Frequently Asked Questions

• This is not a good time for me to make a gift, but I'd still like to support the Santa Fe Institute in the future. What am I able to do?

  An easy and low-cost way to make a gift to SFI is to include us in your will or revocable trust. Gifts by Will are a major source of support and one of the ways you can invest in the future of the Institute. Each legacy contribution strengthens our ability to continue doing meaningful science in the future. If you have not already done so, please consider putting the Santa Fe Institute in your will or revocable trust. See our Bequest Language page for samples of how to do this. You can also designate the Santa Fe Institute the beneficiary of Life Insurance or Retirement-Plan Benefits.

• What asset should I use to make my gift?

  While cash or a check is a simple way to make a gift, you might want to consider the following:

  Gift Type	Possible Benefits
  Cash	Current income-tax deduction
  Appreciated securities, such as stocks, bonds, or mutual funds	Elimination or reduction of capital-gain tax Current income-tax deduction Generate income
  Transfer of residential, commercial, or undeveloped real estate	Elimination or reduction of capital-gain tax Income- and estate-tax savings Generate income Relief from management
  Donate an interest in closely held or family business stock	Reduce the cost of passing the business to heirs Income- and estate-tax savings Generate income
  Give us tangible personal property like art, books, or collectibles	An income-tax charitable deduction
  Make SFI the owner and beneficiary of life insurance or annuities	Income- and estate-tax savings

• How does SFI use my gift?

  Your gift helps SFI develop fundamental knowledge of complexity science. By extension, your gift will also increase humanity's understanding of the world’s scientific beauty and increase the likelihood of our species’ long-term survival. There is a universal nature to the mechanisms that produce complexity. (SFI co-founder and Noble Laureate Murray Gell-Mann wrote a wonderfully accessible and brief treatise on this universality.) This universality has enabled SFI’s researchers to bring powerful new insights to topics as diverse as: ecosystem collapse, economic inequality, urban sustainability, the spread of SARS-CoV-2, the origins of life on earth, NASA’s search for extraterrestrial life, the online spread of hate, the intelligence of teams, the relationship between diversity and growth, the evolutionary origins altruism, and strategies for engineering with adaptive agents. Along the way, SFI’s researchers have helped develop toolkits ranging from networks science, agent-based modeling, complexity economics, evolutionary computation, universal scaling, and many others. For every SFI dollar we spend, we leverage more than four additional dollars from federal grants, foundations, and strategic partners. This means your gift has an outsized impact and could help solve the next big question on the frontiers of complexity. Learn more here.

  In a typical year we:

  • Hold more than 30 major scientific meetings at the frontiers of complexity. Recent topics include: COVID and the Complexity of Crisis, Emergent Engineering, Foundations of Intelligence in Natural and Artificial Systems, Complexity of Sustainability, Emergent Political Economies, and Dynamic Multi-System Resilience in Human Aging.
  • Host more than 100 scientific talks and visits of 800-1,100 scientists and intellectuals.
  • Support a dozen resident scientists and 16 resident postdoctoral fellows who work on complexity science at SFI year-round.
  • Provide an intellectual home to 110 external professors from 80 institutions in 20 countries who nucleate our unique research collaborations.
  • Achieve international impact through newly published research, citation of previously published work, and news articles.
• Can I direct how the Santa Fe Institute will use my gift?

  Yes, you are always able to direct your gift to a specific program. However, the SFI research program is extremely dynamic, and our work on urban scaling suggests that the clock-speed with which our research topics evolve will only increase. As such, estate gifts to specific research themes are discouraged. Direct support for resident researchers is one of the most popular methods of giving, as are gifts directed to support SFI’s postdoc program. Unrestricted gifts can be used to support a myriad of workshops, working groups, educational programs, and community events.