Pushing the frontier of philanthropy.

A multidisciplinary database of visionary philanthropic experiments, advancing current social practices and rules for collective good.

Think different. Build different too.

“The failure of philanthropy is its failure to stay relevant,
to inspire us with what's possible”, Nadia Asporouhova

The non-profit sector is gaining increasing significance in the modern world, and it is currently one of the fastest-growing industries. From an economic standpoint, non-profits play a crucial role in addressing the issue of information asymmetry, which means they're highly valuable for our economy.

While all forms of charity are commendable, it is essential not only to provide direct assistance to individuals and communities during crises but also to focus on updating current social structures and rules to achieve far greater public benefits. Take, for instance, Dr. Kariko, a recent Nobel laureate, who faced significant challenges in securing funding for her groundbreaking research on mRNA. If the funding mechanisms for scientific work were different, we could have not only accelerated the development of her innovation but also facilitated numerous breakthroughs by other scientists.

Proposition of new funding mechanisms by independent organizations such as the Institute for Progress or Fast Grants perfectly illustrates the essence of philanthropy which involves “using private assets to experiment with public goods to identify unique ideas and solutions to implicit but important problems.

And while startups are ceasing to be the most ambitious and promising avenue for young people, philanthropy is beginning to be so. In fact, any social institution like governments, academia, media, education, technological labs, democracy and others need to be updated to address contemporary global challenges like climate change, the shift of geopolitical power to New Axis, degrowth, the emergence of new risky technologies, and more. Technical progress alone cannot resolve these challenges, so updating our institutions should become a central mission of the 21st century.

That’s why we believe that the true potential of philanthropy and more generally institutional experiments is greatly underrealized.

We have built this website to convene unique projects that aspire to reimagine particular public goods and provide contrarian insights about the world. We’re trying to build something that can bring those to you, to help you find inspiration, original ideas and interesting areas for making an impact. At the same time organizations would find new donors, followers, participants and even employees.

So, let’s start diving down those rabbit holes through the filters in the top right corner!

ABOUT

On Deck is a curated community designed to increase your odds of building a successful venture-backed company.

HIGHLIGHTS

Pre-YC for early-stage founders

ABOUT

“Virtual fund”, organizing application submission and evaluation processes to help donors decide where to make donations.

HIGHLIGHTS

Creating the S-process of evaluation of applications based on utility functions and X-risk concerns for civilization

ABOUT

Company using the FORTE model to match untapped private capital with the unmet needs of people who are not currently in good-paying quality jobs (but can lately to return these money on education).

HIGHLIGHTS

Significant improvement of education financing

ABOUT

An early-stage-focused venture capital firm that aims to increase the agency of exceptional individuals using both investment dollars and grants.

HIGHLIGHTS

Mix of VC and grants model to support talented teams/individuals

ABOUT

Residency for scientists to provide them the freedom to explore the boundaries of knowledge in an independent, transdisciplinary research community outside the confines of traditional academic institutions.

HIGHLIGHTS

Residency for scientific progress

ABOUT

A platform from YC to teach founders building startups and products.

HIGHLIGHTS

Free platform to give pre-early stage support for future founders

ABOUT

A new community in the Bay Area, centered around a 14-BR hacker house in Berkeley.

HIGHLIGHTS

Work-focused group house

ABOUT

A platform for teenagers to support their careers and personal growth via resources, community, hackathons.

HIGHLIGHTS

Applying the approach of "Startup School" for teenagers

ABOUT

Residency for Effective Altruists in the UK.

HIGHLIGHTS

Residency focused on effective altruism

ABOUT

Foundation supporting individuals Skilled Through Alternative Routes (STAR) can work, learn, and earn their potential.

HIGHLIGHTS

Development of less high university approach

ABOUT

UStrive connects students with financial need with free, one-to-one mentoring to help them navigate the college and financial aid application process.

HIGHLIGHTS

Smart philanthropy to give a knowledge and skills to students

ABOUT

Coho Fellowships offer professional communities that enable top individuals to connect to a highly curated network of peers, grow with others who share similar goals and challenges, and learn skills that can be directly put into practice.

HIGHLIGHTS

Discovery of approach "learning in community"

Something missing from our list?

If you know of an exciting philanthropic organization that we have not included, let us know!

