ACX Grants
About
Updated 05/18/26ACX Grants is a small-grants program associated with Scott Alexander’s Astral Codex Ten blog that aims to fund promising charitable and scientific projects emerging from the ACX community. Launched with an initial 2021 round and continued through later rounds such as 2022, 2024, and 2025, the program invites readers to apply via a short form and then distributes a pooled budget—combining Scott’s own contribution with donations from external funders—across multiple winners each round. Typical grants are between $5,000 and $50,000, with some up to $100,000, and projects span areas like global health, biotechnology, AI safety and governance, animal welfare, scientific integrity, and policy reform. Manifund, a charity spinoff of Manifold Markets, provides logistical and fiscal infrastructure, including handling payments and, in recent rounds, running an impact market alongside the traditional grantmaking process.
Theory of Change
ACX Grants’ theory of change is to leverage the Astral Codex Ten readership and Scott Alexander’s judgment to identify unusually promising charitable and scientific projects that may be too early, unusual, or niche for traditional funders. By providing relatively small, fast grants—often in the $5k–$50k range—to projects that aim to change complex systems via technological innovation, new social institutions, or targeted policy work, and by partnering with Manifund and, in some rounds, impact markets, ACX Grants aims to de-risk experimentation, surface high-leverage opportunities, and help successful projects scale or connect to larger funders.
Discussion
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Details
- Start Date
- Nov 11, 2021
- End Date
- -
- Expected Duration
- -
- Funding Raised to Date
- -