Berkeley Existential Risk Initiative↗

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Organisation·Founded 2017·Remote
“BERI is an independent 501(c)(3) public charity with a mission to improve human civilization's long-term prospects for survival and flourishing.”In its own words: existence.org
Community & infrastructure

Public charity providing operations support (financial management, HR, grant administration, compliance) to university research groups and fiscally sponsored projects, with a focus on existential risk reduction and AI safety.

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Received $15M from 7 funders

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Led by Elizabeth Cooper (Executive Director (since Nov 2024)), Andrew Critch (Board Chair)Checked 25 Oct 2026

Money flows

Where its money came from and where it went. Pick years and what to show; hover a box or ribbon for details, click one to focus it, click the background to see everything.

Funded by

All grants

40 grants totalling $15M, newest first.

2026 1 grant · $549k
DateFunderAmountPurpose
30 Sep 2026Survival and Flourishing Fund$549kSFF-2026 Main Round: General support source
2025 3 grants · $739k
DateFunderAmountPurpose
Aug 2025Coefficient Giving$648kAI Governance source
May 2025Coefficient Giving$32kAI Governance Workshop source
Jan 2025Coefficient Giving$59kInterACT Lab (Anca Dragan) source
2024 7 grants · $2.3M
DateFunderAmountPurpose
Oct 2024Coefficient Giving$35kOxford Martin AI Governance Initiative source
Sep 2024Coefficient Giving$30kAlgorithmic Alignment Group source
Apr 2024Coefficient Giving$21kAI for Epistemics Workshop source
Mar 2024Coefficient Giving$45kLatent Adversarial Training Project source
Feb 2024Coefficient Giving$713kAI Risk Management Frameworks source
Jan 2024Coefficient Giving$1.1MCHAI Internships source
2024Future of Life Institute$365kPaid FY2024 (Form 990 Schedule I) source
2023 8 grants · $3.8M
DateFunderAmountPurpose
Nov 2023Global Catastrophic Risks Opportunities$2.6MBerkeley Existential Risk Initiative — MATS (November 2023) — Open Philanthropy recommended two grants totaling $2,641,368 to the Berkeley Existential Risk Initiative to support its collaboration with AI Safety Support on the ML Alignment & Theory Scholars... [Global Catastrophic source
Oct 2023Navigating Transformative AI$70kGrant "to support [BERI's] university collaboration program. Selected applicants become eligible for support and services from BERI that would be difficult or impossible to obtain through normal university channels. BERI will use these.... From Vipul Naik's donations database (vi source
Oct 2023Long-Term Future Fund$30kMay 2023–Mar 2024 payout report (EA Forum appendix): Operational support for Team Shard interpretability and steering research source
Sep 2023Navigating Transformative AI$70kGrant " to support the creation of a scalable oversight dataset. The purpose of the dataset is to collect questions that non-experts can’t answer even with the internet at their disposal; these kinds of questions can be used to test how.... From Vipul Naik's donations database (v source
Jul 2023Navigating Transformative AI$35kGrant "to support a retreat for Anca Dragan’s BAIR lab group, where members will discuss potential risks from advanced artificial intelligence.". From Vipul Naik's donations database (via OpenBook) source
Jun 2023Navigating Transformative AI$429kBerkeley Existential Risk Initiative — SERI MATS 4.0 — Open Philanthropy recommended a grant of $428,942 to the Berkeley Existential Risk Initiative to support their collaboration with Stanford Existential Risks Initiative (SERI) on SERI’s Machine... [Navigating Transformative AI source
2023Future of Life Institute$481kCollaboration with the Center for Human-Compatible AI — 2023 Grants source
2023Survival and Flourishing Fund$60kSFF-2023-H2: General support source
2022 10 grants · $5.3M
DateFunderAmountPurpose
Nov 2022Navigating Transformative AI$2MGrant "to support their collaboration with the Stanford Existential Risks Initiative (SERI) on SERI’s Machine Learning Alignment Theory Scholars (MATS) program. MATS is an educational seminar and independent research program that aims.... From Vipul Naik's donations database (via source
Nov 2022Navigating Transformative AI$100kGrant "for general support. BERI seeks to reduce existential risks to humanity by providing services and support to university-based research groups, including the Center for Human-Compatible AI at the University of California, Berkeley.". From Vipul Naik's donations database (vi source
Jun 2022Global Catastrophic Risks Opportunities$400kBerkeley Existential Risk Initiative — SERI Summer Fellowships (2022) — Open Philanthropy recommended a grant of $400,000 to the Berkeley Existential Risk Initiative (BERI) to support their collaboration with the Stanford Existential Risks Initiative (SERI) on SERI’s... [Global C source
