--- alias: - SFF category: Private Organization created: 2026-06-20 location: United States summary: The Survival and Flourishing Fund is the grant-allocation vehicle backed chiefly by Jaan Tallinn that uses a software-assisted method called the S-process to direct money to existential-risk, AI-safety, and longtermist organizations, having organized roughly 150 million dollars in gifts since 2019. tags: - Organization - SurvivalAndFlourishingFund - ExistentialRisk - EffectiveAltruism - Longtermism - JaanTallinn updated: 2026-06-20 --- The Survival and Flourishing Fund (SFF) is a grant-allocation vehicle, backed chiefly by the Skype cofounder [Jaan Tallinn](/people/jaan-tallinn/), that directs money to organizations concerned with the long-term survival and flourishing of sentient life. It uses a software-assisted allocation method called the S-process to convert the judgments of a rotating panel of evaluators into grant recommendations, and it has become one of the central funding channels of the [Effective Altruism](/concepts/effective-altruism/) and longtermist ecosystem, channeling money to AI-safety, biosecurity, and existential-risk groups. By its own accounting it has organized roughly 150 million dollars in gifts across its rounds.[^1][^2] ### Origins and Funders SFF grew out of Tallinn's earlier "Survival and Flourishing" donations, the loose label under which he had been giving to existential-risk and rationalist organizations, and it was formalized in 2019 with an initial grant of about 2 million dollars from the Organizational Grants Program of the [Berkeley Existential Risk Initiative](/organizations/berkeley-existential-risk-initiative/) (BERI), itself funded by Tallinn's philanthropy. The structure let Tallinn delegate the evaluation of applicants to a committee rather than make every funding decision himself, while retaining final authority over whether to act on the recommendations.[^1][^3] Tallinn remains the dominant funder, but other donors have joined particular rounds, including the Ripple cofounder and cryptocurrency philanthropist Jed McCaleb and the [Future of Life Institute](/organizations/future-of-life-institute/). The fund's operations are run by Survival and Flourishing Corp (SFC), a separate entity that administers the rounds and the grant-making software; figures associated with its management have included the AI-safety researcher Andrew Critch and the software engineer Eric Rogstad. Annual distributions have ranged from the roughly 2 million dollars of the 2019 round to more than 40 million dollars in 2024.[^1][^4] ### The S-Process The S-process (the "S" stands for "simulation") is the recurring procedure SFF runs once or twice a year to turn human judgment into dollar allocations. Each round recruits a panel of roughly four to twelve "recommenders" chosen by the funders, who review the applications and each express a marginal-value or utility function describing how much they think additional money to each organization is worth. A grant-making application then simulates the funding process, combining the recommenders' functions so that the system favors projects with enthusiastic individual champions rather than only broad consensus picks. SFF has credited the method's development to Andrew Critch, Tallinn, Oliver Habryka, Kevin Arlin, and Jason Moggridge.[^1][^5] The mechanism is designed so that recommenders are given equal weight, in effect producing a synthetic average evaluator, while funders retain final say over whether to implement the output. In recent years SFF has run multiple parallel tracks within a single round; the 2025 round used twelve recommenders split across a six-person Main Track and two specialized three-person tracks named the Fairness Track and the Freedom Track, and it also offered matching pledges under which Tallinn committed to match outside donations at set rates. SFF separately operates a faster "Speculation Grants" program for time-sensitive funding between the main rounds.[^5][^6] ### Organizations Funded SFF's grants have flowed to the core institutions of the AI-risk and existential-risk field. Recipients across its rounds have included the [Machine Intelligence Research Institute](/organizations/machine-intelligence-research-institute/), the [Centre for the Study of Existential Risk](/organizations/centre-for-the-study-of-existential-risk/), the Future of Life Institute, and a wide range of newer AI-safety, governance, and biosecurity groups. The 2025 round alone recommended about 34.3 million dollars, with named grants including 2.035 million dollars to the AI Futures Project, 1.635 million dollars to the AI Policy Institute, 1.607 million dollars to the Machine Intelligence Research Institute, 1.5 million dollars to the biosecurity project SecureDNA, 1.311 million dollars to Lightcone Infrastructure, and 1.133 million dollars to Palisade Research.[^6][^7] Other recurring beneficiaries have spanned technical alignment research, AI-policy advocacy, pandemic preparedness, and the rationalist community infrastructure that hosts much of this work, with individual grants typically ranging from around 10,000 dollars to well over a million dollars. Critics of the broader field have noted that a small number of donors, with Tallinn prominent among them, supply much of the money that funds the organizations scrutinizing advanced AI, a concentration that the S-process distributes but does not eliminate.[^2][^6] [^1]: "Survival and Flourishing Fund," official site, on its purpose, the 2019 BERI grant of about 2 million dollars funded by Jaan Tallinn, the roughly 150 million dollars organized across rounds, additional funders including Jed McCaleb and the Future of Life Institute, and management by Survival and Flourishing Corp. https://survivalandflourishing.fund/ [^2]: "TIME100 Philanthropy: Jaan Tallinn," Time, 2026, on SFF directing roughly 150 million dollars to more than 300 projects and Tallinn as principal funder. https://time.com/collection/time100-philanthropy/2026/jaan-tallinn/ [^3]: "Survival and Flourishing Fund (SFF)," LongtermWiki, on the fund's origins in Tallinn's earlier Survival and Flourishing donations and the BERI grant. https://ea-crux-project.vercel.app/knowledge-base/organizations/sff/ [^4]: "Speculation Grants," Survival and Flourishing Fund, on the management by Survival and Flourishing Corp and the speculation-grant program. https://survivalandflourishing.fund/speculation-grants [^5]: "The S-Process," Survival and Flourishing Fund, on the simulation-based method, the four-to-twelve recommenders, the marginal-utility functions, the funders' final say, and the method's development by Andrew Critch, Jaan Tallinn, Oliver Habryka, Kevin Arlin, and Jason Moggridge. https://survivalandflourishing.fund/s-process [^6]: "SFF-2025 S-Process Recommendations Announcement," Survival and Flourishing Fund, 2025, on the twelve recommenders, the Main, Fairness, and Freedom tracks, the roughly 34.3 million dollars recommended, the named grants, and the matching pledges. https://survivalandflourishing.fund/2025/recommendations [^7]: "2021 H2 S-Process Grant Round Recommendations," Survival and Flourishing Fund, on recurring recipients across rounds. https://survivalandflourishing.fund/2021/h2/recommendations