Impact Exchange turns AI safety donations into $4M tradeable equity

Impact Exchange, a project exploring market-based mechanisms for AI safety funding, has launched a concrete demo at impact-exchange.org that retroactively treats past donations as tradeable impact equity. The model mirrors startup funding: donating to an organization buys a share of its impact equity, with early donors benefiting as the organization's value grows. Using public donation records, the demo shows a 2022 Long-Term Future Fund grant of $343,000 to MATS now valued at over $4 million. Similarly, a 2017 EA Grants donation of $86,000 to what became Lightcone Infrastructure reached $6.5 million at its peak. These numbers are calculated by grouping annual donations into funding rounds, issuing equity, and marking valuations based on each round's terms.

The mechanics follow a standard venture-style formula: an organization starts with 1 million shares, sells a decreasing fraction each year (1/5 in year 0, 1/6 in year 1, etc.), and allocates equity proportionally to donors. If an organization raises $1 million for 20% of its equity, the implied valuation is $5 million. Existing shareholders see their portfolios marked at that valuation, creating real-time information about how funders value each org's impact. The system also enables measurement of funder track records by portfolio value, incentivizing prescient bets and creating a feedback loop where wise funders gain more capital to deploy. The demo is a retrospective simulation, not a live market, but it's designed to answer Scott Alexander's "annoying details" critique and make the vision concrete. For AI safety donors, this could mean a liquid secondary market for philanthropic bets — where a timely $86,000 gift can compound into millions of dollars of future giving power.