SPARC

Supporting multiple SPARC project operations during 2021.

This is a relatively small grant to SPARC. I’ve written in the past about SPARC when evaluating our grant to CASPAR:

[...] SPARC or ESPR, two programs with somewhat similar goals that have been supported by other funders in the long-term future space. I currently think interventions in this space are quite valuable, and have been impressed with the impact of SPARC; multiple very promising people in the long-term future space cite it as the key reason they became involved.

SPARC has been funded by Open Philanthropy for the past few years, and they applied for a small supplement to that funding, which seemed worthwhile to me.

Historically, SPARC seems to have been quite successful in causing some of the world’s most promising high-school students (e.g. multiple IMO gold medalists) to develop an interest in the long-term future, and to find traction on related problems. In surveys of top talent within the EA community, SPARC has performed well on measures of what got people involved. Informally, I’ve gotten a sense that SPARC seems to have been a critical factor in the involvement of a number of people I think are quite competent, and also seems to have substantially helped them to become that competent.

I do have some hesitations around the future of SPARC: the pandemic harmed their ability to operate over the past year, and I also have a vague sense that some parts of the program have gotten worse (possibly not surprisingly, given that relatively few of the original founders are still involved). But I haven’t had the time to engage with those concerns in more depth, and am not sure I will find the time to do so, given that this is a relatively small grant.