Survival and Flourishing Fund (SFF) is organizing another S-Process Grant Round in collaboration with Jaan Tallinn and Survival and Flourishing Corp (SFC), planning to announce recommendations by the end of September 2025. We estimate that $10MM - $20MM in funding will be distributed in this round via three tracks: Main, Freedom, and Fairness. The Funder of this round, Jaan Tallinn, has provided the following guidance regarding philanthropic priorities, which highlights areas of consideration for funding:
Applicants must be awarded a Speculation Grant in order to be guaranteed eligibility for consideration from an SFF S-Process Grant Round. Completing the SFF Funding Rolling Application will automatically submit a Speculation Grant Request on your behalf.
The SFF 2025 S-Process Grant Round will have two additional S-Process tracks in addition to the Main Track: the Freedom Track and the Fairness Track. The application process and requirements are the same as the Main Track, but applicants can specifically flag their application for consideration by Recommenders in the Freedom Track or the Fairness Track. To learn more about these tracks, please see the Freedom and Fairness Tracks Announcement below.
New to the 2025 S-Process Grant Round is the SFF Matching Pledge Program. SFF Matching Pledges are commitments made by Funders of an S-Process round to match outside donations to a recipient at some rate (e.g. 2-to-1), up to the pledged amount. The goals of the Matching Pledge program include diversifying the funding landscape, providing encouragement to other donors who want to give more, and increasing the fundraising robustness and independence of S-Process grantees. Applicants can complete the Matching Pledge portion of the SFF Funding Rolling Application to be considered for the program.
Applications for all tracks (Main, Freedom, and Fairness) are due by the deadline of May 2, 2025 11:59:59 PM PT via the following form:
Late applications will not be eligible for the current S-Process Grant Round and will automatically be eligible for consideration in the following round. Late applications are still eligible for Speculation Grants.
All eligible applications will be evaluated in all rounds (Main, Freedom, and Fairness).
More information about the 2025 S-Process Grant Round can be found in the application form and in the FAQ below on this page, and answers to more general questions can be found in our General FAQ. If you have any further questions that are not answered through the above channels, please write to sff-contact@googlegroups.com.
The SFF-2025 Main Track is identical to how the previous SFF S-Process Grant Rounds have been organized and managed, it is just being renamed as the Main Track. We estimate that $6MM - $12MM in funding will be distributed in this track, with 6 Recommenders reviewing applications. We hope grants made in this track will simultaneously support fairness, freedom, and many other values crucial to humanity’s survival and flourishing. For this reason, it has a larger budget than either of the specialized tracks. Please review the SFF-2025 S-Process Grant Round General Information for information on the requirements for all tracks.
Applications for all tracks (Main, Freedom, and Fairness) are due by the deadline of May 2, 2025 11:59:59 PM PT via the following form
All eligible applications will be evaluated in all tracks (Main, Freedom, and Fairness).
In 2024, SFF created two special tracks for S-Process applications that specifically target values we call fairness and freedom, explained below. For the SFF-2025 S-Process Grant Round, we will again be running the grant round with these additional tracks. These specialized tracks will run with separate sets of Recommenders who are focused specifically on those values, roughly in parallel with our Main Track. All eligible applications are qualified to be evaluated by Recommenders in all tracks (Main, Freedom, and Fairness).
For details on applying to the SFF-2025 S-Process Grant Round, see the SFF-2025 S-Process Grant Round General Information. To learn more about the Freedom and Fairness Tracks, keep reading below.
Fairness and freedom are values we consider crucial to humanity’s survival and flourishing in the era of AI technology, especially now that leading experts in AI have acknowledged that AI presents an extinction-level threat to humanity.
At different times and in different contexts, either fairness or freedom attract more support from particular political movements, to the extent that they are sometimes assumed to be in conflict. However, we think of them as truly global and mutually compatible values. A society is fair when morally arbitrary facts don’t avoidably determine people’s life chances. It is free when people can pursue their own goals, as individuals and as groups, without fear of arbitrary interference from those holding the reins of power.
Rapidly advancing artificial intelligence will inescapably affect both freedom and fairness. It could universalize access to opportunities making for a much fairer society, and could enable people and groups to better form and pursue their goals. But it may also enable those with advantage to cement their position and shift AI’s negative externalities onto the already-disadvantaged. And AI is a force-multiplier for those who wish to control others—it makes the practice of exercising authority much easier, thereby limiting people’s freedom.
Conversely, the degree to which we collectively prioritize freedom and fairness for humanity will inescapably affect how artificial intelligence is developed. Therefore, ensuring that advanced AI serves fairness and freedom is not only a moral imperative in its own right, but is an indispensable stepping-stone to mitigating future risks to humanity.
While applicants can flag their applications for evaluation by a specific track, every eligible applicant is eligible for evaluation by all three tracks.
AI technologies could be used to bring more freedom and autonomy to people and institutions everywhere. On the other hand, AI could also yield further concentrations of authority — whether in governments, corporations, or elsewhere — that oppress freedom of speech, hoard resources, and perpetuate tyranny.
How can we avoid these problems, and support uses of AI that strengthen freedom for humans and humanity? We’re specifically seeking applications addressing the following objectives:
This evaluation track has a budget of $2MM - $4MM with 3 Freedom Track Recommenders reviewing all applications, but especially Freedom Track flagged applications. If you would like to flag your application to the Freedom Track Recommenders, you can indicate so in the SFF Funding Rolling Application. For details on how to apply, see the SFF-2025 S-Process Grant Round General Information.
AI technologies could be used to bring greater opportunities and prosperity to all of humanity at once. On the other hand, AI could also yield a further concentration of wealth and power, benefitting only a privileged few while creating risks and harmful externalities for everyone.
How can we avoid these problems, and support the use of AI to empower the disempowered? We’re specifically seeking applications addressing the following objectives:
This evaluation track has a budget of $2MM - $4MM with 3 Fairness Track Recommenders reviewing all applications, but especially Fairness Track flagged applications. If you would like to flag your application to the Fairness Track Recommenders, you can indicate so in the SFF Funding Rolling Application. For details on how to apply, see the SFF-2025 S-Process Grant Round General Information.
All eligible applications will be evaluated in all tracks (Main, Freedom, and Fairness).
In today’s political climate, certain human values inevitably end up being primarily championed by either left-leaning or right-leading political perspectives. Such values can be difficult to represent through a bipartisan consensus, even if everyone would benefit from them. This can lead to under-representing certain values that would actually benefit everyone.
At SFF, we believe our values of fairness and freedom are both important for humanity’s future, and only happen to seem right-leaning or left-leaning within today’s political frameworks. In other words, these are values we wish to support on their own merits, irrespective of politics. By creating a special track for each value, we hope to support strong proponents of each value to apply for funding, and to be evaluated by a set of reviewers who specifically espouse that value.
Importantly, being a strong proponent of either fairness, freedom, or both does not necessarily mean being a strong proponent of left-leaning or right-leaning politics in general, and in fact might require the opposite: centrist or bipartisan consensus is often necessary to bring about deep and lasting changes in the world. So, neither of these tracks is meant to encompass broadly supporting left-leaning or right-leaning values. The fairness track is specifically about fairness, and the freedom track is specifically about freedom.