or

© New Institutions 2023

Organizations pursuing national prosperity and power
National challenges
Organizations building new corporate models
Ownership structures
Organizations trying to radically change or re-imagine current model of city and nation state
Cities, states and geographies
Organizations experimenting with new formats of media
Media
Organization and tools for radical enhancing human’s thinking and cognitive capabilities
Thinking
Organizations developing new educational social technologies
Education
Organizations trying to achieve more democratic society
Democracy
Organizations re-imaging capitalism economic model
Beyond capitalism
Organizations studying and building new institutions
Institutions
Organizations trying to unlock bottlenecks for creating radically new technologies
Technological progress
Organizations making philanthropy more effective and unique
Philanthropy
Organizations trying to disrupt financial institutions
Finance
Organizations trying to re-imagine mechanisms of talent discovery and support
Talents
Organizations trying to change social processes and rules in academic institutions
Academia
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inspiration
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AI
#
family
#
justice
#
institution
#
infrastructure
#
policy entrepreneurship
#
new corporate structures
#
cooperative ownership
#
externalities
#
public goods funding
#
market-making
#
citizen science
#
crowdsourcing
#
quadratic voting
#
retroactive funding
#
private philanthropy
built around a new way to do an existing activity
#
new model
establishing a unique organizational structure
#
organizational form
creating an overview of some industry or ecosystem
#
mapping
creating art as a main activity of the org
#
art
prioritizing concrete action for tangible outcomes
#
actions
a collection of resources
#
aggregator
support and care about Black, Indigenous, and people of color communities
#
BIPOC
#
open-source
building a community around a shared interest or project
#
community
Here is a helpful tid bit to assist the user in understanding how a certain feature works.
#
crowdsourcing
uses blockchain technology
#
blockchain
public or state funding in the form of procurement, grants, etc.
#
government funding
creating or changing an established cultural phenomena
#
culture
#
advocacy
inventing new financial contracts
#
new contracts
re-purposing existing expertise in a field
#
expertise
existing of grounds in the form of an emerging theoretical or empirical mainstream
#
extensions
creating new ideas in particular niche
#
new ideas
discovery some existing phenomena which can be reused in a very unique way
#
repurposing
using technologies of VR/AR
#
virtual reality
unique ways of making money (e.g. voluntary prices)
#
revenue model
development and implementation of new standards for particular industry
#
new standards
production of new kind of goods/services
#
new good
developing new rules of governing people’s interactions
#
new rules
a residence-based program
#
residency
financed via venture capital from investors
#
venture capital
using a not-for-profit business model
#
non-profit
#
education
public-facing content production
#
content
#
research
#
digital
exit to new emerging “market” which became possible due to social and technological changes in the industry
#
new niche
new tools for some use case/industry
#
tool-driven
#
inspiration
#
AI
#
family
#
justice
#
institution
#
infrastructure
#
policy entrepreneurship
#
new corporate structures
#
cooperative ownership
#
externalities
#
public goods funding
#
market-making
#
citizen science
#
crowdsourcing
#
quadratic voting
#
retroactive funding
#
private philanthropy
built around a new way to do an existing activity
#
new model
establishing a unique organizational structure
#
organizational form
creating an overview of some industry or ecosystem
#
mapping
creating art as a main activity of the org
#
art
prioritizing concrete action for tangible outcomes
#
actions
a collection of resources
#
aggregator
support and care about Black, Indigenous, and people of color communities
#
BIPOC
#
open-source
building a community around a shared interest or project
#
community
Here is a helpful tid bit to assist the user in understanding how a certain feature works.
#
crowdsourcing
uses blockchain technology
#
blockchain
public or state funding in the form of procurement, grants, etc.
#
government funding
creating or changing an established cultural phenomena
#
culture
#
advocacy
inventing new financial contracts
#
new contracts
re-purposing existing expertise in a field
#
expertise
existing of grounds in the form of an emerging theoretical or empirical mainstream
#
extensions
creating new ideas in particular niche
#
new ideas
discovery some existing phenomena which can be reused in a very unique way
#
repurposing
using technologies of VR/AR
#
virtual reality
unique ways of making money (e.g. voluntary prices)
#
revenue model
development and implementation of new standards for particular industry
#
new standards
production of new kind of goods/services
#
new good
developing new rules of governing people’s interactions
#
new rules
a residence-based program
#
residency
financed via venture capital from investors
#
venture capital
using a not-for-profit business model
#
non-profit
#
education
public-facing content production
#
content
#
research
#
digital
exit to new emerging “market” which became possible due to social and technological changes in the industry
#
new niche
new tools for some use case/industry
#
tool-driven
Tools for academia
Refugee cities
Investigations
Democracy methods
Energy
Open source
Cyber security
Longevity
Residency
Official cities
Free cities
Financial mechanisms
Financial institutions
Policy research (del)
Pro-immigration
Pro-reforms
Pro-energy
Pro-housing
Pro-people
Technologies for democracy
Diversity
Alignment
Startup cities
Teaching
Venture capital
Space governance
Solidarity economy
Sea cities
Research institutions
Progress studies (del)
Private cities
Policy entrepreneurship (del)
Platform
Personal projects (del)
Parallel academia
Optimism
New economies
Metascience
Learning
Mapping institutions
Creating institutions
Progress promotion
Insitutions' proposition (del)
Infrastructure (del)
Green economy
Futurism
The Web
Studying institutions
Science funding
Funding
Support
Effective donations
Donation innovations
Funding R&D (del)
Technological breakthroughs
Digital states
Crypto cities
Ownership
Cooperatives
Community (del)
Co-living (del)
Career development
Thoughtful discussions
Book publisher
Better cities
AI
Academia re-structure
Way of thinking
Tools for thinking