California · Nonprofit
Rethink Priorities
Rethink Priorities (California) receives grants from 31 organizations whose IRS filings report $51,323,172 to it, the largest being Silicon Valley Community Foundation ($21,006,582). 18 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 69% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- Revenue FY2024
- $21M
- Funders on record
- 31
- Grants received
- $51M
- Net assets
- $15M
What Rethink Priorities does
Mission
Rethink Priorities' mission is to support organizations, researchers, and changemakers in efforts to generate the most significant possible charitable impact for others in the present and the long-term future.
As stated on its FY2024 Form 990.
Programs
Special Projects: RP's Special Projects (SP) team supports priority projects that RP fiscally sponsors, incubates, or directly launches. In 2024, some of SP's notable achievements include: 42 fiscal sponsorship expressions of interest received; 10 projects supported; $6.4m total direct costs of supported projects; 7 sponsee hiring rounds completed; 39 total sponsee staff at year end; 6 visa sponsorship applications (UK & US); 9 in-person events; and 216 total event attendees. In 2024, the following projects were fiscally sponsored or incubated at RP: Epoch, Apollo Research, Consultants for Impact (CFI - previously the Effective Altruism Consulting Network), Quantified Uncertainty Research Institute (QURI), Condor Camp, The Insect Institute, Insect Welfare Research Society, the Vista Institute for AI Policy, Global Challenges Project, and provided general administrative support services to Pow-dr.
$9,660,958 spentof which $3,082,855 as grants$960,504 earned by the program61% of program spendingAI Policy and Strategy: In 2024, Rethink Priorities' (RP's) AI work was conducted by the Institute for AI Policy and Strategy (IAPS). A brief overview of IAPS' four main workstreams and 2024 accomplishments follows: (1) Compute policy work aims to explore novel interventions and strategic considerations for managing access to massive AI compute resources. In 2024, IAPS work on this area included publishing a landmark paper with the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) focused on using on-chip governance mechanisms to manage national security risks from AI and advanced computing, working on a forthcoming (published in 2025) report on location verification for advanced AI chips, and publishing a report analyzing the potential impact of high-end consumer GPUs on the efficacy of US export controls on AI chips. The work has received significant interest from US policymakers. (2) Frontier Security work aims to identify concrete interventions to address AI-related threats to national defense and security and protect innovation. Accomplishments in 2024 include publications analyzing advanced AI companies' RSPs (responsible scaling plans) and providing recommendations, a systematic…
$2,289,390 spent$74,441 earned by the program14% of program spendingAnimal Welfare: Rethink Priorities' (RP's) Animal Welfare (AW) Department aims to be a leading hub of research and innovation to accelerate the end of factory farming and reduce the suffering of other animals. Through work spanning independent research, consulting services, and applied projects, the team supports advocacy organizations, philanthropic foundations, and other actors to drive evidence-based and reason-driven change for animals. Some notable accomplishments from the Animal Welfare department during 2024 include: A series of case studies demonstrating innovative initiatives that are shifting consumption towards plant-based alternatives in replacing animal-based products; a cost-effectiveness analysis of various interventions (viz., institutional meat reduction work in US and Western Europe, farmed fish stunning in Europe); estimating the production costs and future capacity of the insect farming sector; creating strategic roadmaps for multiple areas of animal advocacy (viz., farmed shrimp, wild animals); and hosting the Animal Advocacy Strategy Forum to provide an annual space for leaders of animal advocacy organizations to strengthen the movement.
$1,894,145 spentof which $443,053 as grants$46,170 earned by the program12% of program spendingGlobal Health and Development: Rethink Priorities' (RP's) Global Health and Development (GHD) Department conducts high quality research on important global health, international development, and climate issues and uses its research to influence relevant stakeholders, such that they move resources towards more cost-effective interventions to ultimately increase wellbeing in lower- and middle-income countries (LMICs). GHD completed around 20 reports in 2024 on topics such as infectious disease, climate change, and health systems in the developing world. GHD also expanded its consulting services work, advising major foundations on cost-effective giving strategies. It also hosted a second annual global health and development strategy forum, bringing together around 20 different stakeholders working in related areas.
