Caroline Ellison, the former chief executive of Alameda Research, has accepted a full-time role at Manifund, a nonprofit grantmaking platform tied to effective altruism and artificial intelligence safety efforts. The appointment, announced by cofounder Austin Chen, marks her first publicly disclosed professional position since her early release from federal prison earlier this year.

Ellison began a work trial on July 13 and transitioned to full-time employment on August 10. During the initial period she contributed under the pseudonym “Carol,” publishing updates and assisting users while keeping her identity private. Her responsibilities center on improving the organization’s technical infrastructure, operations, customer support and research into more effective ways of directing philanthropic funds. She is not involved in selecting which projects receive grants.

Role Details and Early Contributions

Manifund operates as an open platform linking donors with fundraisers through publicly disclosed proposals, regrantors who allocate budgets according to donor preferences, and markets for impact certificates. The organization reports having financed 486 projects, raised $17.2 million and routed $5.46 million via regrantors.

One of Ellison’s early projects involved building a reconciliation tool that identified several misregistered transactions in the Manifund database totaling five to six figures. Chen described her finance and systems management experience as immediately useful, noting that the organization requires skilled personnel to address large-scale challenges in artificial intelligence safety, poverty and animal welfare.

Ellison stated she intends to continue refining technical systems, operations and customer support while posting updates through the group’s channels. She expressed alignment with Manifund’s mission and emphasized that her prior wrongdoing has been publicly detailed in court proceedings.

Background and Regulatory Context

Ellison pleaded guilty in December 2022 to fraud and conspiracy charges linked to the collapse of FTX and Alameda Research. She cooperated with prosecutors and testified against FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, who received a 25-year prison sentence. A federal judge imposed a two-year term on Ellison, which she began serving in November 2024. She was released in January 2026 after serving roughly 15 months.

Separate settlements with the Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission restrict her from serving as an officer or director for 10 years, impose a five-year conduct-based injunction, a five-year trading ban and a 10-year registration bar. Officials and observers have noted that a technical and operational position at a private nonprofit falls outside those limitations.

Organizational Ties and Public Response

Manifund traces conceptual and funding roots in part to the FTX Future Fund, which provided early support for related initiatives. Chen has acknowledged a “keen debt” to that fund while stating that FTX’s collapse harmed users and damaged the broader effective-altruism community.

Chen apologized for the temporary use of a pseudonym, describing it as a limited compromise on the organization’s transparency standards that he still regards as justified under the circumstances. He invited scrutiny of Manifund’s public source code, financial data and research outputs, including Ellison’s specific contributions.

The decision has drawn criticism. Former Astera Institute CEO Cate Hall described the hiring as showing “truly terrible judgment” and warned of potential reputational harm to Manifund and related organizations. Other commenters questioned whether the choice rested more on personal considerations than a competitive search for candidates.

Chen has framed the appointment as an opportunity for productive work after accountability measures were completed, while emphasizing that future evaluation should rest on the platform’s results rather than symbolism alone.