central partner and Cari Tuna now chairs Coefficient Giving; the underlying grantmaking staff, research process, and cause-selection criteria carried over unchanged.

Practically, for a researcher: search results, older grant listings, and even some funder databases will still reference “Open Philanthropy.” The correct current name and current live site is Coefficient Giving (coefficientgiving.org); “Open Philanthropy” is accurate as a historical/legacy name through November 2025 and is still commonly used informally, but any current inquiry, application, or correspondence should go through the Coefficient Giving name and site.

Research-relevant funds (formerly “program areas”)

The candidate program names most researchers associate with this funder — Transformative Basic Science and Global Health and Development — were real Open Philanthropy program-area names, but the current fund structure has consolidated and renamed the research-facing portion of this work. As of this writing, the relevant current fund is:

Science and Global Health R&D — the fund that now houses what were previously the separate Transformative Basic Science and Science for Global Health program areas. Established in 2014 (predating the current fund name), it has made over $550 million in grants to date supporting both basic research aimed at fundamental questions in biology and human health, and applied preclinical/clinical R&D — new vaccines, drugs, diagnostics, and other tools — targeting diseases with a large global health burden, particularly those affecting low- and middle-income countries. This is the fund a basic-science or global-health-R&D researcher should look at first.
Other Global Health and Development funds — separate from the R&D fund, Coefficient Giving also runs funds oriented toward global health and development policy and direct-impact interventions rather than laboratory or clinical research — for example, funding tied to global aid policy and public health policy work. These are typically a better fit for policy researchers, economists, and implementation-focused organizations than for a lab-based science grant.

Because the fund landscape has changed publicly at least once already, always confirm current fund names and scope directly on coefficientgiving.org/funds before referencing a specific program name in a proposal — citing a retired “Open Philanthropy” program-area name in current correspondence is a small but avoidable signal that an applicant hasn’t checked the current site.

How the grant application process actually works

This is the detail most likely to trip up a researcher used to conventional federal or foundation funding cycles: Coefficient Giving does not run a single, standing open call with a fixed deadline the way an NIH R01 or an NSF program does. Historically, and still today, the large majority of grants are identified proactively by program staff through their own research, networking, and outreach — not through unsolicited applications. That said, the organization does periodically run genuine open Requests for Proposals (RFPs) for specific funds or topics, and it maintains a standing “Apply for Funding” page listing whichever funds currently have an open call.

For the science- and health-related funds specifically, an unsolicited inquiry is a reasonable route in: the published process is to email a short description of an existing project, or a new 1-2 page proposal with a rough budget and timeline, to the relevant program email (historically [email protected] for Science and Global Health R&D). If program staff want to pursue it further, they will follow up requesting more detail on the research plan, organizational structure, timeline, and budget. For smaller grants, a short written proposal plus a video call with a program officer is often sufficient for a funding decision — a much lighter process than a full federal grant application, but also one with no fixed timeline or guaranteed response.

Practical implications for a research administrator or PI:

Don’t budget review-cycle time the way you would for a federal mechanism. There’s no published standing deadline for most funds; timelines depend on when staff are actively evaluating that area.
Check for a live RFP first. When a specific fund is running an open RFP (these appear periodically, including for topics like AI safety/governance and specific global-health R&D questions), it will have its own dedicated page, submission form, and deadline — a materially different, more structured process than a cold proactive inquiry.
Keep the initial proposal short. The published guidance across Coefficient Giving’s funds consistently asks for a brief description first (often 1-2 pages), not a full federal-style narrative — a long unsolicited proposal up front is more likely to go unread than to demonstrate rigor.
Expect due diligence to include direct outreach. Because so much of the portfolio is proactively sourced, program staff are often already tracking work in an area before an inquiry arrives; framing a proposal around a specific fund’s stated focus (not a generic capabilities pitch) matters more here than in a fully open competition.

Fit and positioning: what this funder looks for

Coefficient Giving’s grantmaking (carried over unchanged from Open Philanthropy) is organized around the effective-altruism-associated “importance, neglectedness, tractability” (ITN) framework: is the problem large in scale, relatively under-resourced by other funders, and realistically addressable with more resources. For a research proposal, this has practical consequences distinct from, say, framing a proposal for a mission-agency program officer:

A case for why the specific health burden or scientific question is large-scale and currently under-funded relative to its importance tends to land better than a case built purely on institutional track record or preliminary data alone.
Global-health-R&D proposals aimed at diseases and conditions concentrated in low- and middle-income countries, where market incentives for private R&D investment are weaker, fit the fund’s stated rationale more directly than proposals in well-funded, high-income-market therapeutic areas.
Basic-science proposals that plausibly unlock a class of downstream applications (tools, techniques, or fundamental understanding with broad reach) fit the “transformative” framing that shaped the legacy Transformative Basic Science program more than incremental, narrowly-scoped studies.

None of this replaces reading the current fund page directly — framing should follow the fund’s own stated scope, not a general theory of what effective-altruism funders like.

Frequently asked questions

Is Open Philanthropy the same organization as Coefficient Giving?

Yes. Coefficient Giving is Open Philanthropy under a new name and expanded multi-donor structure, adopted in November 2025. It is not a spin-off, successor entity, or unrelated organization — same staff, same grantmaking process, same primary partnership with Good Ventures, Cari Tuna, and Dustin Moskovitz.

Is Open Philanthropy/Coefficient Giving the same as GiveWell?

No, though the two are historically connected. Open Philanthropy began in 2011 as “GiveWell Labs,” a project within GiveWell, and became an independent organization in 2017. GiveWell continues to operate separately today, focused on evaluating and recommending a small number of highly cost-effective charities (primarily in global health and poverty), while Coefficient Giving runs a broader, more research-driven grantmaking portfolio across science, global health R&D, and other cause areas. Researchers should not assume the two organizations share an application process, staff, or current funding priorities.

Can an individual researcher apply directly, or does it have to go through an institution?

The published process for the science and global health funds accepts a short proposal directly from a project lead or organization — there is no requirement that it be routed through a specific institutional grants office before initial contact, though the receiving institution will still need to handle the actual award administration once a grant is offered, the same as with any external sponsor.

What happened to the “Transformative Basic Science” and “Global Health and Development” program names?

They were real Open Philanthropy program-area names. Under the current fund structure, the research-facing successor is the Science and Global Health R&D fund, which now covers both basic-science and global-health-R&D grantmaking that was previously split across those two program areas; other global-health-and-development-adjacent funds (policy- and intervention-focused rather than R&D-focused) also exist separately. Confirm current names on coefficientgiving.org/funds before citing a program name in correspondence.

Related CASRAI resources

This guide is part of CASRAI’s private-funder overview series, covering how major non-governmental and foundation funders structure and administer research grantmaking:

For the general vocabulary of funding-body structures and roles, see CASRAI’s Research Council dictionary entry and the Grants Management pillar page.