What we accomplished together in 2022
$1.3 billion pledged
to charity
from 80 new members
$67 million in grants
to end-user charities and funds, including
$26 million to high impact
funding opportunities
616 grants
across
37 cause areas globally
Impact at scale
$839 million
donated to the charitable sector by our community since 2015
$284 million
in grants to end-user charities and funds
including
$66 million
in funding to our recommended charities and funds
1,767
members from 39 countries and growing
Member and community support drives our impact
Sixty percent of our income was supported by our members this year. This support means we’re able to provide more people with access to a better way of giving, and 100% of every member pledge goes to charity.
Gifts to Founders Pledge mean we can continue providing cutting-edge research and advisory services, events and programming to engage, challenge and inspire, and a global giving infrastructure with our Donor Advised Fund (DAF).
A global community of impact-driven entrepreneurs
We are a global community of entrepreneurs and investors from 39 countries committed to finding and funding solutions to the world’s most pressing problems. In 2022, a wonderful cohort of members joined from companies such as:
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Jeremy King
CEO and Founder of Attest
At the moment where, as a Founder, you have the least capital to offer but yet high intent to give, Founders Pledge made it easy to sign-up, learn more, be part of a community and commit to an intended action up-front.
Kathleen Breitman
Co-founder of Tezos
I'm really grateful to have the support of Founders Pledge. I value the community that has been built around it and hope that I'm lucky enough to contribute to it in a meaningful way for years to come.
Jack O’Meara
Co-founder of Ochre Bio
I do this anyway, and have done for years, but I think to formalize it and to vocalize it through a public pledge is one of the most powerful ways to catalyse others and multiply impact.
Providing unique opportunities to learn and connect
By having a seat at the table when new ideas are discussed, and learning from the leading thinkers behind some of the world’s biggest challenges, our members can become more informed givers and enhance their understanding of how to move the needle on issues close to their heart.
In 2022, we curated and hosted 15 events, comprised of dinners with expert speakers, and intimate 4-day retreats. The focus is always on connecting members with high-impact solutions and charities to inform their giving. Because of the quality of experience we strive to provide at our events, some of our events are ticketed to offset the cost to Founders Pledge.
Our events in 2022 were attended by 173 of our members from over 15 countries and featured:
- An intimate dinner in San Francisco with Ken Caldeira, Bill Gates' former climate advisor
- Our first North American retreat, held over five days in Tulum, Mexico
- A preview of our report on air pollution and viewing of the Wellcome Collection's 'In the Air' exhibition in London
An in-conversation webinar with best-selling author, Sam Harris and Founders Pledge Research Director, Matt Lerner
High-impact giving
Our advisory service: a right-sized solution
Founders Pledge advisors support members when they are ready to give, ensuring that both first-time and deeply experienced givers can be as effective as possible. Members build trusted relationships with their advisors and together create a space to reflect on their values, articulate their worldviews and discover which problems they’ll endeavor to solve through their philanthropy.
The team’s domain expertise eases the challenges of complex grantmaking decisions, provides access to funding opportunities not often available to individual philanthropists, and leads members to become confident in their giving strategy and expected impact.
In 2022, we provided bespoke philanthropic advice to 136 members, with 60% of recommendations followed. This resulted in more than $21 million being donated to our recommended, high-impact funding opportunities.
The Founders Pledge advisory service gave us a lot of food for thought, opened our eyes to a number of causes, and, more broadly, helped us understand how we should think about maximizing the impact of our charitable giving.
Philipp Mohr, co-founder of DataTiger,
and Sarah Grogan, co-founder of Within Yoga School
Insights from our research team
Our research team continued their work to find the most important, neglected and tractable cause areas and identified the highest-impact charities working to address them. In 2022, our experts identified and evaluated 10 new high-impact funding opportunities and published 8 research reports and 10 articles exploring important issues such as:
Our recommended charity spotlights
In 2022, we empowered our members to give $26 million to our recommended high-impact charities. We are pleased to share a snapshot of them below.
