Good Ventures
/OVERVIEW: Good Ventures is the charitable foundation of Facebook cofounder Dustin Moskovitz and his wife, Cari Tuna. The foundation supports global health and security, criminal justice reform in the U.S., scientific research, Alzheimer’s research, farm animal welfare and efforts to reduce meat consumption.
IP TAKE: Good Ventures’ grantmaking exceeds $200 million a year. A significant portion of recent grantmaking has addressed the COVID-19 pandemic. This funder supports both “safe bets” and “high-risk, high-reward projects” Since grantmaking is largely facilitated by Open Philanthropy and Give Well, the foundation recommends that prospective grantees check these organizations’ websites for funding opportunities. Good Ventures advises prospective grantseekers to explore funding opportunities through these organizations. This is a unique funder that approaches things differently. Supportive funder if you can secure funds here.
PROFILE: Good Ventures was established in 2011 by Dustin Moskovitz and his wife, Cari Tuna. Moskovitz is a co-founder of both Facebook and Asana, and Tuna is a former Wall Street Journal reporter. Based in Palo Alto, California, their foundation aims simply “to help humanity thrive.” The foundation does not maintain a full-time staff, partnering instead with Open Philanthropy and GiveWell to make grants in global health, global security, U.S. criminal justice reform, scientific research, Alzheimer’s research and farm animal welfare. Good Ventures also invests in for profit enterprises that have “potential to improve human well-being at scale.”
Grants for Global Health
Global health is Good Ventures’ largest area of grantmaking. Focus areas include research aimed at the prevention and treatment for communicable diseases and biosecurity. Funding in the past year has mainly responded to the COVID-19 pandemic, with grants going to both antiviral drug research and basic response initiatives. Recent grants have supported antiviral drug research and testing at Stanford University, Harvard University Gryphon Scientific, Duke University, the Icahn School of Medicine, and others. Grants have also gone to Engineers without Borders, which used funding to produce emergency hospital equipment, and the University of Colorado, which studied methods of decontamination of personal protective equipment. The Broad Institute has received ongoing funding for the development of its pandemic preemption system.
Other recent areas of interest in global health include the prevention of malaria, flu and schistosomiasis, a disease caused by intestinal worms. The foundation has also supported research and intervention on vitamin and mineral deficiencies in infants and children in the developing world. Past grantees include a study of the infant immunome at Stanford University, the Malaria Consortium’s Seasonal Malaria Chemoprevention Program and Sightsavers, which used funding for its global deworming programs.
Grants for Global Security and Human Rights
Good Ventures names research on “potential risks from advanced artificial intelligence” as a main area of grantmaking interest. In this area, the foundation has supported research, the production of seminars and conferences and the publication and publicizing of books and other sources of information about the potential risk of global catastrophes due to the “misuse, accidents or harmful society effects” of artificial intelligence. The foundation recently made a grant of over $6 million to the Machine Intelligence Research Institute for its work on AI risk reduction. The computer science department at the University of California at Berkeley has received support for several individual and team research projects, as have projects at Johns Hopkins, Georgetown and Stanford Universities. Other grantees include the Centre for the Governance of AI, the World Economic Forum, Ought, the Rand Corporation and the Wilson Center, which used funding to run a series of seminars for AI policy development.
Grants for Criminal Justice Reform
Good Ventures has demonstrated strong commitment to the criminal justice reform movement in the U.S. and made over $10 million in grants for research, policy development and legal support initiatives in a recent year. The foundation recently gave $3.7 million to Impact Justice, a nonprofit that conducts research and policy development toward a restorative model of justice in the U.S. Several other grantees work toward prosecutorial accountability, including SOUL, VOCAL NY, Courtwatch NOLA, the Movement Alliance Project and San Francisco Rising. Other grantees support anti-recidivism, sentencing reform, prison reform and the decriminalization of drug possession, and many organizations have received general operating support. Recent grantees include Texas Advocates for Justice, Frontline Dads, Justice LA, Mass Liberation Arizona, Law for Black Lives, Families Against Mandatory Minimums and the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition.
Grants for Science Research
A significant portion of Good Venture’s recent science research funding addresses aspects of the COVID-19 crisis. Both Harvard University and the University of California Berkeley received funding for research on serology testing, and Mount Sinai’s Icahn School of Medicine and the Broad Institute received funding for studies of diagnostic testing. Grantees that received funding for COVID-19 vaccine and treatment research include Duke University, Stanford University, Israel’s Soroka Medical Center, the University of Michigan and the University of California at Davis.
Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the foundation demonstrated a strong interest in research on sustainable and resilient food production. Past health grantees include Pennsylvania State University’s Emergency Food Research Program and studies of drought-tolerant rice by the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research and the University of California at Berkeley. To a lesser extent, the foundation has supported research on aging, chronic pain, reproductive biology and organ regeneration.
Grants for Disease Research
Good Ventures has funded extensive research on the etiology and effective treatments of Alzheimer’s Disease. Several grants supported collaborative research projects on the role of the microbiome in Alzheimer’s at Massachusetts General Hospital, Stanford University, Washington University, the University of Chicago, the University of Southern California and Northwestern University. The foundation also supported research on the relationship between herpes simplex and Alzheimer’s at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, the Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research and the Veterans’ Education and Research Association of Northern New England.
Grants for Animals and Wildlife
Good Ventures supports the global farm animal welfare movement as well as programs that aim to educate and develop awareness toward a large-scale reduction of animal consumption. In this area, the foundation has given to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, We Animals Media, CAF America, the University of California Berkeley’s Alternative Meats Laboratory, the Good Food Institute, and ActAsia’s program to reduce fur demand in Asia. Good Ventures has also invested in the for-profit Impossible Foods, which develops and produces plant-based meats.
Important Grant Details:
Good Ventures gave away about $245 million in a recent year. This foundation’s grants range anywhere from $5,000 to $55 million, with an average grant size of about $100,000. Grantees tend to be leading research universities, institutes, think tanks and NGOs working in the foundation’s areas of grantmaking interest. For additional information about past grants, see the foundation’s grants database and portfolio pages.
Good Ventures does not accept unsolicited proposals for funding. Since grantmaking is largely facilitated by Open Philanthropy and Give Well, the foundation recommends that prospective grantees check these organizations’ websites for funding opportunities. General inquiries may be directed to the foundation via email.
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