This post is part of our monthly activity update series. Each activity update briefly describes what we’ve been up to in the last month and, hopefully, helps to shed light on how our priorities shift over time. Note that some of our time each month will be spent investigating future project opportunities that may not be covered in these posts until our plans are more solid.

Accomplishments

  • Our Grants Program awarded an $800k general support grant to the Center for Applied Rationality (CFAR), in order to support CFAR buying a permanent venue for its workshops.

  • We facilitated the creation of the BERI Support Fund (BSF), which was incorporated in January 2018. See http://bsf.existence.org/ for more information about BSF.

  • We systematized some aspects of our Grants Program so that we can involve more BERI staff in our grant investigations. This involved drafting initial procedures and criteria for future grants BERI would like to make.

Setbacks

  • Our academic awards program is on hold until further notice.

Works in Progress

We are…

  • Investigating how to expand our base of potential grantees, for example, by making grants to individuals.

  • Planning a trip in which our core staff will visit the Future of Humanity Institute (FHI) and Centre for the Study of Existential Risk (CSER). Our broad goals for this trip are to 1) increase our awareness of opportunities to support these research institutions and others, 2) improve our ability to communicate and collaborate with individuals at FHI and CSER, and 3) inspire our core staff to “get stuff done” for the x-risk ecosystem.

  • Hiring for additional Project Managers, and a Program Investigator and Manager position. You can learn more about each position at our jobs page.

  • Supporting BSF in applying for non-profit status and other legal and operational set-up tasks.

  • Finalizing our 2017 financial statements in preparation for our upcoming annual financial audit.

  • In the process of investigating several new grants.