Funders
Philanthropic foundations · venture · corporate · public sector
Why now
AI is amassing the largest fortunes since the industrial age, and the institutions that will spend them do not exist yet. The last windfall of this size built the research university, the perpetual foundation, and the public library. What this one builds is still open, and it is being decided now, within a few miles of the Forum.
The Funding the Commons Forum is where the people designing those institutions meet: the funders deciding where the money goes, the founders building open models and funding mechanisms, the researchers testing them, and the policymakers who will have to answer for them. A partner is in the room while the decisions are being made.
On 13–14 March 2027 in San Francisco, two hundred of them spend two days on one question: how the wealth of AI gets distributed, and who decides.
“Carnegie and Rockefeller took the unprecedented wealth of the Second Industrial Revolution and built the institutional substrate of modern civic life – the perpetual foundation, the research university, professional medical education, and the public library.”
Nan Ransohoff, The third wave of American philanthropy ↗, May 2026. She puts the new philanthropic funding from AI wealth at $37 billion to $100 billion a year.
Read the full Forum page: the tracks, the formats, the agenda →
Who you would be in the room with.
Two hundred seats, curated across four groups. The March 2026 gathering in San Francisco, the last of three Bay Area editions, is the reference.
Founders and engineers
Frontier startups · independent research groups · leading thinkers
Institutions and the public sector
United Nations · government officials · multilateral banks · nonprofits
Academia and researchers
Mechanism designers · economists · governance and alignment researchers
1,000+
92
229
176
49+
Five ways to shape the conversation, from the stage to the dinner table.
The Forum has one main stage on the record and many rooms that are not. A partner can hold any of them.
Keynotes, panels, and fireside chats.
Short talks and conversations in front of the whole room, recorded in full and published in our Library, where they keep working long after the weekend.
Curate a track, design a workshop, facilitate an unconference.
Own the conversation your audience came for, and the room it happens in: a half-day track, a hands-on workshop, or a session you set the question for.
One table of thirty to forty people, curated one by one.
Chatham House Rule, curated seating, the evening the funders and institutions in the room sit down together. A partner co-hosts it and sets the question.
Test it with the room, then publish what happened.
Run a product, a mechanism, or an idea with a community deep in public-goods funding, and publish the results together in a report that carries the work beyond the event.
Our media is the long tail of every event.
Stage recordings Social content Open Conversations Mini-documentaries
Main-stage talks captured in full (34 from March 2026). Three thousand professional photos, original interview content, and a recap film. Open Conversations, our sit-down interview series with the thinkers reshaping how we build, 40+ published. And long-form films that go deep on one idea. A partner's name travels with all of it.
Reach beyond the room.
Every impression from March 2026 came from organic posts, community amplification, and word of mouth. As a sponsor you tap into that reach from the start, and you're free to build on it however you like.
500K+
8M
5.8%
23.3%
Talks from March 2026 that are still travelling.
Publish with us: what the room produced last time, in print.
Notes from a Field in Formation.
A long-form synthesis of what 1,000 attendees from 92 countries spent two days arguing about, building, and committing to.
Read the Field Report ↗
Comparative Floor Governance.
A floor-level audit of how six communities deployed live treasuries across the conference, with six governance mechanisms tested in parallel. Partners are named in it.
Read the Governance Report →
AI-assisted deliberation, run on the floor.
A test of whether AI-assisted deliberation can scale commons governance, with AI avatars of floor leads deliberating budget allocation alongside the human process. By David Dao with Protocol Labs.
Watch the documentary ↗
The people and institutions already in the network.
A few of the people who have spoken with us, as the directory lists them, and the organizations that have backed, hosted, or built with us.
Juan BenetProtocol Labs
Audrey TangTaiwan's Cyber Ambassador, former Digital Minister
Jaan TallinnFuture of Life Institute
Tom KalilRenaissance Philanthropy
Glen WeylMicrosoft Research, Plurality Institute
Sheila WarrenAdvanced AI Society
Guy Wuolleta16z crypto
Masaaki TairaFormer Minister for Digital Transformation, Japan
Vitalik ButerinEthereum Foundation
Illia PolosukhinNEAR Protocol, NEAR AI
Aza RaskinEarth Species Project, Center for Humane Technology
Christopher SzymczakUNICEF Office of Innovation
Institutions in our network.
Growing in the Bay Area since 2024.
The tiers, and what each includes.
Three tiers, five add-ons, and the benefits table, with prices. Tell us who you are and the page opens; the same link stays open on this browser so you can come back.