Centre for Effective Altruism

The Centre for Effective Altruism (CEA) was the name of two affiliated charities and, later, of a project hosted by them. The English company now registered as Effective Ventures Foundation (UK), number 07962181, was incorporated as the Centre for Effective Altruism on 23 February 2012, took the name Effective Ventures Foundation on 25 August 2022 and became Effective Ventures Foundation (UK) on 27 February 2023.¹ William MacAskill, Toby Ord and Nick Beckstead were each appointed directors on the day of incorporation.² Charlotte Alter of TIME described MacAskill as having "co-founded the Centre for Effective Altruism."³ The American charity filed its tax returns for 2013 to 2021 as Centre for Effective Altruism USA Inc (EIN 47-1988398, San Francisco, tax-exempt from February 2015) and has since been renamed Effective Ventures Foundation USA.⁴ After the 2022 renaming, CEA continued as one of the projects fiscally sponsored by the two charities, alongside 80,000 Hours, Giving What We Can, EA Funds, the Forethought Foundation, the Centre for the Governance of AI and Longview Philanthropy.⁵⁶

The English Company

The Charity Commission registered the company as charity number 1149828 on 20 November 2012. Its objects include improving "fundraising and planned giving to charities," "the advancement of education by providing sources of information about the ethics of career choices" (the object under which 80,000 Hours operated) and research into the relief of poverty.⁷

The register of officers records Beckstead as a director from incorporation to 2 April 2019 and again from 1 July 2021 to 23 August 2023, MacAskill from incorporation to 21 September 2023, and Ord from incorporation to 29 July 2022. Hilary Greaves served from 2 April to 18 July 2019, Claire Zabel from 18 July 2019 to 28 March 2024, Owen Cotton-Barratt from 24 March 2020 to 11 February 2023 and Tasha McCauley from 1 July 2021 to 14 March 2024. Lincoln Quirk was appointed on 23 May 2023, Eli Rose and Johnstuart Winchell on 9 February 2024 and Patrick Gruban on 20 March 2024, the day Winchell resigned. The company secretaries were Tom Ash (19 February 2013 to 11 April 2014), Robert Wiblin (21 April 2014 to 1 July 2015), Tara Mac Aulay (1 July 2015 to 17 August 2018) and Zachary Robinson (11 February 2023 to 14 July 2023).² The accounts for the year to June 2022 also name Joshua Axford as company secretary until 11 February 2023 and record that Howie Lempel was appointed chief executive on 16 November 2022.⁸

The register of persons with significant control records Mac Aulay, from 1 July 2016 to 17 August 2018, as having "significant influence or control" over the company. MacAskill, Ord and Beckstead were notified as holders of more than 25 percent of the voting rights on 31 October 2018; Beckstead's entry ceased on 2 April 2019 and those of MacAskill and Ord on 2 February 2022, when the company filed a statement that it had no registrable person. Zabel had held such an entry from 18 July 2019 and Cotton-Barratt from 24 March 2020, both ceasing on 2 February 2022. Zabel, McCauley and Quirk were notified on 21 September 2023, and the current controllers are Quirk, Rose (from 7 March 2024) and Gruban (from 20 March 2024).⁹

The American Charity

The first returns of Centre for Effective Altruism USA Inc, two short-form returns for 2013 and 2014 filed in July 2015, listed Peter Singer as president, Peter Eckersley as vice president, Sam Bankman-Fried as treasurer, Ben Kuhn as secretary and Boris Yakubchik as a director, at 815 Eddy Street, San Francisco. The return for 2015 listed the same five, with Amy Labenz as principal officer. In the return for 2016 MacAskill was vice president and chair, Mac Aulay treasurer and secretary, Labenz president and Kerry Vaughan vice president, and Bankman-Fried, Kuhn, Yakubchik and Eckersley were board members. The return for 2017 listed the same board and paid Mac Aulay 51,273 dollars as treasurer and secretary. The return for 2018 listed MacAskill as chair and Bankman-Fried, Beckstead, Eckersley, Kuhn and Yakubchik as board members, with Mac Aulay paid 20,018 dollars as treasurer and secretary. The return for 2019 listed MacAskill, Beckstead and Greaves as board members and Bankman-Fried as "Former Board Member," and named Benjamin Todd as chief executive of the 80,000 Hours project.¹⁰ The register of the English company records no appointment for Bankman-Fried.²