Climate
TerraPraxis
Repowering existing coal plant infrastructure is the single largest carbon abatement opportunity on the planet. TerraPraxis is combining its expertise in energy with Microsoft to deliver a digital solution to repurpose more than 2,400 coal-fired power plants worldwide to run on carbon-free energy. These carbon negative power plants are cheaper to operate and ensure continuity for communities reliant on them for power and jobs.
EXISTENTIAL RISK
Berkeley Risk and Security Lab
With seed funding from Founders Pledge, the Berkeley Risk and Security Lab - a new research institute at the University of California (UC), Berkeley - was launched in 2022. Its researchers are focused on the study of existential threats from frontier military technologies and are set to answer some of the most pressing questions regarding the future of war and peace.
GLOBAL HEALTH AND DEVELOPMENT
Helen Keller International
Vitamin A supplementation
Vitamin A is critical to childhood development of vision and immune systems, but is too frequently severely lacking for many families living in poverty around the world. Every year, HKI distributes tens of millions of Vitamin A supplements, a simple twice-yearly dose that reduces childhood mortality by more than 25% and helps prevent blindness.
A story of impact
Saving lives in Guinea
In March 2021, our Global Health & Development Fund provided a grant of $11,000 to the Against Malaria Foundation (AMF), and we’ve followed the story from donations to lives saved.
The funding allowed AMF to buy 7,747 mosquito nets, protecting an estimated 11,156 people for over two years, including 4,994 children. These were distributed in the Labé region of Guinea during June 2022, with post-distribution net checks taking place the following winter.
We expect the nets to reduce malaria prevalence for those protected by 27%, averting 10 deaths, most of which would be of children under the age of five. Children are particularly vulnerable to the disease since, unlike adults living in endemic regions, they have yet to develop immunity.
Following on from this success, we increased our giving to AMF to $100,000 in 2022. This is impact we can all be proud of.
My message is a message of hope. With impregnated mosquito nets… the people of Guinea have the weapons to defeat malaria.
Dr Mamadou Péthé Diallo, Guinea Minister of Health
Founders Pledge Funds
Our Funds allow our members to pool their resources with others to tackle global issues they care about in an easy and effective way. Managed by dedicated Fund Managers (predominantly Founders Pledge Researchers), grants from our Funds are made when and where they’re needed most.
Introducing the
Global Catastrophic Risks Fund
October 2022 marked the 60th anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis, during which the world experienced a nuclear close call.
Sixty years later, we continue to face immense global catastrophic risks - risks that could kill hundreds of millions or even billions of people alive today. To help mitigate them, Founders Pledge introduced the Global Catastrophic Risks (GCR) Fund.
Christian Ruhl
Founders Pledge Researcher & GCR Fund Manager
Humanity faces large and growing risks, including war between great powers, natural and engineered pandemics, nuclear war and threats from AI and frontier military technologies. But scientists, policymakers and the the public can come together to mitigate them. We’ve done it before.
Global Health & Development Fund
Aim: To tackle global inequalities in health, wealth and opportunity
$658k directed to charities focused on
Leveraging community ambassadors and SMS reminders to ensure children receive their immunizations against vaccine-preventable diseases in India
Delivering cost-effective treatments that protect school children in Sub-Saharan Africa from parasitic infections that, if left untreated, could affect their cognitive and physical development
Averting maternal deaths in Nigeria through radio campaigns that provide clear, compelling and accurate information on modern contraception
Climate Change Fund
Aim: To sustainably reach net-zero emissions globally
$2.3m to
Develop an application designed to estimate the feasibility, cost and time to transform existing coal plants into emission-free generators
Support strategic communications around the Breakthrough Agenda launched by 46 world leaders to accelerate the innovation and deployment of clean technologies
Conduct techno-economic research and mainstream the idea of repowering coal in key Asian emerging economies
Animal Welfare Fund
Aim: To improve the welfare of animals
$305k in funding to charities working to
Safeguard fish welfare in global aquaculture, helping to preserve our oceans, buffer against disease risks and improve the lives of billions of fish
Help scientists and decision-makers investigate important and understudied questions about wild animal welfare
Engage young people in campaigning for a just world for animals
Patient Philanthropy Fund
Aim: To safeguard and improve the future of humanity
$750k raised to safeguard the future
These funds are invested to be deployed at the time when donations are most beneficial for the long-term future
First small grant made in nuclear security to investigate the impact of a major nuclear security funder withdrawing from the space
Fine-tuning the Founders Pledge experience
In 2022, we fine-tuned the experience across every stage of the member journey, moving the dial from good to great, and improving our products and services to be robust, efficient and future-proof, such as:
Standardizing our charity evaluation process, increasing research specialization across cause areas and expanding our relationships with research partners, such as GiveWell, Open Philanthropy, Charity Entrepreneurship, and the Happier Lives Institute, enabling us to source recommendations more rapidly.
