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Coefficient Giving
May 30, 2025

Announcing the New Leader of Our Abundance & Growth Fund

Editor’s note: This article was published under our former name, Open Philanthropy.

In March, we announced the launch of our new Abundance and Growth Fund, which will spend at least $120 million over the next three years to accelerate economic growth, boost scientific and technological progress, and lower the cost of living. The fund represents an exciting opportunity to expand upon our existing grantmaking in housing policy and innovation policy, which will now fall under the umbrella of our abundance and growth work. 

We appointed Matt Clancy, who at the time led our work on innovation policy, to oversee the new fund on an interim basis while we conducted a wider search. After a competitive process, we have decided to promote Matt to the role of senior program officer to lead our work in the space. His innovation policy grantmaking played a major role in our decision to launch the fund in the first place, and he has shown exceptional judgment in considering new areas for expansion — a key skill needed for this early phase of the Fund. We’re confident he is going to do an excellent job with grantmaking and building out the team.  

About Matt

In addition to leading Open Philanthropy’s abundance & growth grantmaking, Matt is a senior fellow at the Institute for Progress. He also runs New Things Under the Sun, a living literature review about social science research on innovation with more than 18,000 subscribers, and supports a number of similar reviews through his grantmaking. Before starting at Open Phil, he taught economics at Iowa State University — where he earned a Ph.D. in economics — and worked on science policy at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. 

Here’s what Matt has to say about his new role:

I’m honored to take on the responsibility of leading the Abundance and Growth Fund. For the last few years, I’ve been leading Open Philanthropy’s Innovation Policy program, with the goal of helping us discover and invent more. But new ideas don’t make us better off if we can’t turn them into goods and services people can use, whether it’s housing, medicine, or energy. Unfortunately, there are a lot of barriers to faster growth and greater abundance — but fortunately, I think philanthropy can help overcome them.

Potential areas of focus

We decided to launch this fund in part because we believe that changes in the national political environment have created an opening for a renewed policy focus on these issues. Consequently, Matt will have significant latitude to shift priorities whenever new opportunities arise.

Some of the portfolio will build upon our existing work on housing and innovation policy, such as:

New thematic areas where we may fund efforts include: 

  • Energy infrastructure: Can we support new policy ideas that make it easier to build the infrastructure underlying abundant clean energy?
  • Health care: Can we make clinical trials shorter and less expensive, without sacrificing health standards? Can we make health care services more affordable?
  • State capacity: Can we make it easier for government to hire and retain high-quality employees? Can we reduce procedural barriers that make government operate slowly?
  • Economic dynamism: Can we make it easier for people to transition into jobs that better match their skills and interests?

This is a pivotal time for the nascent progress and abundance ecosystems, and we’re thrilled to be doubling down on our commitment. Matt has been instrumental in advancing our plans during his time at Open Phil — we look forward to seeing where he’ll take the Fund in the years to come. 

Now that we have permanent leadership, we plan to expand the Abundance and Growth Fund team to meet the goals outlined above. Please watch our Careers page for upcoming announcements about open positions!