Open Philanthropy Action Fund (OPAF)

Background

In 2007, GiveWell was founded to analyze and evaluate charitable work in the United States. ³ Elie Hassenfeld, Holden Karnofsky, and the other six co-founders are affiliated with the “effective altruism” movement. ⁴

In 2011, Dustin Moskovitz and Cari Tuna founded Good Ventures as a grantmaking foundation to give away their fortune throughout their lifetimes. Tuna became the organization’s president and met with many other charitable leaders for advice, including the founders of GiveWell. ¹

In 2014, GiveWell and Good Ventures collaborated to form Open Philanthropy, then called Open Philanthropy Project, to engage in a deliberative process of identifying areas of greatest impact for grantmaking. In 2017, Open Philanthropy, along with OPAF and Coefficient Giving (then called the Open Philanthropy Project Fund), spun off as independent nonprofit organizations. ¹

Grants

By September 2020, Open Philanthropy Action Fund (OPAF), along with Open Philanthropy and Coefficient Giving (then known as the Open Philanthropy Project Fund), had donated 998 grants worth a total of $1,171,866,584. ² In 2018, OPAF disbursed $12 million in grants. ⁵

As the political arm Open Philanthropy, the OPAF donates primarily to left-of-center PACs concerning criminal justice policy. In 2020, OPAF gave $100,000 to the Texas Organizing Project PAC. The OPAF has given four grants to the Real Justice PAC from 2018-2019 totaling $2 million. ²

In 2018, OPAF gave $850,000 to California YIMBY, $100,000 to the Center for Popular Democracy, $266,000 to Citizen Action of New York, $750,000 to Floridians for a Fair Democracy, $800,000 to Reform LA Jails, and over $2 million to the Tides Foundation. ⁵

From 2018-2020, OPAF gave $500,000 to Southerners on New Ground. ²

In 2017, OPAF gave $1.2 million to Color of Change and the Color of Change PAC. ²

In 2015, OPAF gave $375,000 to MoveOn Civic Action. ²

Lobbying

In 2021, it was reported that for the first time ever, the Open Philanthropy Project Action Fund (OPAF) hired lobbyists. ⁶ Lobbying disclosures show that during 2021 the organization paid lobbying firm Tarplin, Downs, & Young $110,000 for lobbying related to increased government spending on pandemic prevention, and lobbying firm Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer, for lobbying related to rapid COVID-19 antigen, or immunity, testing. ^{7 8 9}

Activities

Effective Altruism

Open Philanthropy, by 2018, was listed as part of the “effective altruism movement” established in the late 2000s and early 2010s by two organizations: 80,000 Hours and Giving What We Can. The term “Effective Altruism” connects to the idea of allegedly seeking value and efficiency of charitable donations, specifically towards those seeking to combat climate change and protections on artificial intelligence (AI) control. ¹⁰

In 2019, Coefficient Giving (then known as the Open Philanthropy Project Fund) gave $1 million to the Effective Altruism Foundation, a research organization dedicated to exploring effective altruism ideas. ¹¹ In 2020, Open Philanthropy donated an additional $15,000. ¹² GiveWell senior research analysts James Snowden and Marinella Capriati were formerly employed by the Effective Altruism Foundation. GiveWell board member Julia Wise is the organization’s liaison to the Foundation. ⁴ 80,000 Hours, another effective altruism organization, has received almost $10 million from Coefficient Giving since 2017. ²

In October 2020, Open Philanthropy was allegedly planning a new program associated with increased grantmaking towards effective altruism. ¹³

Leadership

Dustin Moskovitz and Cari Tuna

Dustin Moskovitz is a co-founder of Open Philanthropy and was previously on the organization’s board of directors. ¹ He is also the co-founder of grantmaking organization Good Ventures. ¹⁴ Moskovitz was one of five co-founders of Facebook in 2004. Four years later he left the company but retained his ownership shares. He then co-founded Asana, a company that designs software to track workflow within organizations. In 2011, Moskovitz was added to the Forbes billionaire list as the youngest billionaire in the world with a net worth of $2.7 billion from his 6% ownership of Facebook. ¹⁵

