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Manifund helps great charities get the funding they need. Discover amazing projects, buy impact certs, and weigh in on what gets funded.
The market for grants
Manifund helps great charities get the funding they need. Discover amazing projects, buy impact certs, and weigh in on what gets funded.
Elaine Perlman
about 15 hours ago
I am pleased to share several updates on the progress of our work.
First, Waitlist Zero’s Honor Our Living Donors (HOLD) Act has successfully passed and is now federal law. The legislation passed unanimously on the House floor. This legislation addresses a major barrier to living kidney donation by fixing the low-income donor reimbursement system, which has prevented many otherwise willing donors from being able to donate.
While the law’s passage is an important milestone, implementation remains a challenge. The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), which administers the donor reimbursement program, has not yet indicated a timeline for implementing the changes required by the new law. I am currently working to encourage HRSA to implement this life-saving legislation as quickly as possible. Our experience with Waitlist Zero’s New York State Living Donor Support Act, which took nearly three years for the New York State Department of Health to implement after passage, underscores the importance of sustained engagement during the implementation phase.
Advocacy for the End Kidney Deaths Act (HR 2687) also continues. The bill currently has 48 listed House cosponsors, with an additional 11 members who have committed but have not yet been formally added. We have secured a Republican Senate co-lead, though we are still working to recruit a Democratic Senate co-lead. We have had over 1,000 meetings. For too many Congressional leaders, saving 10,000 Amerian lives and $4 billion in federal spending annually is not enough to make passing the bill a priority. If saving lives and saving money at the same time is not fulfilling the Congressional mission, what are their goals?
We commissioned a January, 2026 nationally representative NORC poll (University of Chicago) finds that 57 percent of Americans support the policy approach embodied in the End Kidney Deaths Act, while only 12 percent oppose it, a nearly five-to-one margin. This is unusually strong public backing for a major health care reform proposal and underscores that this is not only good policy, but also politically safe policy.
To sign out petition to pass the End Kidney Deaths Act, please sign up here: https://forms.gle/73N7Aj611PHJpdwQ6
To learn more, go to EndKidneyDeathsAct.org
Question? Email me at Elaine@WaitlistZero.org
Big thanks for supporting the work to end the kidney shortage. This is a bipartisan, solvable problem.
Jord Nguyen
about 23 hours ago
Project update: Igor has published a comparison of blackbox methods for detection evaluation awareness and continues to pursue his research agenda on evaluation awareness. Jord is currently mentoring a project at Algoverse on evaluation awareness monitoring. Funding has been used for API costs in experiments mentioned above.
Connor Axiotes
4 days ago
Making God Update [13.03.26]: $1.6M Raised, Insight Film Partnership, New Interviews, Film Completion & Hopeful of Streamer Sale
Firstly, thank you for believing in us when Mike and I were just two people with one camera who wanted to make a film about risks from AI for the public who we think are dangerously out of the loop… and so we set off on our journey to create Making God. We knew it needed to be cinematic, streaming service quality production, and told the story in an accessible & funny (darkly comic) style to teach the billions of people (concerned parents, citizens, and more) who watch most their long form media on streaming services as of 2026.
Manifund donors were among the first people to believe this film was worth making. You got us off the ground, and we haven't forgotten that! A lot has happened since our last update.
Here's where things stand as of 13.03.26:
We've now raised or secured approximately $1.6 million toward the production of Making God. This includes philanthropic investment, co-production finance, and private funding commitments. When we launched on Manifund, we were two people with a camera and a conviction. That's no longer quite the situation... Latest trailer here.
When we started, Making God was a documentary about AI risk. Now it's become something more - a film about people power, about the public's right to understand what's being built in their name, and about what happens when the most consequential technology in human history is developed at speed with almost no democratic accountability. We're not just covering the race to AGI. We're asking whether anyone is going to stop it and whether, if enough people know what's actually happening, they might demand something better. We think it's the film the moment needs and one that will be a worthwhile accompaniment to other AI related media, too.
After returning to London, Mike and I formally incorporated Tail End Films Ltd, our new production company, built specifically to make cinematic, high-quality, accessible films about the risks the world faces from AI and other emerging technologies. Making God is our flagship project, structured through its own legal entity, Making God Ltd (a Special Purpose Vehicle which makes it easy for a sale to a Netflix or HBO, pick your streamer…).
We've also entered a co-production partnership with Insight Films, one of the UK's most respected documentary production companies. Their credits include Apollo 13: Survival (Netflix, 2024) and Scout's Honor (Netflix, 2023) - both high-impact, widely seen documentaries that reached millions of viewers globally. This partnership gives Making God serious distribution credibility and a direct pathway into conversations with major streaming platforms. We expect to have more to announce on that front as we approach completion.