Alter reported that Bankman-Fried launched Alameda Research in the fall of 2017 with Mac Aulay, "who had been the CEO of the Centre for Effective Altruism," and that its initial funding came from two donors in the movement, Luke Ding and Jaan Tallinn. According to four people with knowledge of the discussions, Alter wrote, Mac Aulay and others warned MacAskill, Beckstead and Holden Karnofsky about Bankman-Fried's conduct in the weeks before and the months after an April 2018 confrontation at Alameda; by the end of 2018 senior figures were debating his presence on CEA's board, and "In 2019, Bankman-Fried left CEA's board." One person contacted during the investigation told Alter that CEA conducted an internal investigation relating to CEA and Alameda that year, "conducted in part by MacAskill." MacAskill and Beckstead declined to answer TIME's detailed questions, citing an independent investigation, and CEA did not respond to requests to explain the departure.³

The American charity reported total revenue of 672,035 dollars for 2015, 1,548,370 dollars for 2016, 12,741,527 dollars for 2017, 10,524,715 dollars for 2018, 8,437,210 dollars for 2019 and 21,711,453 dollars for 2020. It then changed to a June year end, reporting 17,476,222 dollars for the six months to June 2021, 75,847,179 dollars for the year to June 2022, 74,969,377 dollars for June 2023, 42,384,700 dollars for June 2024 and 23,675,475 dollars for June 2025. Its returns for June 2024 and June 2025 list Robinson as president and chief executive, paid 339,903 dollars in the latter year.⁴ On 1 July 2021 the English company became the American charity's sole member, and the accounts for the year to June 2022 are consolidated; it ceased to be the sole member in December 2022, after which the two operated as independent charities under an affiliation agreement and the American one changed its name from Centre for Effective Altruism USA to Effective Ventures Foundation (US).⁵¹¹

The American return for the year to June 2022 listed Beckstead among its trustees. Its schedule of grants to domestic organizations began with 1,670,000 dollars to Pure Earth and 1,600,000 dollars to the Council on Strategic Risks in Washington, the latter for "growing the Council on Strategic Risks' nuclear security policy development and engagement with decision-makers," followed by Rethink Priorities, the Players Philanthropy Fund, the Center for Global Development, the Against Malaria Foundation and Founders Pledge.¹²

Open Philanthropy Funding

Open Philanthropy recommended a grant of 2,500,000 dollars to CEA for general support in March 2017, with Beckstead, then a director of the English company, as grant investigator; the page states that "CEA staff also reviewed this page prior to publication" and that the grant would allow CEA to "increase staff salaries (from what we see as previously low levels)." The page does not mention Beckstead's directorship.¹³ In June 2018 Open Philanthropy recommended a further 2,000,000 pounds (2,688,000 dollars), again with Beckstead as investigator.¹⁴ In March 2018, with Karnofsky as investigator, it awarded 5,000,000 dollars to "the Centre for Effective Altruism USA" to "create and seed a new discretionary fund that will be administered by Carl Shulman," a research associate at the Future of Humanity Institute and an adviser to Open Philanthropy; the work Shulman signaled he might fund included "economic modeling of the impacts of automating different aspects of AI development."¹⁴

Grants recommended by a "Committee for Effective Altruism Support" followed: 2,756,250 dollars in February 2019, 1,755,921 dollars in September 2019, 4,146,795 dollars in January 2020 and 7,500,000 dollars in February 2021.¹⁵ Three grants in 2020 named Zabel, then a director, as investigator: 38,350 dollars in January to promote Ord's book The Precipice, 180,000 dollars in February and 48,736 dollars in September for a "longtermist project incubator," the last after 451,264 dollars were returned in March 2023.¹⁶ The accounts for the year to June 2021 name Jade Leung as director of the Long-Term Incubator project from April 2019.⁵ Leung later became chief technology officer of the British AI Security Institute; on 15 August 2025 the government appointed her the Prime Minister's adviser on AI, and on 23 September 2026 it announced that she would become vice-chair of the institute and take a part-time fellowship at the Hoover Institution.¹⁷