Refining our global grantmaking infrastructure to support a sustainable, consistent, seamless service based on industry best practice.
Launching a new version of our Member App that supports contributing and granting for Founders Pledge DAF holders.
Creating optimal member journeys to maximize member engagement into and within our philanthropic advisory service, allowing our team to deliver a quality, values-aligned service more efficiently.
2022 Funding
Our work is simply not possible without the support of our members and other generous donors. Your donations powered our mission and the many minds working behind the scenes, including:
- Our in-house researchers finding the most impactful giving opportunities
- Event curators developing programmes to engage and inspire our community
- Advisors introducing funding opportunities that align with members’ values
- A team of grantmakers ensuring every dollar makes it to our members’ chosen charities.
2022 Expenses
34% Discover & Learn
Charity research, philanthropic advising, and educational programs
23% Connect
Community building and events
20% Give
End-to-end giving infrastructure, including a global Donor Advised Fund
15% Growing the Community
Recruiting and onboarding new members
8% Operations
Resources and infrastructure to deliver our mission
Looking ahead
In 2023, we will continue to focus on what matters most to our community and get better at helping our members to maximize every charitable dollar in 2023 and beyond. There is much in store to be excited about:
2x
Nearly doubling the amount of money moved to our recommended charities – from $26m in 2022 to $50m in 2023
Delivering a better giving experience for our community through enhanced Donor Advised Fund offerings, such as investment services and complex gift acceptance
Bringing our members even closer to the changes our high-impact charities are making around the world
Researching cause areas and identifying high-impact charities working in the areas of global catastrophic risk, climate, maternal and neonatal mortality, education, and scientific research
Making improvements to our Member App, such as providing complementary onboarding support to new members during their first year of membership and strengthening grant-making feedback loops for members who are giving
Thanks to our
Foundry Members
We made the decision to support Founders Pledge because of the incredible effect that our gift would have on making world-changing good possible. By donating to Founders Pledge, our gift has 11x the impact than it would have elsewhere, an impressive philanthropic return. We are proud to be Foundry members and to help steer the future of philanthropy by investing in this community of founders and entrepreneurs who want to make the world a better place for current and future generations.
Moaffak Ahmed, Serial Entrepreneur & Investor, and
Anne Badan, Founding Partner at The X Search & Impact Designer at A2B Philanthropy
Vikrant Bhargava & Dr Surbhi Virmani
Shirley & Curtis Chambers
Luke Ding
David Helgason
Taavet Hinrikus & Silvia Fantauzzi
Neil Hutchinson & Jessica Stroup
Eric & Wendy Schmidt
Jaan Tallinn
Moaffak Ahmed & Anne Badan
Erik Bergman
Andrew White & Nicola Kelly
Alex Gerko
and other Foundry members who wish to remain anonymous
2022 Sustaining Partners
Supporting Founders Pledge’s operational costs as part of our giving strategy is the highest leverage option available from our perspective. The best thing we could do is to help Founders Pledge reach out to more people in the hope that the simple act of pledging has a positive impact on others.
Nick Popovici, CEO of Vita Mojo, and
Charley Gloerfelt
Corporate Partners
Supporting Foundations
In-Kind Partners
Making effective giving the norm
