Alexander Berger

Alexander Berger

@albrgr.bsky.social

CEO of Coefficient Giving

2K followers654 following458 posts

Alexander Berger reposted

Jason Furman
@jasonfurman.bsky.social

I've seen speculation AI anxieties are behind negative sentiment. Zero evidence for that: 1. Negativity pre-dates AI. 2. People much more negative about prices than jobs. 3. Negativity same across education/age/income groups 4. Negativity much worse in US but AI is everywhere.

Alexander Berger
@albrgr.bsky.social

We also launched a big specific call for founders for ambitious new AI safety initiatives today: coefficientgiving.org/tailwind/ So much more to be doing here!

coefficientgiving.orgProject TailwindProject Tailwind is Coefficient Giving's call for founders to launch ambitious AI safety initiatives.
Alexander Berger@albrgr.bsky.social

Ahead of the coming "third wave of philanthropy," we want to give hundreds of millions of dollars to "general managers" to lead targeted funds tackling big problems in global health and wellbeing (h/t @nanr.bsky.social for the frame). Apply by October 2: coefficientgiving.org/funds/globa...

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Alexander Berger
@albrgr.bsky.social

Nice editorial from Bloomberg today on the benefits of gene drives spreading resistance within mosquitos to control malaria! We fund a bunch of this work. www.bloomberg.com/opinion/art...

bloomberg.comCan Building a Better Mosquito Finally Beat Malaria?Almost half a million children under the age of 5 die of malaria each year. What if replacing a single amino acid in disease-carrying mosquitoes could help save them? After battling with rudimentary tools for millennia, malaria fighters are now armed with a potentially revolutionary technology. If only the public could get on board.
Alexander Berger
@albrgr.bsky.social

Bed nets have gotten a lot of attention over the years, but they've stuck around because they work. The WHO estimates 14 million malaria deaths have been averted since 2000, and credits widespread net use with a 70% drop in African malaria cases between 2000 and 2015: www.who.int/teams/globa...

who.intWorld malaria report 2025Each year, WHO’s World malaria report provides a comprehensive and up-to-date assessment of trends in malaria control and elimination across the globe
Alexander Berger
@albrgr.bsky.social

They're also cheap, just a few bucks a net and a couple more for distribution costs. I'm excited to see this grant go out and for more global health grantmaking as we scale. Our full announcement: coefficientgiving.org/research/co...

coefficientgiving.orgCoefficient Giving’s Largest Grant Ever: $276 Million, Co-Funded With GiveWell, to the Against Malaria Foundation  Coefficient Giving’s Largest Grant Ever: $276 Million, Co-Funded With GiveWell, to the Against Malaria Foundation The combined $276 million grant — $212 million from Coefficient Giving and $64 million from GiveWell — will pay for bed nets in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where malaria remains one of the leading causes of death […]

Alexander Berger reposted

Katharine Collins
@kat-a-collins.bsky.social

I've spent my career working on vaccines, and until I joined Coefficient Giving, I'd never heard Strep A mentioned as a global health priority. The more I looked, the harder it was to understand why a disease killing 630,000+ people a year was so neglected.

globalhealthnow.orgA Vaccine for Strep A May Finally Be in ReachStrep A—the bacterium behind strep throat and impetigo—kills hundreds of thousands of people a year, mostly young people in LMICs—yet Strep A vaccine R&D is chronically underfunded.
Alexander Berger
@albrgr.bsky.social

And I'm thrilled to be betting on Katharine's vision here! As a grad student, she co-invented the R21 malaria vaccine that's now reaching millions of kids. I'm hoping to see hundreds of millions of future Strep A vaccine doses with her fingerprints on them.

Alexander Berger
@albrgr.bsky.social

→ A huge problem: ~1% of total annual deaths worldwide (>600k) → Super neglected: ~$14M/yr of R&D globally before this, ~50x less than malaria which has similar mortality → Newly tractable: new human challenge models and earlier diagnostics should speed the path to an approved vaccine

Alexander Berger
@albrgr.bsky.social

Grateful to our partners Adam and Abigail Winkel, Good Ventures, Lucy Southworth, The Patchwork Collective, and a few anon donors for getting us to >$140M at launch. We're continuing to actively fundraise and think we could effectively spend >$200M over the next few years.