Later recommendations to CEA and its successors included 500,000 dollars for the Effective Altruism Infrastructure Fund (October 2021); two grants totaling 26,000,000 dollars for general support (March 2022); 77,000 dollars for a research assistant to Jonas Sandbrink, a biosecurity researcher at the Future of Humanity Institute (May 2022); 5,318,000 dollars over three years for a coworking space in Boston for biosecurity teams "including Kevin Esvelt's lab" (August 2022); 8,875,000 dollars for a five-year lease on an office in Harvard Square and 250,000 dollars for a one-year office for the Harvard AI Safety Team (August 2022); 4,929,000 dollars for Infrastructure Fund regranting (September 2022); two grants totaling 11,425,000 dollars to Effective Ventures Foundation, "formerly known as the Centre for Effective Altruism," and 1,500,000 pounds for office space for the Future of Humanity Institute in Oxford (December 2022); 4,700,000 dollars (January 2023) and 2,360,192 dollars (June 2023) to the American charity; 7,644,021 dollars for the Harvard Square space (April 2023); 11,000,000 dollars (June 2023); 288,000 dollars for an "AI Safety Communications Centre" that "connects journalists to AI safety experts and resources" (August 2023); 3,342,238 dollars and 3,543,240 dollars in simultaneous grants to the English and American charities (November 2023); and 14,201,781 dollars for CEA (May 2024).¹⁸ In January and March 2023 Open Philanthropy also granted 37,128 dollars and 75,617 dollars to reimburse student group organizers who bought copies of MacAskill's What We Owe the Future; the English charity earned 119,614 pounds in royalties on that book in the year to June 2023.¹⁸¹⁹

The English charity's accounts for the year to June 2023 state that Zabel "is employed as a program director at Open Philanthropy, our largest funder," and that "Claire has significant influence over some of the funding decisions made by Open Philanthropy in relation to several of the charity's projects." The same note records grant income from Open Philanthropy of 39,037,949 pounds (38,285,688 pounds in the year to June 2022), and a liability of 3,352,129 pounds for grants to be returned to it.¹⁹ Open Philanthropy's biography of Zabel states that she joined in August 2015 and "went on to lead our Global Catastrophic Risks Capacity Building team"; its biography of Rose gives his title as program officer for the same program, the one under which its later CEA and 80,000 Hours grants are classed.²⁰ The note for the year to June 2025 records that Rose, a current trustee, and Zabel are employed at Open Philanthropy with "significant influence" over its funding of the charity's projects, and that grant income from Open Philanthropy was 14,393,034 pounds in the year to June 2024 and 7,076,993 pounds in the year to June 2025, making 98,793,664 pounds over the four years. The trustees' report for that year describes the charity as "dependent on one major donor, Open Philanthropy" for a majority of its funding. The same note records grants of 425,508 pounds to Effective Altruism Germany, of which Gruban was formerly co-director, and states that he took no part in approving them.⁶ The 2022 and 2023 accounts describe a restricted fund named "Open Philanthropy" as "Income and expenses associated with projects supported by Good Ventures Foundation," a reference to Good Ventures.¹¹¹⁹

Oxford Institutes and Projects

The accounts for the year to June 2021 list among the senior management MacAskill (director of Forethought from October 2017), Todd (executive director of 80,000 Hours) and Leung (director of the Long-Term Incubator from April 2019). They describe the charity as affiliated with the Future of Humanity Institute and the Global Priorities Institute of the University of Oxford, "with whom it shares office space," and record that both institutes' funds held by the charity were in deficit after their move to Trajan House cost more than expected, with both "expected to secure funds from a major donor."⁵ The 2025 accounts record that the two institutes "have since ceased operations."⁶

The charity's projects in the 2022 accounts included Longview Philanthropy, a joint project of the English and American charities from January 2022, the Atlas Fellowship, the magazine Asterisk, the Centre for the Governance of AI and a fund for "projects supported by FTX Foundation."¹¹ The 2025 accounts list among the year's grantees the Alignment Research Center, FAR AI, Conjecture and the Nuclear Threat Initiative, and a restricted fund to provide desk space at Trajan House for the Oxford AI Safety Initiative.⁶

Wytham Abbey

In December 2021 Open Philanthropy recommended two grants totaling 17,324,697 pounds (about 23,212,677 dollars) to Effective Ventures Foundation "to support the purchase, renovation, and operation of Wytham Abbey," a venue near Oxford "modeled on similar venues funded by the Rockefeller Foundation and the Brocher Foundation." The page states that if the venue proved less cost-effective than alternatives, "proceeds from a sale will be used to support EVF's ongoing operations," and that the amount was updated in October 2024.²¹ The accounts record the purchase on 1 April 2022.¹¹

In the year to June 2025 the trustees recorded an impairment of 8,593,798 pounds against a freehold cost of 16,536,782 pounds. They state that the property was marketed in summer 2024 "at the original purchase price," that valuers then advised a change of strategy "given significant reductions in market sentiment," and that "After the year ended, the Charity entered into a sales agreement and completed the sale of Wytham Abbey for £6m in November 2025." During the year 279,816 pounds were transferred from central funds to meet the running costs. The 2024 accounts record that Lakeside, an Oxford accommodation property carried at about 1.4 million pounds, was sold after the year end for about 1.2 million pounds.⁶²²

