TED’s Audacious Project announced Tuesday that 35 major donor families committed $1.03 billion to fund more than a dozen nonprofits working on homelessness, disease research, global health, and other challenges. The commitment was made in October, but publicly disclosed Tuesday after more than a year of screening and preparation with recipient organizations.
The Audacious Project represents an unusual funding model in philanthropy. The initiative brings together major donors who each commit at least $10 million per funding round and coordinate their giving through a structured, year-long selection and mentoring process. Supporters say the collective approach and rigorous vetting enable outsized philanthropic impact.
The funding round and grantees
This year’s funding marked the first time the Audacious Project approved repeat grants. Last Mile Health, a nonprofit training community health workers across multiple African countries, received $20 million for a second round of support. The organization’s initial 2018 grant helped it scale from training 2,000 workers to 23,000, and the new funding will support further training as well as efforts to coordinate domestic funding from the countries where it operates.
“It’s not just a philanthropic investment and then a cliff,” said Lisha McCormick, CEO of Last Mile Health.
Among the first-time grantees are Destination: Home, a San Jose-based nonprofit focused on homeless prevention, which will expand its “Right at Home” initiative to multiple U.S. cities. The program identifies families at risk of losing housing and provides money and support to prevent displacement.
The Arc Institute, a California research organization, received funding to develop a virtual model of a cell to aid in identifying treatments for complex diseases. Tiko, an Africa-based nonprofit, received funding to expand health and sexual violence response services for teenage girls.
The donors and their approach
Major donors in the initiative include Connie and Steve Ballmer—the former Microsoft CEO and owner of the Los Angeles Clippers—and Tegan and Brian Acton, a cofounder of WhatsApp.
Connie Ballmer, who has participated since 2021, emphasized the group’s collective capacity. “Nowhere that I know of can you raise a billion dollars in two days,” she said. “For an organization to raise an amount—whether it’s $40, $60, $80 million, I mean, do you know how long that takes them to do that kind of fundraising?”
Tegan Acton said she participates because she believes in collective action and values the focus on funding solutions developed by people close to the problems. She also noted the diversity of donor approaches.
“Some people come and they have a binder printed and they have a thousand tabs with little notes about every project and they’ve marked up the appendices,” she said, “whereas others show up and watch the videos and see what sparks interest.”
The selection and impact process
The application process requires finalists to record videos similar to TED Talks introducing themselves and their projects. Jennifer Loving, CEO of Destination: Home, said the guidance from the Audacious Project and the nonprofit consulting firm The Bridgespan Group helped sharpen her organization’s expansion plan.
“Going through this process was probably one of the most rigorous things we’ve ever done,” Loving said. “I can say with total confidence that it made us smarter.”
When she learned the donors had met her organization’s funding request, Loving described the moment as “shock and awe.” She added that the signal of support was particularly significant for work on homelessness. “It’s not for the faint of heart to work on this issue in America,” she said, “and so you kind of brace yourself. You never know if people are going to see what you see and it was beautiful. It was really beautiful.”
Scale, structure, and continuity
In total, 55 major donor families have participated in at least one round of the Audacious Project’s work. The group expands by invitation, with donors formally required to commit at least $10 million to a funding round, though many donate more as they are inspired by the commitments of others in the room.
Additional recipients announced include Braven, Imagine Worldwide, Ipas, Plastic Solutions Fund, Pure Earth, Solutions for Our Climate, The Ocean Cleanup, Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team, and Thorn.
Anna Verghese, executive director of the Audacious Project, said the decision to offer second-round grants reflected a shift in how the organization understands its role. “The honest question that we and our donor community had to wrestle with is, what kinds of partners are we if we walk away right when that momentum is building?” she said.