Audacious Project
/OVERVIEW: The Audacious Project is a funding collaborative housed at TED that supports big ideas to solve the world’s most pressing problems and “encourages the world’s greatest changemakers to dream bigger.”
IP TAKE: According to past coverage here at IP, The Audacious Project is “one of the most influential forces among billionaire givers” that takes a “lighthouse” and complementary “searchlight” approach to grantmaking, selecting new cohorts each year based on a cyclical grantmaking process that is open to direct applicants as well as sourcing ideas through its “global network of partners and donors.” Audacious prioritizes giving to mid-sized and larger, more established groups, and grantees typically have annual operating budgets of $1 million or more. It tends to invest in catalytic change through flexible, multi-year grants that are unusually large: a typical Audacious grant is in the tens of millions. This funder is transparent, providing information about past grants, although sometimes without attaching dollar amounts to grantee profiles. Audacious invites grant seekers to reach out with questions or suggestions via email or online message. Grants are highly competitive, with only about ten made each year. Still, this is a good funder to know for those at proven organizations looking to scale their “big idea.”
PROFILE: Originally established in 2005 as the “TED Prize,” and rebranded in 2018, The Audacious Project is a collaborative funding initiative. While Audacious is housed at TED, the platform itself does not provide funding for grantees. Audacious chooses a cohort of projects —what it calls “Big Ideas”— every year that offer solutions to some of the most daunting problems facing the world. It connects these ideas with donors and supporters to scale up the project to create a more significant impact. Many of the names on Audacious’ list of donors and partners are billionaires.
Rather than invest in dedicated focus areas, Audacious considers Big Ideas from all areas of funding. As a result, grants have supported everything “from global health to ocean exploration to social justice to education.” Ideas that receive support tend to be “timely ideas that are that magic combination of deeply inspiring and convincingly credible,” and Audacious suggests that applicants ensure their “idea balances the ability to change the way people look at an issue, with a deliverable plan that will make that vision come to life.”
In April 2023, Audacious announced that it had committed more than $1 billion to that year’s cohort of projects, which includes support for climate change, migrant rights and criminal justice reform, as well as school girls in sub-Saharan Africa, foster care reform and increasing access to high-quality contraceptive care in the United States. But these topics are subject to change from year to year based on evolving global needs. However, 990s and recent grantee lists show an emphasis on targeted areas of funding outlined below.
Grants for Climate Change and Clean Energy, and Global Development
The Audacious Project does not have distinct funding programs for individual issue areas. Instead, it accepts submissions for projects that match their Big Idea criteria and chooses its annual cohort from these. However, while it does not have separate program areas, it does group its grantees into categories; according to its own reporting, Audacious has devoted 26% of its grants toward climate solutions, the largest area that consistently receives support.
Grants have gone to the Salk Institute for Biological Studies for a project that uses plants in carbon capture, ReNew2030, which works to promote renewable energy, Drive Electric, to accelerate the transition from polluting transportation, and Environmental Defense Fund, to use satellites to track gas emissions. Other grantees are listed on the Ideas Archive page.
Additionally, in 2023, Audacious partnered with the Bezos Earth Fund to award $150 million over four years to World Resources Institute’s Restore Local project “to accelerate locally led land restoration in three African landscapes: the Lake Kivu and Rusizi River Basin area, the Cocoa Belt of Ghana and Greater Rift Valley of Kenya.”
Grants for Science and Medical Research
While it doesn’t have a focus area dedicated to technological innovation or science research, the Audacious Project consistently gives in these areas. Its Impact page reveals that 23% of total grants have gone to innovative technology and 12% have supported breakthrough science.
Past grantees include Thorn, to help eliminate child sexual abuse materials from the internet; Innovative Genomics Institute, which engineers “microbiomes with CRISPR to improve our climate and health”; and Project Ceti, which works to communicate with whales through technology. More grantees can be found on the Ideas Archive page.
Grants for Public Health and Access, and Global Health
Audacious Project, according to 990s and grantee lists, has made substantial grants toward groups working in this area in the past. Indeed, by its own accounting, 21% of its grants have gone to causes related to healthcare and another 19% has been disbursed to social safety net organizations.
Previous grantees include Sightsavers, which works to eliminate trachoma, an eye disease that causes blindness; CAMFED, which helps girls in sub-Saharan Africa succeed in school; and One Acre Fund, which supports farmers in Africa. Additional grantees can be found via the searchable database on the Ideas Archive page.
Grants for Racial Justice and Indigenous Rights, Criminal Justice Reform, Immigrants and Refugees
The Audacious Project’s social justice grantmaking is not as robust as some of its other funding, accounting for only 12% of its total funding. Most of these grants have so far gone to criminal justice reform and racial justice, although refugee groups have received support, as well.
Grantees in this area include The Bail Project, which works to eliminate automatic penalties for individuals that struggle to pay bail; Clean Slate Initiative, which works to clear criminal records; and the International Refugee Assistance Project, which helps refugees navigate the legal system. Other past grantees are detailed on The Audacious Project’s Ideas Archive page.
Important Grant Details:
On its Impact page, Audacious compares its approach to selecting grantees to lighthouses and searchlights. The lighthouse approach is a passive method that allows grantees and partners to seek them out, but the searchlight approach is more proactive and actively looks for “social entrepreneurs and projects” that might otherwise be missed. The searchlight approach emphasizes neglected project areas, communities and methods.
The project has helped direct more than $4 billion in funding since 2018, and grant amounts tend to be large.
The amount given each year varies, although it has been growing steadily: over $1 billion in 2023, $919 million in 2021, $611 million in 2020, and so on.
A searchable database of previous grantees is available on the website in its Ideas Archive.
Nonprofits, NGOs, institutions or collaborations between multiple entities are eligible to apply; project funding requests are unrestricted but should be “realistic” to the needs of the project.
It reviews idea submissions on a rolling basis, and grant seekers will only receive a response if they are invited to submit a full application.
Be sure to read over the FAQ and criteria before submitting an idea.
Audacious invites new grant seekers and those with general inquiries to reach out, either through the online message form or via email at audacious@ted.com.
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