$991,236 spent$793,977 earned by the program6% of program spendingWorldview Investigations - Rethink Priorities' (RP's) Worldview Investigations Team (WIT) exists to improve resource allocation by focusing on tractable, high-impact questions that bear on philanthropic priorities. WIT builds on RP's work as a multi-cause, stakeholder-driven research organization and aims to take action-relevant philosophical, methodological, and strategic problems and turn them into manageable, modelable problems. In 2024, we published a sequence of reports ('Charitable Resource Allocation Frameworks and Tools Sequence') introducing two interactive tools that can be used to inform philanthropic funding: a Portfolio tool for optimising allocations of resources across a portfolio of different causes and a Parliament tool that helps actors navigate normative uncertainty using a 'moral parliament' approach. WIT also developed and published three research agendas, outlining key research questions needing to be addressed in this space, concerning general philanthropic resource allocation, prioritizing animal welfare across different species and digital welfare in the case of advanced digital systems. We also began work related to our digital welfare research agenda,…
$641,588 spent4% of program spendingSurveys and Data Analysis: Rethink Priorities' (RP's) Surveys and Data Analysis Department supported work in a variety of high priority causes in 2024 through conducting surveys, polling, other forms of psychological and behavioral experiments and focus groups, and data analysis. This included running a series of surveys to examine the changing use of LLMs, and their potential influence on automation, in the general public and key industries and occupations, as well as conducting in-depth interviews with a smaller number of advanced users of LLMs. We also ran and published the results of a further wave of our regular Pulse survey, a nationally representative survey of the US population, assessing attitudes towards charitable donation, different cause areas, and their awareness of and attitudes towards effective altruism, as well as artificial intelligence. We also collaborated with academics to produce an academic publication, under review at Technological Forecasting & Social Change, concerning public and expert attitudes towards societal risks from AI. We also independently published a report on the attitudes of the British public regarding extinction risk. We also published…
$432,942 spent$34,438 earned by the program3% of program spending
The 6 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $15,910,259.
The organization over time
Each line starts at 100 in 2020, so what you read is the shape rather than the size: 150 means half as much again as 2020, 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 $6.4M to $12M (+81%).
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.
87% of Rethink Priorities’s revenue is contributions — more donation-reliant than the typical peer (21% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 0 of the last 5 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
2020 → 2023: the base broadened from 8 funders to 17 funders, grant income rose $2.2M → $15M.
13 of 31 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 69% 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 Rethink Priorities’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 31 funders by total. 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
Rethink Priorities leans on a few funders — its largest provides 41% of grant income and the top three 75%; half comes from just 2 funders.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 2 funders to its left
82% 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 Rethink Priorities.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2020 55% · 2021 53% · 2022 68% · 2023 64% — growing more concentrated.
“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.
How long its funders stay
75% of Rethink Priorities's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 58% give in more than one year at all.
Share of funders still giving k years after their first recorded grant, pooled across every acquisition cohort. A funder counts as retained in a year only if it made a grant that year. Measured to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving — a funder cannot be counted as lapsed in a year most filers have not reached.
Where its funders are
69% of Rethink Priorities'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 $16M that is directly attributable, 92% of it comes from California funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $36M arriving through sponsors registered in 9 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
Rethink Priorities holds deeper cash reserves than three-quarters of the 3,289 human services nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 3,289 human services nonprofits $10M–$100M, FY2024
Organizations like Rethink Priorities
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
78% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
0%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Footprint & structure
Files a return copy in 5 states
Part of a family of 1 related entity
- Rethink Priorities UK Ltd · disregarded
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for Rethink Priorities: 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 Rethink Priorities?
- Rethink Priorities (California) receives grants from 31 organizations whose IRS filings report $51,323,172 to it, the largest being Silicon Valley Community Foundation ($21,006,582). 18 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 69% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- How many funders does Rethink Priorities have?
- IRS filings report 31 organizations giving $51,323,172 in grants to Rethink Priorities, 18 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of Rethink Priorities?
- Silicon Valley Community Foundation is the largest funder on record, with $21,006,582 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like Rethink Priorities 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 2020–2024), and the filings of 31 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 22, 2026. What this page cannot tell you · view filing