We've hired three senior producers from Insight, an assistant producer, and an experienced Director of Photography to take us through the final leg of principal photography. This is now a proper production - not the two-man band Mike and I started with! The infrastructure is in place to deliver a film that belongs on the world's biggest screens. In addition to Geoffrey Hinton, Gary Marcus, Roman Yampolskiy, and Sir Stephen Fry; we’ve got so many more that I’m excited to share with you but can’t just yet…!
Principal photography runs through May 2026. From there, we move into the edit over the summer, with a festival strategy targeting IDFA, Hot Docs, Sheffield DocFest, and Sundance 2027 as our headline ambition. With the hope of having a Making God which is undeniable and gives us the best position of securing a sale with a major streamer. Our distribution strategy also includes pursuing a meaningful theatrical cinema release alongside festival submissions and streaming platform acquisition. The film is being produced in 4K to a standard suitable for cinema exhibition, and we intend for a portion of the film's revenue to come from theatrical screenings to the paying public!
Also, TEF has other projects you should listen out for, too. Sometimes the sale of a documentary can come with a commitment to purchase another film (which could be a documentary of a feature film). As such, we are looking for some Tail End Films seed money/donations to begin the pre-production of these slate of projects (most likely a feature length fictional film, and perhaps a 3-part docuseries, etc) so that as we reach our strongest negotiation position - the distribution and sale of Making God - we have our next AI risks project ready to cook.
To do this, we need funding as soon as possible to make sure TEF can fill the public’s favourite streaming services with high quality, engaging and cinematic films about the societal risk they face over the next couple years or so. If you want to DM me on Twitter or LinkedIn, or email me at connor@tailendfilms.com I’d love to chat about both TEF’s next slate and Making God.
Thank you again to everyone who donated early. You made this possible! We think the next time we give you an update it’ll be about something even more exciting…
Lindsay Langenhoven
4 days ago
We need more skilled AI safety specialists to help build the guardrails that the current rapid innovation push requires!
Leigh Watson
4 days ago
I believe strongly in the mission of Doom Debates, and I think you're the right person in this role, Liron. Keep up the great work!
Josh Thorsteinson
5 days ago
After about 2 hrs of research, here's why I'm donating to Evitable:
Background beliefs:
If anyone builds superintelligence, everyone dies
Our best hope of avoiding extinction is building political will for an international moratorium on frontier AI development
Building mainstream (American) public awareness is neglected and probably the best way to do this
David Krueger has amazing credentials
Originated the CAIS statement which was hugely impactful
Trained under Bengio, co-authored with Hinton
Individual donations are useful for an org like this so that they:
Can use the number of individual donors as evidence that people actually care about this issue
Can't be dismissed as astroturfing
Aren't constrained in what they can say by large funders
Evitable is new, which makes a marginal dollar more impactful than going towards a big established org
They've already published 2 national news op-eds (USA Today, Guardian)
Apparently they're doing evidence-based messaging which seems better than vibes-based
Nazia Nizar
5 days ago
@Austin — I’d appreciate your perspective on how this physical verification layer aligns with your current roadmap for decentralized AI auditing.
Ben R Smith
6 days ago
In my view, Integral Altruism is an essential initiative for the future of wise & effective altruism
Nazia Nizar
6 days ago
Following our latest technical review at Glasgow, we’ve pivoted the Meso-layer to focus on non-invasive NIR sensing. This ensures our 'Verified Loop' is compatible with existing industrial SCADA systems without requiring a full hardware overhaul.
We are currently looking for regranters who focus on 'Scaling Trust' (ARIA Track 3.2) or EU compliance tools to help us hit our $25k minimum milestone. Achieving this will allow us to finalise the spectroscopic signature registry for our first field-test in Spain’s AESIA sandbox.
Pip Foweraker
6 days ago
This seems worthwhile in terms of cost to likely payoff ratio, and operational costs like this are something I generally endorse funding.
Rachel Shu
7 days ago
My own 2 cents, we're not competing with Constellation! If Constellation did move to SF separately from us, then competition would naturally arise, and I would want us to rethink what we were doing with Mox. As it happens, the cities of SF and Berkeley are competing for AI safety attention, and we're doing a similar thing for SF as Constellation is for Berkeley. Likewise, any merit we win for ourselves is no demerit to them, nor vice versa. I am curious where you see competition arising!
This is a clearly valuable project in a surprisingly neglected outsized-impact sub-area of an otherwise high-attention area (benchmarks), the team is world-class, there is already a lot of traction, the funding ask is small relative to many other AIS projects, it's catalytic. An absolute bargain.
Mahmud Omar
7 days ago
My scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=nZ4R9bkAAAAJ&hl=en
Some of the mentioned papers:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-025-03626-6
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/landig/article/PIIS2589-7500(25)00131-1/fulltext
https://medinform.jmir.org/2025/1/e66917
Austin Chen
7 days ago
@Finn-Metz thanks, it's been great having you, Esben, and other Seldon folks and batchmates at Mox. Glad we were able to fill this role for you!
