Future Matters, an AI safety strategy consultancy

Future Matters is a 3-year-old nonprofit strategy consultancy and think tank. We help clients in AI safety and other cause areas who are trying to create change through policy, politics, coalitions, and/or social movements. Future Matters offer a wide range of services, such as policy prioritization, communications, strategic planning, and influence mapping. You can help us expand our impact by making a donation or referring potential clients for a free scoping call.

Brief History of Our Work
Future Matters was founded in 2020 in Berlin. We started with the goal of providing people and organizations with essential tools for creating policy and social change. We initially focused on climate movement-building. Over time, however, we grew our client base to a variety of actors working on climate protection, ranging from high-ranking policy-makers to think tanks and philanthropists.

We also worked to deepen our expertise in political and social change processes. We reviewed more than 4000 pages of scientific literature on movements and political change, created a replicable process for identifying high-leverage policies, and built a proprietary database of 300 social science techniques and mental models for political strategy and change-creation.

Over the past year, based on expressions of interest from multiple potential clients, we expanded our cause areas to include AI safety and biosecurity. Our scope has also expanded internationally. We have clients concentrated in Europe and the United States, but also completed past projects focused on sub-Saharan Africa and East Asia.

Example Clients and Projects
We focus on clients trying to create change through policy, politics, coalitions and/or social movements. Our clients have included think tanks, advocacy organizations, government officials, companies, and movement volunteers. We only work with clients who appear to be genuinely committed to reducing catastrophic and/or existential risk. Example organizations we have supported include International Center for Future Generations, AI Safety Communications Centre, and a Europe-based NGO working on AI and biosecurity.

Since our founding, Future Matters has completed approximately 80 client projects. Examples include:

Provided media training, and preparation for specific interviews, for an AI safety advocacy organization, helping them to feel more confident about engaging with the press
Reviewed and critiqued multiple organizations' strategic plans, offering ideas to make more impactful use of their limited resources
Wrote guides on normalizing AI risks and making use of AI “moments”, to help organizations strategically leverage recent AI news
Advised members of national legislatures on climate and AI policy, helping policymakers with limited expertise get up to speed quickly on key issues
Supported employees of a tech company working internally to advance AI safety, helping them refine their influence strategy
Helped write and edit AI op-eds for publications with circulations in the millions, influencing public opinion toward more AI regulation. We’ve also been quoted in other publications ourselves.

Services
Based on ongoing input, our most common services currently include:

Developing higher-impact theories of change and selecting organization or campaign goals
Deciding which decision-makers to try to influence
Choosing among competing policy options, considering political tractability, organizational fit, and likely future political and policy developments
Crafting persuasive communications and preparing people to speak to the media
Prioritizing target audiences and outreach formats
Creating strategic plans based on weighted factors like organizational competencies, competitive landscapes, and emerging opportunities
Aligning program structure and execution with organizational goals
Incorporating lessons from past policy efforts, political strategies, and social movement tactics
Conducting risk analyses, anticipating failure modes, and developing contingency plans
Improving group coordination, building coalitions, and fostering consensus

We also complete consulting projects that fall outside the services above. Equally, we feel very comfortable turning down projects that we don’t think we can do well. In those cases, we are happy to refer other service providers to our clients. Feel free to contact us if you’d like to be considered for our referral list.

We deliver our services through a variety of formats, depending on what we and our clients judge will work best for their needs. Common examples include:

Partial, full-day or multi-day workshops and trainings, on-site or virtual
Short, iterative meetings over a period of weeks to months. A common format is a 1-2-hour meeting every 1–2 weeks, where we complete additional research and analysis between meetings
On-call advice, either via videoconference or email

Funding
Our funding comes from a combination of paid consulting, individual donors, and foundation grants. We intentionally chose this revenue model for several reasons. First, our core goal is reducing catastrophic and existential risk, not making profit. So, we chose a nonprofit structure. However, we are also concerned about the risk to our long-term impact if we become dependent on too few revenue sources. Thus, most of our current consulting projects are paid for by clients. At the same time, donations and grants allow us to support organizations who cannot otherwise afford consultants. This funding also allows us to support clients, such as government representatives, who are unable to easily contract for consulting. Example funders have included Effektiv Spenden, Doneer Effectief, Founders Pledge, and Grassroots Foundation.

How You Can Help
Donate - donations help us offer more pro bono consulting.

Refer - We are constantly looking to assist more high-impact efforts. Please refer anyone you think might benefit from our support. We’re always happy to have a free scoping call to better understand whether and how we can help.