The Gates Foundation just opened a Grand Challenge: AI to Accelerate Charitable Giving. Up to $150,000 per project. Deadline: 28th April.
We’re applying. And we want to do it with select nonprofit partners. We build the AI, you bring the mission. We build something real.
We’re only taking 3 organizations forward.
Why we’re doing this and why now
We’ve spent the last year listening to nonprofits to understand where the gaps are. When we read this grant brief, we saw three or four problems we’ve already been trying to solve.
The Gates Foundation isn’t looking for research. They’re looking for deployable tools that change donor behaviour - things that move people from passive interest to actual giving. That’s exactly the territory we operate in.
Three areas we’re building in. Which one is yours?
1. Match funding - Most donors never activate a match. We think we know why, and we think AI can fix it. If you have an active individual giving programme, this is probably your lane.
2. Audience to donors - You’ve built the following. The email list. The community. The people who care. Caring and giving are miles apart, and we have an idea for closing that gap. If you have 20,000+ followers or a donor base with room to grow, we want to talk.
3. Content that converts - Most nonprofits are sitting on a goldmine they don’t know how to mine. If you have a resource hub, an archive, a library of anything - there’s something in here for you.
We’re looking for organizations with momentum in one of these areas:
1. A serious LinkedIn presence
20,000+ followers or members - you’ve built attention, now let’s turn it into giving.
2. A strong individual donor base
2000+ monthly individual donors - with clear upside in retention and lifetime value.
3. Direct outreach channels (especially phone)
Active phone fundraising strategy (or permission to build one).
4. An underused resource hub
A rich library of content (blogs, guides, archives) that isn’t being fully activated.
What you’d be getting into
This is the first call - it’s exploratory. Up to $150k, 12 months. The brief is genuinely open to testing and learning, not just delivering a finished product.
We’d co-design the application together, build the tool together, and share the outputs.
👀 Interested?
Reply with:
Which of the areas you fit into
A couple of lines on your current scale (followers, donors, etc.)
Where you see the biggest untapped opportunity
Then we’ll set up an informal conversation.
— Jak & the team
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