Join us as we shape the future of public interest cyber and AI security
The Center for Long-Term Cybersecurity (CLTC) at UC Berkeley is a premier hub for research and collaboration on public-interest cybersecurity and AI security. Our work helps individuals and organizations address tomorrow’s information security challenges, expands who participates in cybersecurity, and amplifies the upside of the digital revolution.
For more than a decade, CLTC has forged authentic, high-impact partnerships with individual philanthropists, family foundations, tech leaders, and corporate sponsors aligned with this mission.
We invite you to explore the engagement pathways below* and reach out directly to Shanti Corrigan, Senior Director of Philanthropy, at shanti@berkeley.edu to discuss where your philanthropic vision aligns with our work.
Engagement Pathways
Public allyship through event sponsorship, research fellowships, and supporting our student talent pipeline.
The Impact: Connects donors and organizations directly with UC Berkeley talent and public-interest cybersecurity leadership through event visibility and foundational research support.
Examples:
- Event Sponsors ($15K): Reception hosting for the Cyber Civil Defense Summit(s), driving community and brand engagement across our network.
- Discovery Partners ($30K or $50K): Unrestricted philanthropic support that sustains CLTC’s core research and educational initiatives, providing entry-level options to underwrite key program areas:
- Research Fellowships: Underwrites CLTC research fellows—including student researchers and staff fellows—driving leading-edge work in Public Interest Cybersecurity or AI Security (e.g. CyberCAN: Cybersecurity for Cities and Nonprofits)
- Clinic Operations: Supports student team projects and core operations across UC Berkeley Cybersecurity Clinic client engagements—helping protect under-resourced public interest organizations (such as bolstering cyberdefense for reproductive rights organizations).
Discovery Partners receive prominent public recognition across CLTC publications, webinars, and events, as well as a biannual resume book of students graduating from UC Berkeley’s Master of Information and Cybersecurity (MICS) program.
Initiative momentum through supporting specialized workshops, tabletop exercises, and research collaboratives.
The Impact: Resources a dedicated thematic initiative, emerging pilot project, or leadership roundtable within one of our signature programs. Funding at this tier enables CLTC to bring together global experts to analyze emerging threat vectors, launch new lines of inquiry, and move research from theory to actionable recommendations.
Examples:
- Frontier AI Policy & Safety Workshops: Through our Artificial Intelligence Security Initiative (AISI), CLTC convenes multi-stakeholder workshops with AI developers, academic researchers, and public agencies to discuss best practices for critical incident reporting and internal risk assessments.
- Global Tabletop Exercises (TTXs): Partners seed scenario-based simulations—such as our global AI-Enabled Cybercrime Initiative exercises in Berkeley, Singapore, and Tel Aviv—that analyze emerging threat vectors and inform organizational risk strategies.
- UC Berkeley Cybersecurity Clinic Support: Directly expands clinic capacity by underwriting graduate student teaching positions, supervisory staff, and client educational materials.
A leadership alliance through multi-year support for core initiatives, generating new areas of open-source research and policy insight.
The Impact: Sustains single or multi-year philanthropic commitments designed to tackle systemic, complex digital challenges. Donors and partners engage alongside CLTC leadership as we advance research at the leading edge of digital security—bringing Berkeley’s academic rigor and network to public-interest challenges.
Examples:
- Nonprofit Cybersecurity: CLTC’s multi-year collaboration with Okta has supported groundbreaking research and regional insights to help protect nonprofits from cyber threats and improve Cyber Civil Defense.
- Frontier AI Policy & Governance: A diverse coalition of individual donor-advised funds and family foundations is accelerating critical research into long-term AI safety thresholds, governance frameworks, and state, national, and international AI security.
- Community Defense Support: Helps underwrite the growth of regional cybersecurity clinic cohorts (serving entities like local infrastructure, nonprofits, or hospitals) through our work with the Consortium of Cybersecurity Clinics.
Field-building impact scaling national networks, naming or endowing permanent labs, creating lasting ecosystem influence.
The Impact: Connects visionary philanthropists, family foundations, tech leaders, and strategic industry partners with opportunities to construct lasting defenses for the digital public sphere. Investments at this level fund long-term endowments, institutional naming opportunities, and scale programs for national and global reach.
Examples:
- Google Cybersecurity Clinics Fund ($25M Initiative): Illustrates CLTC’s capacity to drive multi-million-dollar, transformational field-building. Supported by Google.org (with Tides Foundation as fiscal intermediary), this $25M initiative propelled the national leadership of the Consortium of Cybersecurity Clinics and enabled the establishment of 25 U.S. university-based clinics, expanding cybersecurity resilience for under-resourced community organizations nationwide.
- Cyber Resilience Corps: Strategic support for the Cyber Resilience Corps, a collaborative initiative backed by Craig Newmark Philanthropies in partnership with ProtectNGO. This work builds a national network of practitioners, volunteer leaders, and community experts dedicated to local digital resilience and delivering hands-on cybersecurity support where it is needed most.
Let’s Build a Partnership That Matters
We want to align your unique strengths, corporate goals, or family philanthropic vision with our active initiatives.
Ready to discuss an onramp that fits your vision? Contact Shanti Corrigan at shanti@berkeley.edu.
*Note on Gift Classification & Custom Engagements
The engagement tiers outlined above represent tax-deductible charitable gifts to UC Berkeley, supporting CLTC’s core research, education, and public service mission. For corporate or institutional partners interested in collaborative sponsored research with specific intellectual property/deliverable terms, directed technical services, or multi-institutional contract arrangements, CLTC works closely with UC Berkeley’s Industry Alliances Office (IAO) to structure tailored agreements.