Elaine Perlman
about 15 hours ago
I am pleased to share several updates on the progress of our work.
First, Waitlist Zero’s Honor Our Living Donors (HOLD) Act has successfully passed and is now federal law. The legislation passed unanimously on the House floor. This legislation addresses a major barrier to living kidney donation by fixing the low-income donor reimbursement system, which has prevented many otherwise willing donors from being able to donate.
While the law’s passage is an important milestone, implementation remains a challenge. The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), which administers the donor reimbursement program, has not yet indicated a timeline for implementing the changes required by the new law. I am currently working to encourage HRSA to implement this life-saving legislation as quickly as possible. Our experience with Waitlist Zero’s New York State Living Donor Support Act, which took nearly three years for the New York State Department of Health to implement after passage, underscores the importance of sustained engagement during the implementation phase.
Advocacy for the End Kidney Deaths Act (HR 2687) also continues. The bill currently has 48 listed House cosponsors, with an additional 11 members who have committed but have not yet been formally added. We have secured a Republican Senate co-lead, though we are still working to recruit a Democratic Senate co-lead. We have had over 1,000 meetings. For too many Congressional leaders, saving 10,000 Amerian lives and $4 billion in federal spending annually is not enough to make passing the bill a priority. If saving lives and saving money at the same time is not fulfilling the Congressional mission, what are their goals?
We commissioned a January, 2026 nationally representative NORC poll (University of Chicago) finds that 57 percent of Americans support the policy approach embodied in the End Kidney Deaths Act, while only 12 percent oppose it, a nearly five-to-one margin. This is unusually strong public backing for a major health care reform proposal and underscores that this is not only good policy, but also politically safe policy.
To sign out petition to pass the End Kidney Deaths Act, please sign up here: https://forms.gle/73N7Aj611PHJpdwQ6
To learn more, go to EndKidneyDeathsAct.org
Question? Email me at Elaine@WaitlistZero.org
Big thanks for supporting the work to end the kidney shortage. This is a bipartisan, solvable problem.
Jord Nguyen
about 23 hours ago
Project update: Igor has published a comparison of blackbox methods for detection evaluation awareness and continues to pursue his research agenda on evaluation awareness. Jord is currently mentoring a project at Algoverse on evaluation awareness monitoring. Funding has been used for API costs in experiments mentioned above.
Connor Axiotes
4 days ago
Making God Update [13.03.26]: $1.6M Raised, Insight Film Partnership, New Interviews, Film Completion & Hopeful of Streamer Sale
Firstly, thank you for believing in us when Mike and I were just two people with one camera who wanted to make a film about risks from AI for the public who we think are dangerously out of the loop… and so we set off on our journey to create Making God. We knew it needed to be cinematic, streaming service quality production, and told the story in an accessible & funny (darkly comic) style to teach the billions of people (concerned parents, citizens, and more) who watch most their long form media on streaming services as of 2026.
Manifund donors were among the first people to believe this film was worth making. You got us off the ground, and we haven't forgotten that! A lot has happened since our last update.
Here's where things stand as of 13.03.26:
We've now raised or secured approximately $1.6 million toward the production of Making God. This includes philanthropic investment, co-production finance, and private funding commitments. When we launched on Manifund, we were two people with a camera and a conviction. That's no longer quite the situation... Latest trailer here.
When we started, Making God was a documentary about AI risk. Now it's become something more - a film about people power, about the public's right to understand what's being built in their name, and about what happens when the most consequential technology in human history is developed at speed with almost no democratic accountability. We're not just covering the race to AGI. We're asking whether anyone is going to stop it and whether, if enough people know what's actually happening, they might demand something better. We think it's the film the moment needs and one that will be a worthwhile accompaniment to other AI related media, too.
After returning to London, Mike and I formally incorporated Tail End Films Ltd, our new production company, built specifically to make cinematic, high-quality, accessible films about the risks the world faces from AI and other emerging technologies. Making God is our flagship project, structured through its own legal entity, Making God Ltd (a Special Purpose Vehicle which makes it easy for a sale to a Netflix or HBO, pick your streamer…).
We've also entered a co-production partnership with Insight Films, one of the UK's most respected documentary production companies. Their credits include Apollo 13: Survival (Netflix, 2024) and Scout's Honor (Netflix, 2023) - both high-impact, widely seen documentaries that reached millions of viewers globally. This partnership gives Making God serious distribution credibility and a direct pathway into conversations with major streaming platforms. We expect to have more to announce on that front as we approach completion.
