What problem is Longview Philanthropy working on?

Longview Philanthropy is an independent and expert-led philanthropic advisory for major donors who want to do the most good possible with their giving. Its core priority is emerging technology, with most grantmaking in the following focus areas:

Artificial Intelligence. Cultivating expertise, sensible policy, and innovative technical solutions.
Biosecurity. Strengthening defence-focused biotechnologies and global norms.
Nuclear Weapons Policy. Opposing destabilising systems, arms races, and unintended escalation.

In addition to these core focus areas, Longview has made substantial grants and recommendations in global priorities research, media, global health & development, and animal welfare.

What does Longview Philanthropy do?

Longview’s grantmaking and advisory teams offer a variety of philanthropic services at no cost that are useful for donors whether they’re at the beginning of their giving journey or managing an established portfolio. Their grantmaking identifies impactful projects with crucial funding gaps other funders have missed or cannot fill. They look for opportunities to multiply their impact, whether by attracting matching donations or providing seed funding and support to catalyse new initiatives. Their core services are:

Funds. Longview manages specialised funds with distinct focus areas.
- Their public funds—the Emerging Challenges Fund and the Nuclear Weapons Policy Fund—are open to all donors. For major donors, they offer private funds featuring enhanced reporting and confidential insights.
- For major donors, they offer private funds. Their private fund reports are sent directly to donors rather than distributed publicly, allowing them to use those funds to support confidential, risky, or large-scale projects.
Recommendations. For donors wishing to make large gifts, they offer access to grant recommendations drawn from their top opportunities to help donors find and fill critical funding gaps.
End-to-End Effective Giving. For major donors seeking to develop significant philanthropic portfolios, they provide a personalised end-to-end service. This includes detailed analysis, expert-led learning series, residential summits, strategic planning, grant recommendations, due diligence, and impact assessment.

A significant part of Longview’s focus, and the source of most of their impact, is helping major donors give effectively. Longview strongly encourages such donors to contact their CEO, Simran, at simran@longview.org.

Everything Longview does is guided by their principles:

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.
A Scientific Mindset: We are informed by the latest research in the natural and social sciences. We work to quantify our impact insofar as wisdom allows, and act on the best available balance of evidence
Radical Impartiality: We believe that every individual counts equally. We fund work that could benefit the most individuals, as much as possible.
Win-Win Scenarios: Many of the issues we aim to tackle, from pandemic preparedness to safe AI to nuclear war, pose serious threats today. Work to protect future generations often benefits the current generation as well.
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 successes of the 20th century, our efforts will have paid off.

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.

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.