Jun 2022Navigating Transformative AI$40kBerkeley Existential Risk Initiative — Language Model Alignment Research — Open Philanthropy recommended a grant of $40,000 over three years to the Berkeley Existential Risk Initiative to support a project led by Professor Samuel Bowman of New York University to develop a... [Nav source
Apr 2022Navigating Transformative AI$1MGrant "to the Berkeley Existential Risk Initiative to support its collaboration with the Stanford Existential Risks Initiative (SERI) on the second cohort of the SERI Machine Learning Alignment Theory Scholars (MATS) Program. MATS is an.... From Vipul Naik's donations database (v source
Apr 2022Navigating Transformative AI$210kGrant "to support work on the development and implementation of AI safety standards that may reduce potential risks from advanced artificial intelligence.". From Vipul Naik's donations database (via OpenBook) source
Apr 2022Navigating Transformative AI$140kGrant "to the Berkeley Existential Risk Initiative to support its collaboration with Professor David Krueger.". From Vipul Naik's donations database (via OpenBook) source
Mar 2022FTX Future Fund$100kSecond core operations hire supporting university x-risk research groups source
Feb 2022Navigating Transformative AI$1.1MGrant "to support continued work with the Center for Human-Compatible AI (CHAI) at UC Berkeley. BERI will use the funding to facilitate the creation of an in-house compute cluster for CHAI’s use, purchase compute resources, and hire a.... From Vipul Naik's donations database (via source
Jan 2022Long-Term Future Fund$135kEA Funds grants database (2022 Q1): Help InterACT when university systems cannot, supporting InterACT’s work enabling human-compatible robots and AI agents source
2021 5 grants · $1M
DateFunderAmountPurpose
Dec 2021Long-Term Future Fund$250kDecember 2021 payout report (Aug–Dec 2021): 12-month software developer salary for a Seldonian ML algorithms library source
Nov 2021Navigating Transformative AI$195kGrant "to support its collaboration with the Stanford Existential Risks Initiative (SERI) on the SERI ML Alignment Theory Scholars (MATS) Program. MATS is a two-month program where students will research problems related to AI alignment.... From Vipul Naik's donations database (v source
Jul 2021Navigating Transformative AI$300kBerkeley Existential Risk Initiative — AI Standards (2021) — Open Philanthropy recommended a grant of $300,000 to the Berkeley Existential Risk Initiative to support work on the development and implementation of AI safety standards that may reduce potential... [Navigating Transfo source
Jul 2021Navigating Transformative AI$70kBerkeley Existential Risk Initiative — MineRL BASALT Competition — Open Philanthropy recommended a grant of $70,000 to the Berkeley Existential Risk Initiative to support the MineRL BASALT competition. The competition asks participants to build AI systems that learn... [Navigatin source
Mar 2021Navigating Transformative AI$210kGrant "to provide stipends for the Stanford Existential Risks Initiative (SERI) summer research fellowship program.". From Vipul Naik's donations database (via OpenBook) source
2020 2 grants · $397k
DateFunderAmountPurpose
Jan 2020Navigating Transformative AI$150kThe grant page says: "BERI seeks to reduce existential risks to humanity, and collaborates with other long-termist organizations, including the Center for Human-Compatible AI at UC Berkeley. This funding is intended to help BERI.... From Vipul Naik's donations database (via OpenB source
2020Survival and Flourishing Fund$247kSFF-2020-H2: General support source
2019 2 grants · $955k
DateFunderAmountPurpose
Nov 2019Navigating Transformative AI$705kThe grant page says the grant is "to support continued work with the Center for Human-Compatible AI (CHAI) at UC Berkeley. This includes one year of support for machine learning researchers hired by BERI, and two years of support for CHAI.". From Vipul Naik's donations database ( source
Jan 2019Navigating Transformative AI$250kGrant to temporarily or permanently hire machine learning research engineers dedicated to BERI’s collaboration with the Center for Human-compatible Artificial Intelligence (CHAI).. From Vipul Naik's donations database (via OpenBook) source
2017 2 grants · $419k
DateFunderAmountPurpose
Jul 2017Navigating Transformative AI$404kGrant to support work with the Center for Human-Compatible AI (CHAI) at UC Berkeley, to which the Open Philanthropy Project provided a two-year founding grant.... From Vipul Naik's donations database (via OpenBook) source
Mar 2017Long-Term Future Fund$15kMarch 2017 payout (paid 21 Mar 2017): Start-up funding for BERI, giving existential-risk researchers administrative, expert-consultation and technical support (USD 14,838.02 of $50,000 requested; the fund held only this amount) source