Good Ventures

Good Ventures was a nonprofit organization created by Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz and his wife Cari Tuna in 2011. Good Ventures closed near the end of 2018, but the organization’s philanthropic endeavors continue through affiliate organizations including the Good Ventures Foundation and Good Ventures LLC. ¹

History

Good Ventures was founded in 2011 as a supporting organization of the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, a left-of-center grantmaking organization focused on causes including economic security, education, immigrant integration, and regional planning. ²

Rather than employing a full-time staff to conduct research and create funding recommendations, Good Ventures partnered with Open Philanthropy,³ a left-leaning funding organization,⁴ to identify giving opportunities. ⁵ It also partnered with GiveWell, a nonprofit that analyzes and recommends charities to support. ⁶

Grants

According to 2017 tax returns, Good Ventures reported over $26 million in total revenue and about $188 million in total expenses, resulting in net assets of just under $100 million. Good Ventures awarded grants to a number of organizations including $300,000 to the Drug Policy Alliance and $250,000 to Project Healthy Children, both for general support. Good Ventures also contributed $172 million to the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, a provider of donor-advised funds notably to left-of-center technology-industry-associated donors. ⁷

Good Ventures reported over $177 million and $48 million in total revenue in 2015 and 2016, respectively. In 2016, the organization awarded over $64 million including $150,000 to the Drug Policy Alliance, just under $60 million to the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, over $1.4 million to the Life Sciences Research Foundation, and $1.1 million to Massachusetts General Hospital for research on Alzheimer’s disease. ⁸

Leadership

Good Ventures was founded by Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz and Cari Tuna, his then-fiancé, in 2011. Moskovitz co-founded Facebook with Mark Zuckerberg in their Harvard dorm room and served as the company’s first chief technology officer and vice president of engineering. ⁹ He left the social network company in 2008¹⁰ and eventually co-founded Asana,⁹ a workflow software company valued at $1.5 billion in 2018. ¹¹ Moskovitz became the youngest self-made billionaire in 2011. He is worth $13.3 billion as of 2020. ¹¹

Cari Tuna, Moskovitz’s now-wife, worked as a reporter for the Wall Street Journal before she co-founded Good Ventures and became the president of the Good Ventures Foundation. She earned an undergraduate degree from Yale University in political science. ¹²

In 2010, Tuna and Moskovitz became the youngest couple to sign the Giving Pledge, a commitment to give half of their wealth to charity in their lifetime. ¹³