Philanthropy Confidential #1: On Gatekeeping - Stupski Foundation

Philanthropic foundations bias heavily towards granting large $ amounts exclusively to organizations (not individuals), meaning there are few existing avenues to fund promising people.

There are too many layers of approval to receive funding, which results in the winning proposals usually filtering for conservative/easy to agree with efforts and very few long-term bets.

Public people with resources to fund things often feel it's 1) too risky for their reputation to openly fund individuals and 2) distributing small amounts isn’t worth their time because it doesn’t make a dent in the large sum of $ they're aiming to distribute.