---
title: The Charitology Fund
group: Funding
order: 1
summary: Prepare grant proposals, conflicts, conditional allocation plans and a nonpayment authorization ledger with a selected-field transparency draft.
status: live
statusNote: Live local fund-planning software is available. No legal fund, cash custody, funded grant, payment or independently approved allocation method is established.
conditions: [symptom-trap, story-bias, single-lens]
firstMilestone: A published governance charter, a legal entity and fiscal sponsor in place and an allocation method that has passed public red-team review, all before a single gift is accepted.
help:
  - Critique the allocation approach on this page by opening an issue labeled program.
  - If you work with a fiscal sponsor, a foundation or a nonprofit law practice that could help, open an issue labeled program.
  - Draft one part of the governance charter, such as conflict-of-interest rules, in an issue labeled program.
related: [/tools/portfolio-builder/, /record/gap-map/, /programs/red-team/, /open-problems/moral-parliament-in-practice/]
sources:
  - title: 'What is fiscal sponsorship? How do I find a fiscal sponsor?'
    publisher: Candid Learning
    url: https://learning.candid.org/resources/knowledge-base/fiscal-sponsorship/
---

## Use the operational planning software

Work through proposals, evidence, conflicts and conditional allocations in the [fund desk](#partner-workspace-the-charitology-fund). Keep the nonpayment authorization ledger separate from cash, receipts and disbursements. Export the complete internal kit or a selected-field transparency draft for review. Proposal asks, allocation plans and ledger entries are separate stages and are not added together.

The workspace includes separate institutional-readiness records. Those records track what responsible people still need to establish; they do not grant approval or verify a legal, funded program. The longer-term charter below remains an institutional proposal.

Save each form, inspect the generated kit and export a backup. Your records stay in this browser. Imports are validated, destructive changes offer undo and newer work from another tab is protected. Fictional examples contain no real commitments, participants or results.

## What it is

The Charitology Fund would let anyone give to the field’s current best estimate of where money does the most good, without doing the research themselves. When the estimate changed, the grants would change with it.

## How it works

“Best” depends on values, so the estimate would be built in the open from Charitology’s research. The fund would split money across the moral frameworks the field tracks, using a published method such as the credence-weighted one in the [Portfolio Builder](/tools/portfolio-builder/). It would also set a deliberate mix across the [depth scale](/method/#depth), so relief for today and work on sources are both funded on purpose. Within each part, it would give to the strongest opportunities the research can find, including gaps on the [Gap Map](/record/gap-map/).

Every grant, weight and change would be published with its reasons. An independent board, separate from the people who write the research, would approve allocations, and every conflict of interest would be disclosed.

First, though, the fund needs three things: a legal entity, a fiscal sponsor and independent governance. A fiscal sponsor is an existing public charity that receives gifts for a project and manages them under a formal agreement. Until all three are in place, the fund accepts nothing.

## Why it matters for the system

Three conditions pull money away from the best estimate, and one fund could push back on all three. The [Story Bias](/diagnosis/story-bias/) sends gifts toward the most visible need, while the fund would allocate by evidence and scale. The [Symptom Trap](/diagnosis/symptom-trap/) favors relief that is easy to see, while the fund would set its depth mix on purpose. The [Single Lens](/diagnosis/single-lens/) hides whole categories of good, while the fund would give across frameworks with its weights in plain view.

## Risks and limits

A single fund that many people follow could become a new gatekeeper, one of the problems Charitology exists to study. Its estimate will sometimes be wrong. The charter would cap the share any one grantee can receive and publish dissent from reviewers. And because a fund’s grants are rankings in practice, the allocation method would have to pass public [red-team review](/programs/red-team/) first: Charitology publishes no rankings of named organizations until its method has done so.

## What success looks like

Within five years of opening, the fund’s allocation is a public reference point, and anyone can check its record of changing grants when the evidence changed.