We've hired three senior producers from Insight, an assistant producer, and an experienced Director of Photography to take us through the final leg of principal photography. This is now a proper production - not the two-man band Mike and I started with! The infrastructure is in place to deliver a film that belongs on the world's biggest screens. In addition to Geoffrey Hinton, Gary Marcus, Roman Yampolskiy, and Sir Stephen Fry; we’ve got so many more that I’m excited to share with you but can’t just yet…!
Principal photography runs through May 2026. From there, we move into the edit over the summer, with a festival strategy targeting IDFA, Hot Docs, Sheffield DocFest, and Sundance 2027 as our headline ambition. With the hope of having a Making God which is undeniable and gives us the best position of securing a sale with a major streamer. Our distribution strategy also includes pursuing a meaningful theatrical cinema release alongside festival submissions and streaming platform acquisition. The film is being produced in 4K to a standard suitable for cinema exhibition, and we intend for a portion of the film's revenue to come from theatrical screenings to the paying public!
Also, TEF has other projects you should listen out for, too. Sometimes the sale of a documentary can come with a commitment to purchase another film (which could be a documentary of a feature film). As such, we are looking for some Tail End Films seed money/donations to begin the pre-production of these slate of projects (most likely a feature length fictional film, and perhaps a 3-part docuseries, etc) so that as we reach our strongest negotiation position - the distribution and sale of Making God - we have our next AI risks project ready to cook.
To do this, we need funding as soon as possible to make sure TEF can fill the public’s favourite streaming services with high quality, engaging and cinematic films about the societal risk they face over the next couple years or so. If you want to DM me on Twitter or LinkedIn, or email me at connor@tailendfilms.com I’d love to chat about both TEF’s next slate and Making God.
Thank you again to everyone who donated early. You made this possible! We think the next time we give you an update it’ll be about something even more exciting…
Lindsay Langenhoven
4 days ago
We need more skilled AI safety specialists to help build the guardrails that the current rapid innovation push requires!
Leigh Watson
4 days ago
I believe strongly in the mission of Doom Debates, and I think you're the right person in this role, Liron. Keep up the great work!
Josh Thorsteinson
5 days ago
After about 2 hrs of research, here's why I'm donating to Evitable:
Background beliefs:
If anyone builds superintelligence, everyone dies
Our best hope of avoiding extinction is building political will for an international moratorium on frontier AI development
Building mainstream (American) public awareness is neglected and probably the best way to do this
David Krueger has amazing credentials
Originated the CAIS statement which was hugely impactful
Trained under Bengio, co-authored with Hinton
Individual donations are useful for an org like this so that they:
Can use the number of individual donors as evidence that people actually care about this issue
Can't be dismissed as astroturfing
Aren't constrained in what they can say by large funders
Evitable is new, which makes a marginal dollar more impactful than going towards a big established org
They've already published 2 national news op-eds (USA Today, Guardian)
Apparently they're doing evidence-based messaging which seems better than vibes-based
Nazia Nizar
5 days ago
@Austin — I’d appreciate your perspective on how this physical verification layer aligns with your current roadmap for decentralized AI auditing.
Ben R Smith
6 days ago
In my view, Integral Altruism is an essential initiative for the future of wise & effective altruism
Nazia Nizar
6 days ago
Following our latest technical review at Glasgow, we’ve pivoted the Meso-layer to focus on non-invasive NIR sensing. This ensures our 'Verified Loop' is compatible with existing industrial SCADA systems without requiring a full hardware overhaul.
We are currently looking for regranters who focus on 'Scaling Trust' (ARIA Track 3.2) or EU compliance tools to help us hit our $25k minimum milestone. Achieving this will allow us to finalise the spectroscopic signature registry for our first field-test in Spain’s AESIA sandbox.
Pip Foweraker
6 days ago
This seems worthwhile in terms of cost to likely payoff ratio, and operational costs like this are something I generally endorse funding.
Rachel Shu
7 days ago
My own 2 cents, we're not competing with Constellation! If Constellation did move to SF separately from us, then competition would naturally arise, and I would want us to rethink what we were doing with Mox. As it happens, the cities of SF and Berkeley are competing for AI safety attention, and we're doing a similar thing for SF as Constellation is for Berkeley. Likewise, any merit we win for ourselves is no demerit to them, nor vice versa. I am curious where you see competition arising!
This is a clearly valuable project in a surprisingly neglected outsized-impact sub-area of an otherwise high-attention area (benchmarks), the team is world-class, there is already a lot of traction, the funding ask is small relative to many other AIS projects, it's catalytic. An absolute bargain.
Mahmud Omar
7 days ago
My scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=nZ4R9bkAAAAJ&hl=en
Some of the mentioned papers:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-025-03626-6
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/landig/article/PIIS2589-7500(25)00131-1/fulltext
https://medinform.jmir.org/2025/1/e66917
Austin Chen
7 days ago
@Finn-Metz thanks, it's been great having you, Esben, and other Seldon folks and batchmates at Mox. Glad we were able to fill this role for you!