As listed above, I was a (comparatively small) funder in round #1.
I broadly recommend LC Commons as a platform for making donations. In particular, I liked the experience much better than relying on existing donation funds or trying to ask individuals for donation opportunities ad hoc.
Some things I liked about LC Commons:
- Not being limited to 501c3s.
- Being able to see what grants evaluators recommend before deciding whom to defer to (as a funder, this is clearly attractive; it's less attractive for evaluators, so I guess it's unclear whether it's the right trade-off overall).
- Being able to choose which specific individual I want to defer to, as opposed to having to defer to a team of evaluators, where I might not trust every individual (as is often the case for funds).
- Being able to override specific grant recommendations from one evaluator while still otherwise deferring to that evaluator (though I didn't end up using this).
- Having access to the raw applications that applicants sent in, as well as notes from other evaluators on those applications.
- The platform making all funders cooperate with each other by default[1].
- The UI being well-designed.
- Habryka offering to answer questions in DMs and having been responsive and helpful the couple of times that came up.
Overall, I spent maybe 4-7 hours on the whole process[2], which is still reasonably time-efficient, but it is more involved than using donation funds. I could have spent less time by being more willing to blindly defer to one evaluator.
- ^
I.e., in general, in grant-making, there's an incentive not to fund the obvious stuff (which everyone agrees on, and thus will surely get funded by someone else), and instead to focus all funding on stuff that looks good at one's own margin, but which might not make the cut on someone else's broadly similar, but slightly different worldview. If everyone did that, the obvious stuff wouldn't get funded, so it's anti-cooperative. The mechanisms behind LC Commons ensure all funders cooperate by default (though a funder could still hack it if they wanted; and it's easier for an evaluator to defect).
- ^
excl. time spent selling stocks and moving money
2
My current understanding is that your edit shows up in the "activity feed" on the homepage that all evaluators and funders see when they login.
The intended experience is indeed that applicants continue to update their existing page on the site, rather than submit anew every monthly round.
11
Tl;dr:
Lightcone Commons’ first funding round is complete! 17 evaluators made funding recommendations, including Zvi Mowshowitz, Scott Siskind and Eliezer Yudkowsky. 23 funders coordinated to grant $45.1M, and 147 projects received funding.
Round two is open. Applications for round two close on November 15th and funders confirm their grants by December 14th. Funders can join anytime before December 7th.
In 2027, we will be hosting funding rounds monthly. Yes. Every month.
You can join as a funder, express interest in joining as an evaluator, and apply for funding at lightconecommons.com.
Lightcone Commons staff do not decide what grants get made.[1] Pls stop saying that "Lightcone Commons funded us", that's a bit like saying "PayPal funded me".
Lightcone Commons is an end-to-end philanthropic coordination platform.
We host an open funding application, and invite evaluators to make ordered funding recommendations. Participating funders then decide how much they want to give, and to whom – either by following the recommendations of evaluators or choosing specific projects to fund. When multiple funders want to fund the same project they ‘split the bill’.
Lightcone Commons is not a foundation. We don’t decide to make specific grants. Funders decide what grants to make, aided by evaluators. Lightcone Commons provides the infrastructure for this to happen. We are worried that people will mistakenly understand Lightcone Commons to be a foundation, and say things like ‘I wonder why Lightcone Commons decided to fund X’. This would be sad because Lightcone Commons is not a foundation, and we didn’t decide to fund X. Nor did we decide not to fund X. The funders did (with help from the evaluators).
(Lightcone Commons is not a foundation.)
Round One Overview
Funders
Participating funders included: Agus Covarrubias, AI Risk Mitigation Fund, Andreas Stuhlmueller, Cormac Slade Byrd, Craig Falls, Daniel Kokotajlo, David Farhi, Dustin Moskovitz, Jaan Tallinn, James & Joanna Bregan, Jess Riedel, John Williams, Long Term Future Fund, Matt Putz, Michael Gao, Nate Soares, Nisan Stiennon, Peter McCluskey, Ricson Cheng, Timothy Telleen-Lawton and three anonymous funders.
Funders split the bill on most grants – 79% of the grants were paid by more than one funder. The median grant had four funders, and there were 17 funders behind the most-shared grant.
Evaluators
Each evaluator submitted a funding order (an ordered list of what they would fund) for the round. You can see the evaluators and their funding orders in the following gothic-chic widget.
Of the $45.1M total granted, $41.2M was routed through evaluators. Evaluators are paid 2% of the amount that flows through them[2], and in total evaluators received $693k.
On average each funder chose to fund four evaluators’ funding orders, and 61% of funders used four or more.
Next Round
Round two is open! The relevant dates:
You can apply for funding any time before the close of applications. You can also apply after the close of applications, in which case you will be considered for funding in the next funding round in January. We accept international applications as well as applications from 501c3s, 501c4s, for-profit organizations and individuals.
Ought are also sponsoring an epistemics fund on Lightcone Commons, so if you have projects related to better thinking, whether thats fact checking, forecasting or something else, you can check out their site here. All projects that apply there will be eligible for the funding via the standard evaluators and funders too.
If you are interested in joining as a funder, you can book a call with me, or email habryka@lightconeinfrastructure.com. You can join at any time, with the deadline for participating in round two being December 7th.
We are also looking for more evaluators for Lightcone Commons, especially people who have good funding recommendations in worldviews not already represented on the platform. You can express interest in becoming an evaluator here.
Some Lightcone staff are also active as evaluators on the platform, but ultimately what gets funded is up to the funders
Evaluators can waive their fees as e.g. the fund managers of the Long-Term Future Fund did.
Though based on this round, most funders expect to send us the funds much faster than that