Alexander Berger
@albrgr.bsky.social

Nobel laureate Al Roth has a great piece in @washingtonpost.com today on why we should compensate kidney donors. Kidney failure disproportionately hits Black and low-income Americans, costs Medicare $55B+/yr, and most people who need a transplant will die without one. 🧵

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Alexander Berger
@albrgr.bsky.social

I'm hopeful that the End Kidney Deaths Act — which would create a pilot program offering a $50K tax credit to people who donate a kidney to a stranger — will move forward this Congress. If you want to help, consider signing the petition at endkidneydeathsact.org

endkidneydeathsact.orgEndKidneyDeathsAct.orgThe End Kidney Deaths Act will end the kidney shortage, save 10,000 lives each year, and reduce taxes by $4 billion by supporting those who donate kidneys to strangers.
Alexander Berger
@albrgr.bsky.social

Nobel laureate Al Roth has a great piece in @washingtonpost.com today on why we should compensate kidney donors. Kidney failure disproportionately hits Black and low-income Americans, costs Medicare $55B+/yr, and most people who need a transplant will die without one. 🧵

Alexander Berger
@albrgr.bsky.social

In the coming years, billions in new philanthropic capital could be unlocked. Whether that money is matched to the highest-impact opportunities is far from guaranteed. At CG, we’re hiring for a Managing Director, Philanthropic Advisory to make this influx of capital go as well as possible.

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Alexander Berger
@albrgr.bsky.social

The application form is here: jobs.ashbyhq.com/coefficient...

jobs.ashbyhq.comManaging Director, Philanthropic AdvisoryCoefficient Giving is hiring a Managing Director, Philanthropic Advisory to lead our growing partnerships work, build a new advisory practice from the ground up, and help shape our organizational strategy as a member of our leadership team https://coefficientgiving.org/about-us/team/#leadership. We face a historic opportunity to scale philanthropic giving to the highest-impact causes, from global health and biosecurity to AI safety and beyond. We want to build the infrastructure to make that happen, with a goal of eventually directing more than $1 billion annually from donors beyond our founding partner, Good Ventures https://goodventures.org/. Your job is to build the bespoke advisory practice that supports the next generation of major philanthropists, while overseeing and expanding our current funds and partnership offerings. While the advisory function spans our full portfolio, we expect AI safety and biosecurity philanthropy to be a key part of your work. ABOUT COEFFICIENT GIVIN
Alexander Berger
@albrgr.bsky.social

In the coming years, billions in new philanthropic capital could be unlocked. Whether that money is matched to the highest-impact opportunities is far from guaranteed. At CG, we’re hiring for a Managing Director, Philanthropic Advisory to make this influx of capital go as well as possible.

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Alexander Berger
@albrgr.bsky.social

The ideal candidate is: • Strategically sharp and substantively deep on CG’s cause areas • An effective executive that can build a strong team • An excellent external representative of CG’s work to major donors

Alexander Berger
@albrgr.bsky.social

In the coming years, billions in new philanthropic capital could be unlocked. Whether that money is matched to the highest-impact opportunities is far from guaranteed. At CG, we’re hiring for a Managing Director, Philanthropic Advisory to make this influx of capital go as well as possible.

Alexander Berger
@albrgr.bsky.social

I usually end up mostly reading fiction because it's easier and more fun than most nonfiction. But I read "And the Band Played On" recently and loved it. Incredibly info-dense, but extremely well-written and page-turning. Any recs for other great readable nonfiction like this?

Alexander Berger
@albrgr.bsky.social

Great reporting from @chronphilanthropy.bsky.social on our grantee @cureswithinreach.bsky.social, which runs small trials testing whether existing, approved drugs might work for entirely different diseases.

The Chronicle of Philanthropy@chronphilanthropy.bsky.social

$12 million in grants. $145 million in follow-on funding. The math behind Cures Within Reach is simple: fund the studies no one else will, and bigger funders follow. https://phlnthrp.com/4dsNCFk

philanthropy.comHow One Nonprofit Uses Small Grants to Spark Bigger Giving and ImpactCures Within Reach has spent two decades supporting efforts that many philanthropists and institutions ignore. Its hard-won lessons extend well beyond medicine.