CharitiesLongview Philanthropy
Longview Philanthropy
Charity

Longview Philanthropy

Effective Giving Research and Advocacy

Longview Philanthropy seeks to positively influence the long-term future by guiding philanthropists to highly impactful funding opportunities.

Reducing global catastrophic risks

What problem is Longview Philanthropy working on?

Longview Philanthropy aspires to a world in which the interests of future generations are fairly considered in decisions about how, when, and where to invest resources. Its staff focuses on global challenges that could transform our future for many generations to come, including safely navigating emerging technologies. Longview harnesses the unique power of philanthropy and philanthropic capital to make that world a reality.

What does Longview Philanthropy do?

Longview Philanthropy designs and executes bespoke giving strategies for major donors. Its grant recommendations are driven by the conviction that we can use evidence and reason to find some of the highest-impact opportunities in the world.

Everything Longview Philanthropy offers is free, independent, often reviewed by external experts, and guided by Longview’s grantmaking principles:

  1. Radical impartiality: We believe that every individual counts equally — including members of future generations. If we act wisely today, future generations will contain the lives of almost everyone who will ever live. And yet future generations are systematically disenfranchised in our world today. This is why they are the focus of our work.
  2. Intellectual honesty: We are transparent in our reasoning and communicate our assumptions, evidence, and uncertainties clearly. We never tell our donors simply what we think they want to hear.
  3. Hits-based giving: Inspired by venture capital, we seek to uncover neglected opportunities with high-reward potential. Over the long-run, if we can match even one of the biggest philanthropic success stories of the twentieth century, our efforts will have paid off.
  4. Win-win scenarios: Many of the issues we aim to tackle, from AI risk to pandemics to nuclear war, pose a serious threat to the world today. Work to protect future generations often benefits the current generation as well.
  5. A scientific mindset: We are informed by the latest research from the natural and social sciences. We work to quantify our impact insofar as wisdom allows, and act on the best available balance of evidence.

What information does Giving What We Can have about the cost-effectiveness of Longview Philanthropy?1.

We looked into Longview Philanthropy in its capacity as a grantmaker in the reducing catastrophic risks space as part of our evaluators research (and as such, we recommend its Longtermism Fund). However, we have not evaluated Longview Philanthropy in any other capacity.


Note that we (GWWC) and Longview are both part of Effective Ventures — see our transparency page

Please note that GWWC does not evaluate individual charities. Our recommendations are based on the research of third-party, impact-focused charity evaluators our research team has found to be particularly well-suited to help donors do the most good per dollar, according to their recent evaluator investigations. Our other supported programs are those that align with our charitable purpose — they are working on a high-impact problem and take a reasonably promising approach (based on publicly-available information).

At Giving What We Can, we focus on the effectiveness of an organisation's work -- what the organisation is actually doing and whether their programs are making a big difference. Some others in the charity recommendation space focus instead on the ratio of admin costs to program spending, part of what we’ve termed the “overhead myth.” See why overhead isn’t the full story and learn more about our approach to charity evaluation.