Supports highly-impactful, evidence-based solutions to the challenges of global poverty and inequality.

## The Founders Pledge Perspective 

Despite substantial progress in recent decades on development goals, nearly half the world lives on less than $2.50 per day. This poverty leads to a huge amount of hardship and unnecessary loss of life. In 2019, more than five million children under five years old died, mostly from preventable causes like diarrhea, malaria, and respiratory infections. 

 
Poverty is also associated with hunger, exposure to conflict, and limited access to education and other opportunities. We believe that all individuals, regardless of where they were born, deserve the chance to live happy, healthy, and prosperous lives.

 
Global inequality in mortality, health, poverty and more is a tragic, but not unsolvable, problem. Researchers, advocates, and organizations around the world are working to scale up solutions to these problems. By taking a thoughtful, evidence-based approach to philanthropy that accelerates the best of these solutions, we can do immense good.

Managed by two members of the Founders Pledge Research team, the Global Health and Development Fund identifies and supports highly-impactful and neglected development initiatives. By pooling donations and collaborating with other funding and research organizations, the Fund allows individuals to make contributions when and where they will have the largest impact. 


## Our Approach to Grantmaking 

When evaluating potential grants, we consider several key points:

*   **Counterfactual impact**. Our grants are designed to create a meaningful outcome that would not otherwise have happened. In particular, we aim to make grants that otherwise wouldn’t have been made, rather than those which just take the place of other philanthropists’ donations. This means that you can rely on the Funds to create meaningful, real change, rather than just maintaining the status quo.
*   **The grant’s potential outcomes**. We focus on outcomes (e.g. how many lives were saved), rather than outputs (e.g. how many products were delivered). We review all the available evidence and take into account cost-effectiveness to assess whether the grant money could produce more good if donated elsewhere.
*   **The organization’s funding gap**. Not all organizations are set up to scale up their programming and many can’t productively absorb large amounts of unsolicited funding. We evaluate all potential grantees’ capacity for growth and consider how much money they could put to good use. 
*   **Organizational strength**. Particularly with unrestricted funding, it’s important to have trust in the leadership and capacity of the organizations we support. We look at their track record of success and their transparency about failures as well as successes, and we only support those organizations which are exceptionally well run. We also look for organizations that demonstrate a strong commitment to measuring outcomes and evaluating the impact of their programs.
*   **Time-sensitive opportunities**. In many cases, highly competent organizations identify time-critical opportunities for impact that require funding on a shorter timeline than traditional funders can support. In addition to considering these quick-turnaround opportunities in a timely manner, we plan to provide unrestricted funding streams to enable organizations to make new hires, start new campaigns and programs, and act on opportunities that come their way. 

## Frequently-Asked Questions


**Can charities apply for money from the Fund?**

The Funds do not generally accept applications from charities. If the Fund Managers choose to open up an application round, this will be publicized. Charities are requested not to send unsolicited applications for funding.


**How frequently will you make grants from the Fund?**

Fund Managers will review grant-making decisions on a quarterly basis. Decisions will be made based on the value of Funds and the available options for high-impact grant-making. We may sometimes delay grant-making if we believe that waiting for more promising opportunities will be more impactful. Conversely, we may disburse funds outside of our quarterly review dates if we become aware of a particularly promising and time-sensitive funding opportunity.

**How will my contribution be used?**

All funds are granted out. The Fund is not an investment vehicle. The Fund does not use any percentage of contributions to cover staff time or other overhead costs. Every dollar contributed to the Fund will be used to make grants directly to end-user organizations creating a real difference. 

## More Questions?

To learn more about the Founders Pledge Global Health and Development Fund, please visit [founderspledge.com](https://founderspledge.com/funds/global-health-and-development-fund) or email the Fund Managers at [funds@founderspledge.com](mailto:funds@founderspledge.com).

Founders Pledge: Global Health & Development Fund

Supports highly-impactful solutions to help prevent the most severe global catastrophes.

 We live in a time of perils. Humanity faces large risks, including war between great powers, natural and engineered pandemics, thermonuclear war, threats from advanced artificial intelligence (AI), and emerging risks from frontier military technologies. These global catastrophic risks have the potential to kill hundreds of millions, even billions, of humans alive today.

Scientists, policymakers, and the public can come together to mitigate these risks. We’ve done it before. During the Cold War, leaders cooperated to reduce stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction. At the turn of the millennium, scientists spearheaded an unprecedented effort to compute and track the threat of large asteroids and comets in Earth’s vicinity to protect humanity from catastrophic impacts. A growing global movement now seeks to reduce the risks from climate change and increase pandemic preparedness.

The Global Catastrophic Risks Fund will identify and fund interventions to reduce the largest known risks to humanity today. This Fund is designed both to tackle far-future threats, and to take action now and help protect every human being alive today. We aim to: 

- Reduce the probability of large-scale catastrophic events;
- Mitigate the potential negative impacts of these events;
- Improve our ability to anticipate new and emerging risks on the horizon.


Our Approach to Grantmaking 

When evaluating potential grants, we consider several key points:

* Focusing on counterfactual impact. The Fund is designed to make grants that otherwise wouldn’t have been made, and grants that individuals would be otherwise unable to make.

* Collaborating with trusted partners. The Fund will seek to collaborate with other funders who share our views and approach to effective giving and whose counterfactual impact we consider similar to that of the Fund. Trusted partners include Effective Giving, Giving What We Can and Longview Philanthropy’s new Longtermism Fund, the Long-Term Future Fund, Open Philanthropy, and more. We plan to keep these and other philanthropic actors abreast of our grantmaking and possibly to work together on co-funding promising projects. 

* Avoiding harm and information hazards. Many global catastrophic risks revolve around dangerous technologies and issues of national and international security. In our grantmaking, we will develop rigorous processes to avoid doing harm or spreading harmful information (“information hazards”). For example, if we believe that a promising funding opportunity has a chance of developing dual-use technology that can be weaponized, we will not fund it. 

* Filling funding gaps. Not all organizations are set up to scale their programming and many can’t productively absorb large amounts of unsolicited funding. We evaluate all potential grantees’ capacity for growth and consider how much money they could put to good use. This means there will be many great organizations we do not recommend because they are already sufficiently funded. 

* Evaluating organizational strength. Particularly with unrestricted funding and hits-based giving on highly uncertain issues, it’s important to have trust in the leadership and capacity of the organizations we support. We look at their track record, their calibration, and their transparency about failures as well as successes. 

* Seizing time-sensitive opportunities and policy windows. International crises—as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and increased tension between the U.S. and China over Taiwan have illustrated—can move fast. The flexibility of the Fund will seek to enable time-sensitive grantmaking, find policy windows, and step in quickly where traditional funders can’t.



How will my contribution be used?

All funds are granted out. The Fund is not an investment vehicle. The Fund does not use any percentage of contributions to cover staff time or other overhead costs. Every dollar contributed to the Fund will be used to make grants directly to end-user organizations creating a real difference. 

More Questions?

To learn more about the Founders Pledge Global Catastrophic Risks Fund, please visit [founderspledge.com](https://founderspledge.com/funds/global-catastrophic-risks) or email the Fund Managers at [funds@founderspledge.com](mailto:funds@founderspledge.com).

Founders Pledge: Global Catastrophic Risks Fund

Founders Pledge is a global nonprofit empowering entrepreneurs to do the most good possible with their charitable giving. 

We equip members with everything needed to maximize their impact, from evidence-led research and advice on the world’s most pressing problems, to comprehensive infrastructure for global grant-making, alongside opportunities to learn and connect. We’re grateful to be funded by our members and other generous donors. 