European AI & Society Fund - Funding Landscape Review PDF
webUseful reference for understanding the philanthropic funding landscape for AI governance and civil society advocacy work in Europe as of 2023, relevant to those interested in AI policy infrastructure and coordination gaps.
Metadata
Importance: 38/100organizational reportanalysis
Summary
The European AI & Society Fund's 2023 landscape review surveys the philanthropic funding ecosystem supporting civil society AI governance work in Europe, finding the field critically under-resourced relative to the scale of challenges. It analyzes grantee funding needs, maps current funders, and identifies barriers and opportunities for growing philanthropic engagement in AI policy and advocacy work.
Key Points
- •European AI civil society ecosystem remains small and financially precarious, with even anchor organizations like EDRi and AlgorithmWatch operating on small budgets
- •Heavy reliance on a few funders (OSF, Bosch, Luminate) creates vulnerability; two-thirds of grantees receive funding from at least one partner foundation
- •Many grantees will need to significantly downscale or stop AI-focused work entirely without follow-on funding
- •Organizations from other fields (environment, health) entering AI work bring more financial stability but may not sustain focus after grant periods end
- •The fund pools contributions from 14 philanthropic foundations and currently supports 30 organizations, but demand far exceeds available funding
Cited by 1 page
| Page | Type | Quality |
|---|---|---|
| MacArthur Foundation | Organization | 65.0 |
Cached Content Preview
HTTP 200Fetched Apr 7, 202628 KB
Who’s funding AI & Society
work in Europe? A landscape
review by the European AI &
Society Fund
June 2023
The current intense debate surrounding the future development of Artificial Intelligence underlines
why it’s critical to have a strong and resilient civil society ecosystem that can speak up for the needs
of people and society. Since the establishment of the European AI & Society Fund in 2020, we’ve
been glad to see the field both widen and deepen with more organisations engaged and with greater
capability to fight for the public interest at this time of technological change.
This work needs money to sustain it. Philanthropic funding allows organisations to engage in policy
and advocacy work with the freedom to pursue their missions independent of corporate interests. The
European AI & Society Fund pools contributions from 14 philanthropic foundations to offer funding
and capacity building and is currently supporting 30 organisations. We have seen however that the
field remains under-resourced given the scale of the challenges it aims to address and there is far
greater appetite in civil society to take on this work than we are able to meet.
To understand how to engage more philanthropic organisations in supporting the field we have
surveyed our grantees to understand their needs1, undertaken research into the current funding
landscape2 and interviewed a number of foundations3 that are not yet EAI&SF partner to understand
the opportunities and barriers to growing philanthropic engagement around AI. This research builds
on the Fund’s previous mapping conducted in 20214.
We then offer conclusions about the opportunities for the European AI & Society Fund to act on these
insights.
1 Our survey was voluntary and conducted on a confidential basis with the assurance we would not share information beyond the Fund team,
including with our partners. Grantees are anxious about discussing their fundraising situations openly in the fear it will adversely affect their
ability to secure grants. To reduce the burden on grantees we did not specify a format for sharing this information, however this means the
data is not easily comparable. Although this is a useful snapshot, we recognise that there is a far larger group of civil society organisations
keen to work on these issues that are not current grantees of the Fund and this survey does not capture their needs.
2 Desk research by EAISF team
3 Research conducted by Julia Reinhardt
4 How to fund public interest work around AI in Europe https://europeanaifund.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/How-to-fund-public-
interest-work-around-AI-in-Europe-updated.pdf
-- 1 of 10 --
Who’s funding AI & Society work in Europe?
A landscape review by the European AI & Society Fund
2
Our grantees’ funding needs
Overall the community of civil society organisations active on AI and related issues remains small
and financially precarious. Although some organisations are now increasingly mature - EDRi held its
20th anniversary re
... (truncated, 28 KB total)Resource ID:
5575225477859a5b | Stable ID: sid_2dwMXtd1uM