FTX Foundation Funds and the Charity Commission Inquiry

The announcement of the FTX Future Fund on 1 March 2022, reposted by Tyler Cowen, gave its team as Beckstead (chief executive), Leopold Aschenbrenner, MacAskill and Ketan Ramakrishnan.²³ Alter reported that in less than nine months the fund gave 13.9 million dollars to CEA.³ The English charity's accounts record donations from the FTX Foundation of 1,478,708 pounds in the year to June 2022 and 2,766,546 pounds in the year to June 2023, and state in both years that one of the trustees was also chief executive of the FTX Foundation.¹⁹ The Future Fund team announced its resignation in a post dated 11 November 2022.²⁴

FTX filed for bankruptcy on 11 November 2022. Five days later Lempel was appointed chief executive.⁸ On 19 November the charity filed a serious incident report with the Commission stating that it held 3.3 million pounds and 300,000 dollars from FTX or affiliated entities, that one trustee was chief executive of the FTX Foundation and another an unpaid adviser to the FTX Future Fund. On 2 December the trustees told the Commission that those trustees had been excluded from decisions on the bankruptcy as "non-participating" trustees. The Commission opened a statutory inquiry under section 46 of the Charities Act 2011 on 19 December 2022. On 12 February 2023 the trustees filed a second serious incident report about a historic safeguarding incident involving a former trustee before that person's appointment.⁷ The accounts for the year to June 2022 state that an internal investigation was "ongoing in Q1 2023 in order to investigate concerns re past conduct of a former trustee."⁸

The inquiry report of 22 May 2024 records that the trustees ringfenced the funds and obtained a Defence Against Money Laundering from the National Crime Agency, a consent sought where a reporter suspects that property may be criminal under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002. The charity returned 4,246,503.16 dollars (3,340,021 pounds) under a settlement reached on independent legal advice, in which the Commission had no involvement. The Commission found that trustees were not required to disclose conflicts of interest on joining the board until October 2022, that no formal training or guidance on conflicts had been given, that the two FTX-connected trustees left a "lack of clarity as to whether they were acting for the charity or on behalf of FTX Foundation at any given time," and that financial procedures "were not adhered to or reviewed regularly as the charity's income grew," with a dedicated finance team only from 2022. It found "no evidence to suggest that there were any unmanaged conflicts of interest regarding funds the charity received from the FTX Foundation," concluded that the trustees "acted diligently and quickly," and recorded that the two FTX-connected trustees and the person named in the safeguarding report resigned during the inquiry. It gave advice under section 15(2) of the Act on 3 January 2024.⁷ The register records the resignations of Beckstead on 23 August 2023 and MacAskill on 21 September 2023.² The 2023 accounts state that in November 2023 the charity reached a settlement with the FTX estate "which provided a general release from all possible claims from the FTX estate."¹⁹

Spin-out and Successor Entities

In November 2023 the trustees decided to spin all fiscally sponsored projects out into independent entities. The accounts for the year to June 2025 record the completion dates: the Centre for the Governance of AI on 15 November 2024, Forethought on 28 February 2025, 80,000 Hours on 31 March 2025 and the teenage fellowship Non-Trivial on 11 April 2025. CEA and EA Funds were to merge from 1 July 2025. The board "does not intend to fiscally sponsor new charitable projects" and expects the company to "wind down (in 2026 or beyond)," and the accounts were prepared on a basis other than going concern. In that year the charity spent 8,135,491 pounds on CEA, 5,454,605 pounds on 80,000 Hours and 9,982,687 pounds on EA Funds and Giving What We Can, against total income of 12,083,820 pounds (31,663,819 pounds in 2024), and net funds fell from 43,259,065 pounds to 17,808,025 pounds.⁶ Open Philanthropy recommended 460,000 dollars to the English charity and 990,000 dollars to the American one for CEA's spin-out costs in May 2024.²⁵

Two new English companies, Centre for Effective Altruism UK (number 16360152, incorporated 2 April 2025) and Centre for Effective Altruism Community UK (number 16395613, incorporated 17 April 2025), are registered at Trajan House with a single director each and a statement that the company has no registrable controller.²⁶ In the United States, Centre For Effective Altruism Inc (EIN 33-3737390), at an address in Milton, Delaware, holds a tax exemption with a ruling date of 1 March 2025.²⁷