California · Nonprofit
ALIGNMENT RESEARCH CENTER
ALIGNMENT RESEARCH CENTER (California) receives grants from 8 organizations whose IRS filings report $12,350,635 to it, the largest being FOUNDERS PLEDGE INC ($4,172,000). 6 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 71% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- Revenue FY2024
- $5.2M
- Funders on record
- 8
- Grants received
- $12M
- Net assets
- $3.3M
What Alignment Research Center does
Mission
The Alignment Research Center is a non profit research organization whose mission is to align future machine learning systems with human interests.
As stated on its FY2024 Form 990.
Programs
On its FY2023 return the organization reported a significant change in how it conducts a program.
The evaluations project grew quickly in 2023, becoming the majority of the organization's expenses. It will be spinning out to form a separate legal entity in 2024.
Its own explanation, from Schedule O of that return (Part III, line 3).
Theoretical research - we continued our theoretical research program, hiring two staff and hosting five visiting researchers.we ran an international prize round seeking a solution to a problem in matrix completions,and conducted some proof of concept empirical experiments.
$938,180 spent18% of program spendingEvaluation project - we developed an initial methodology for evaluating lm agents on realistic tasks, conducted exploratory pre-deployment testing on frontier models from open ai and anthropic, and proposed a preventative framework which gained substantial traction across industry and the policy community.
$4,163,939 spent82% of program spending
The 2 programs described on its FY2023 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $5,102,119.
The organization over time
Each line starts at 100 in 2021, so what you read is the shape rather than the size: 150 means half as much again as 2021, 50 means half. The number beside each label in the key is where it ended. The shaded band is where the middle 50% of its peers' revenue would sit, given their growth.
Balance sheet
Total assets and total liabilities at each year end, in dollars. The largest one-year move in total assets was 2021 to 2022, from $324k to $4.7M (+1357%).
How it's funded, over time
Each bar is one year's revenue split into where it came from, and every bar is the same height — these are shares, not amounts, so a year that raised twice as much looks the same size. Hover a bar for the split.
100% of ALIGNMENT RESEARCH CENTER’s revenue is contributions — more reliant on donations than three-quarters of its peers (67% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 1 of the last 4 reported years ran a deficit.
reserve
Leadership and staff
The officers, directors, trustees and key employees listed on each return. Joined and no longer listed compare each filing with the year before, matching people by surname and first initial; a year after a gap, or a roster under three people, has no comparison.
Who funds it, year by year
2022 → 2023: the base broadened from 2 funders to 7 funders, grant income rose $2.4M → $6.9M.
5 of 8 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 71% of grant dollars received. That money is really individual donors directing a sponsor; the institutions to cultivate are the non-DAF funders.
From the IRS filings of ALIGNMENT RESEARCH CENTER’s funders (the co-funder graph). Association, not causation. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.
How concentrated its funding is
ALIGNMENT RESEARCH CENTER leans on a few funders — its largest provides 34% of grant income and the top three 69%; half comes from just 2 funders.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 2 funders to its left
85% of the income these shares are computed over arrives through pass-through sponsors or from payers whose filings do not say what kind of payment it is. Concentration is still measured over all of it, because the money is real; what it does not support is a claim about how many institutions have chosen to fund ALIGNMENT RESEARCH CENTER.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2022 89% · 2023 27% — diversifying over time.
“Effective funders” = inverse Herfindahl index (1 / Σ shareᵢ²) — the number of equal-sized funders that would give the same concentration. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.
Where its funders are
71% of ALIGNMENT RESEARCH CENTER's grant income arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors, whose addresses record where the money is held rather than where the donor is. Of the $3.5M that is directly attributable, 100% of it comes from California funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $8.8M arriving through sponsors registered in 5 states is excluded from the map and the split above: a sponsor holds money on a donor’s behalf, so its registered address would place those dollars somewhere no donor need ever have been. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.
Against its field
ALIGNMENT RESEARCH CENTER has grown faster than three-quarters of the 482 science & tech nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 482 science & tech nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2024
Organizations like ALIGNMENT RESEARCH CENTER
Organizations whose mission and program text most resemble this one, by semantic similarity over every organization in the US filings — the closest peers, and often the clearest route to shared or prospective funders.
In California
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
94% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
75%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Footprint & structure
Files a return copy in 1 state
Part of a family of 1 related entity
- Model Evaluation and Threat Research Inc · exempt
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for ALIGNMENT RESEARCH CENTER: IRS status (Business Master File, Publication 78, auto-revocation), the OFAC sanctions lists, the Internal Revenue Bulletin, and California registration, with the Rev. Proc. 2018-32 §8.01 reliance elements stated element by element. Generated from the current files at the moment you download it.
Screens are triage, not determinations; a source that cannot be read reports not screened, never clear. Screen this nonprofit · How the screen works · on the API as GET /api/screening/{ein}?format=pdf
Questions and answers
- Who funds ALIGNMENT RESEARCH CENTER?
- ALIGNMENT RESEARCH CENTER (California) receives grants from 8 organizations whose IRS filings report $12,350,635 to it, the largest being FOUNDERS PLEDGE INC ($4,172,000). 6 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 71% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- How many funders does ALIGNMENT RESEARCH CENTER have?
- IRS filings report 8 organizations giving $12,350,635 in grants to ALIGNMENT RESEARCH CENTER, 6 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of ALIGNMENT RESEARCH CENTER?
- FOUNDERS PLEDGE INC is the largest funder on record, with $4,172,000 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like ALIGNMENT RESEARCH CENTER find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in California. The funding by cause and by state pages list the largest funders for a given area and how to approach them.
These figures are read directly from IRS Form 990 / 990-PF e-file XML: this organization’s own return for FY2024 (financials across 2021–2024), and the filings of 8 funders that report grants to it. “On record” means captured in the filings we have parsed — a funder that does not e-file, or whose grant detail is not itemized, will not appear. Filings run roughly 12–24 months behind. Trends on this page end at FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving; later years are shown and marked, and move no figure. Data on this page was exported October 14, 2026. What this page cannot tell you · view filing