Lightcone Commons Grant Round
Funds cost-effective projects — nonprofit or for-profit — recommended by evaluators to a pool of major donors.
Evaluation doesn't run off any published rubric — the platform explicitly leaves each evaluator free to build their own workflow, and instead of scoring against fixed criteria, evaluators each produce a personal funding-priority order ranking every project they cover from most to least cost-effective, and funders then choose which evaluators' judgment to defer to. Every application is screened as …
Lightcone Commons channels money from a pool of major philanthropists — including Jaan Tallinn and Dustin Moskovitz — toward organizations, individuals and for-profits pursuing highly cost-effective work, with a strong tilt toward AI safety and existential-risk causes. Applicants don't need 501(c)3 status, and both US and international projects are eligible.
Sign up free to see the funding breakdown
Sign up free to see the industries in scope
Sign up free to see the full eligibility
Sign up free to see how to apply
Sign up free to see what you submit
Sign up free to see where teams trip up
Guides for this application
All guides →Grant Work Plan Template: Work Packages, Gantt, Milestones, and Risks
Use this grant work plan template to structure work packages, tasks, owners, deliverables, Gantt timing, dependencies, and risk registers.
Submit & reportGrant Reporting Requirements: Post-Award Reports and Compliance
Learn what grant reporting requirements cover, how financial and performance reports work, what to track after an award, and how to avoid post-award compliance mistakes.
Write proposalGrant Proposal Template: Structure, Sections, and Writing Prompts
Use this grant proposal template to structure your summary, work plan, budget, team, impact, attachments, and reviewer evidence before adapting it to funder rules.
Similar grants
Browse the directory →R&D Career Grant
🇳🇿Callaghan Innovation · New Zealand
Funds New Zealand for-profit companies hiring recent Masters or PhD graduates into 6-month R&D roles.
ERC Proof of Concept Grant
🇪🇺European Commission · European Union
Funds existing ERC grant holders in testing the commercial or societal potential of already-funded research through a fixed EUR 150,000 top-up grant.
Mississippi Seed Fund — Proof of Concept Grant
🇺🇸Innovate MS · United States
Supports Mississippi early startups with proof-of-concept grants requiring matching contributions to launch products.
ERC Proof of Concept Grants
🇪🇺ERC · European Union
Pays existing ERC grant holders a EUR 150,000 lump sum to explore the commercial or social innovation potential of their ERC-funded research.
R&D Experience Grant
🇳🇿Callaghan Innovation · New Zealand
Funds New Zealand for-profit companies hiring tertiary students into short-term R&D internship roles.
Governing global commons sustainably
🇪🇺European Commission · European Union
Pays research consortiums roughly €3.5-4 million to develop policy solutions for the sustainable, science-informed governance of shared global resources like the climate, biodiversity and outer space.