Funding

Our organization was founded in 2012 as the Social Media and Political Participation Lab at NYU. In July 2019, the Center for Social Media and Politics was formed through the Knight Foundation’s program for Research on the Future of an Informed Society. The Knight Foundation’s gift was matched by The Charles Koch Foundation, and CSMaP has been further supported by Craig Newmark Philanthropies and the Siegel Family Endowment. 

Types of Funding

Our funders provide general operating support and/or project specific support. For general operating support, there are no promised products or deliverables. For project specific funding, we agree to produce research (e.g. papers or data reports) on topics agreed upon during the application process. However, there are no promised results, lab scholars carry out the research on the basis of the best scientific practices, and no funder is ever given the right to block publication of research. We welcome the support of funders committed to these principles and our core mission of research on social media and politics, the use of social media data to better understand politics, and the development of tools to facilitate that research. 

Current Funders

General Operating Support

• Charles Koch Foundation

• Craig Newmark Philanthropies 

• Hewlett Foundation

• Knight Foundation

• Siegel Family Endowment

Project-Specific Gifts & Grants

• Google: gift to study the impact of using AI chatbots for fact-checking political news

• National Science Foundation (grant #s 2331641 and 2334148)

• Templeton World Charity Foundation: grant to study how propaganda in LLM training data can shape model outputs

Past Funders

• Alfred P. Sloan Foundation

• Democracy Fund

• Gates Foundation

• Gordon & Betty Moore Foundation

• Intel Corporation

• National Science Foundation (additional project-based grants)

• Russell Sage Foundation

• NYU’s Global Institute for Advanced Study

• Rita Allen Foundation