Around €600,000 for safe AI and biotechnology

In the second half of 2024, we had some news in the area of “Safeguarding the future”.

New Giving Fund

In December, we launched our latest Giving Fund: Ensuring Safe AI. It is dedicated to the prevention of catastrophic risks posed by artificial intelligence, such as through loss of control or the misuse of AI. With the “Shaping AI Safely” donation fund, we are pleased to offer the first product in the German-speaking world that enables a broad audience to advocate for the responsible development of this transformative technology through tax-deductible donations. The “Preserving the Future” donation fund will continue to support, in part, organizations with this focus, but will also continue to support organizations dedicated to addressing other risks, such as those posed by pandemics.

Donations received

In Germany and Switzerland, the following amounts were donated to the funds in the second half of 2024:

• Giving Fund: Safeguarding the Future: €530,000
• Giving Fund: Ensuring Safe AI: €60,000

The funds were allocated as follows on the recommendation of our partner Longview Philanthropy .

Supported organizations

Pandemic Action Network (€243,000)

The Pandemic Action Network (PAN) has received €243,000 from the Giving Fund: Safeguarding the Future. Specifically, we are funding a PAN project to ensure that innovations in synthetic biology have appropriate guardrails in place to reduce the risks of biosafety violations. PAN will work with stakeholders in and around the nucleic acid synthesis industry to advocate for responsible biotechnology and life science governance in Europe.

Note: The Pandemic Action Network has since been renamed rani (Resilience Action Network International).

General Purpose AI Policy Lab (€233,000)

The General Purpose AI (GPAI) Policy Lab was co-financed with €233,000 from the Giving Fund: Safeguarding the Future. GPAI was originally founded at the elite Parisian university Sciences Po and aims to promote the international coordination and governance of AI in order to harness the opportunities of AI for our society and avoid risks, including catastrophic ones. The work of the organization is based on three pillars. First, the production of targeted policy research reports to support evidence-based decision-making in the field of AI governance; second, the creation of a platform in France to connect national and international stakeholders and promote dialog; and third, the implementation of training programs to provide current and future policy makers with the necessary expertise to shape AI policy in France and across Europe.

France plays a pivotal role in the future of AI, given its importance on European policymaking and its leadership in AI research and innovation. As home to Mistral, the company driving some of the most advanced large language models in the EU, France is at the heart of Europe’s efforts on AI.

The Future Society (€114,000)

The Future Society (TFS) was supported with €60,000 each from the new Giving Fund: Ensuring Safe AI and €54,000 from the Giving Fund: Safeguarding the Future. TFS works in Brussels and Washington to make AI safe and align it with human values through AI governance. TFS was involved in shaping the EU AI Regulation five years before it was adopted and has, among other things, successfully used tothat foundational models, such as GPT-4, must meet special security standards. In 2025, TFS will hire several employees in Washington to advise the US government on scenarios of loss of control over AI and international and security policy aspects of AI safety.

What we have achieved: Impact example “Blueprint Biosecurity”

The Covid-19 pandemic claimed an estimated 27 million lives and the threat of new types of pandemics is increasing. Blueprint Biosecurity has set itself an ambitious goal: To accelerate breakthroughs that allow us to prevent, mitigate and combat pandemics. They are developing clear, detailed, ambitious and achievable plans to advance promising biosecurity measures and remove the key bottlenecks that hinder progress. With funding from 2023, the founding year of Blueprint Biosecurity, supported We are supporting them with €150,000 from our Giving Fund: Ensuring Safe AI. One of the organization’s main focuses is on accelerating far UVC, a technology that makes it possible to clean the air of infectious pathogens and prevent or mitigate the next pandemic.

In a new report published in March 2025 report, Blueprint Biosecurity summarizes a two-year analysis of scientific publications and interviews with more than 100 experts from academia, industry and public health. They provide concrete recommendations for the most urgent research needs and the steps that need to be taken to enable widespread use of far UVC. They are now working on an even more ambitious project, Project AIR, which aims to make significant investments in the development and promotion of far UVC.

About the author

Anne Schulze

Founder & Managing Director

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I am one of the founders and managing directors of Effektiv Spenden. If you have any questions or suggestions, please feel free to send me an email. I'll get right back to you.