The MacArthur foundation is giving away a grant of $100 million dollars to “fund a single proposal that promises real and measurable progress in solving a critical problem of our time”.
A key requirement is that “Your budget must be a minimum of $100 million to be considered” so it’s go big or go home. Obviously given this scale, only existing (and likely relatively large) organizations would be meaningful contenders.
Unfortunately, the deadline to register in order to be able to apply for this cycle has already closed (It was August 15th). Despite it being too late to apply for the 2024 grant cycle, this is the third time they have conducted this grant competition (with the prior rounds being in 2017 and 2021) and so I expect they will do so again in the near future (probably next 3-4 years based on previous rounds). Therefore, I wanted to share this grant so that anyone working at a organization that might be interested can bookmark this and be aware of it for future rounds. It’s worth being patient and strategic when the stakes are so big.
For clarification, I have no affiliation with MacArthur, I just found this while researching philanthropic grants and thought that it could be a great opportunity for the right organization and wanted to share it with the EA community. An objective competition to win 100 million is pretty crazy and I think some EA orgs would be meaningful contenders at winning!
Application Details:
https://www.100andchange.org/application
Examples of previous finalists:
Clinton Health Access Initiative & Murdoch Children’s Research Institute
Bringing life-saving oxygen therapy to children worldwide
Community Solutions
Accelerating an end to homelessness in 75 U.S. communities in five years
National Geographic Pristine Seas
Safeguarding and restoring the ocean’s health and productivity
Project ECHO
Democratizing life-saving medical knowledge and care
Report for America
Eliminating American news deserts
World Mosquito Program
Protecting communities by preventing transmission of mosquito-borne disease
Here is their scoring rubric that they use to evaluate entries:
https://www.100andchange.org/scoring
There are 5 scoring dimensions and each applicant is given a score for these 1-5:
In addition to scoring each application on the five criteria in the scoring rubric, applicants will also provide a final numerical score, ranging between 0-100, representing an overall assessment of quality for the entire application.
Lead alliance could so go for this