As of October 2020, Moskovitz has a net worth of $15.7 billion. ¹⁶

Cari Tuna is the co-founder and board chair Open Philanthropy and is the co-founder of Good Ventures. ¹⁴ She was previously a Wall Street Journal reporter. ¹⁷

Moskovitz and Tuna have previously supported the campaigns of Democrat Part-connected candidates. Before the 2016 election, Moskovitz had only donated about $10,000 to Congressional candidate Sean Eldridge (D-NY), husband of Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes. ¹⁸ In 2016, Moskovitz wrote an article for Medium condemning Donald Trump and endorsing Hillary Clinton for president. Moskovitz and Tuna then promised to donate $20 million to Democratic PACs, including $5 million each to the League of Conservation Voters Victory Fund and Our Future PAC, and lesser sums to the Hillary Victory Fund, Moveon.org Political Action, Color of Change PAC, and several other organizations. ¹⁹ The donations made Moskovitz and Tuna the third-largest donors in the 2016 election cycle. ²⁰

Since 2016, Moskovitz and Tuna have continued to contribute to Democratic-aligned PACs. In 2017, Tuna gave $200,000 to Color of Change and just over $650,000 to Real Justice PAC. In 2018, Moskovitz gave $3 million to MoveOn.org Political Action, $2 million to the Senate Majority PAC, and $430,000 to Civic Innovation USA. In the same year, Tuna gave $1.2 million more to Real Justice PAC. ²¹

In 2010, Moskovitz and Tuna became the youngest individuals to sign Warren Buffett’s “Giving Pledge” to give their fortunes to charity throughout their lifetimes. ²²

Chloe Cockburn

In 2015, Chloe Cockburn joined Open Philanthropy as the criminal justice program officer. Since 2015, the Open Philanthropy Action Fund (OPAF) has made 322 grants worth $128,121,016 towards criminal justice reform organizations. ²³

On June 2, 2020, Cockburn wrote a Twitter thread with a list of organizations that she considered to be the most efficient recipients of donations for left-progressive criminal justice policy. She later rewrote the list as a memo to potential donors, and Vox wrote an article on Cockburn entitled, “A criminal justice expert’s guide to donating effectively right now.” ²⁴ The list consisted of 25 left-of-center and far left organizations, many of which are connected to Black Lives Matter. The listed organizations were:²⁵

• Black Lives Matter chapters of Chicago
• Black Lives Matter chapter of Los Angeles
• Black Lives Matter chapter of Louisville
• Movement for Black Lives
• Color of Change
• The National Council for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls
• Highlander Research and Education Center
• Floyd Journalism Fund for Black Newspapers
• Showing up for Racial Justice
• Real Justice PAC
• Citizen Action of New York
• Michigan Liberation
• Justice LA
• Bread and Roses Community Fund
• Voice of the Experienced
• Transformation Fund
• Life Comes from It
• Southsiders Organizing for Unity and Liberation
• Project Nia
• Essie Justice Group
• National Bail Fund Network
• Equity and Transformation
• Mutual Aid and Restorative Justice
• Texas Organizing Project
• Survived and Punished

As of October 2020, the OPP has donated to 11 of these organizations: Color of Change, The National Council for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls, Real Justice PAC, Citizen Action of New York, Michigan Liberation, Justice LA, Voice of the Experienced, Southsiders Organizing for Unity and Liberation, Project Nia, Essie Justice Group, Equity and Transformation, and the Texas Organizing Project. ²³

Cockburn is also the director and a board member of the Bia-Echo Foundation, a left-of-center grantmaking foundation. The organization focuses on three areas: abortion advocacy, environmental protection, and criminal justice reform. ²⁶

Cockburn is the granddaughter of Claud Cockburn, a leading communist in the British government and possibly an agent for the Soviet Union. ²⁷ Her father, Andrew Cockburn, is a filmmaker, author, and the Washington editor of Harper’s Magazine. ²⁸ Chloe’s uncle, Alexander Cockburn, was a journalist who edited Newspunch and wrote for The Nation and The Week. He was an open Marxist and socialist, and later identified as an anarchist. ²⁹ Another uncle, Patrick Cockburn, is also a journalist. He has worked for The Independent and the Financial Times and is best known for his reporting on the Iraq War. ³⁰ One of Chloe’s sister is actress and director Olivia Wilde. ³¹