Any nonprofit organization anywhere in the world will be able to receive $100 million from The MacArthur Foundation to develop an idea that aims to solve a social problem in the world.The competition is called 100&Change and its primary goal is to grant a philanthropic organization interested in solving critical social problems faced by people or by the planet.

Stasch-Julia-macarthur
Julia Stasch is the President of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Credit: Macfound

Proposals will compete once received by the Foundation. They will be evaluated, and a panel will decide which idea is the strongest and assertive plan to award it with the $100 million grant.

The MacArthur Foundation

MacArthur supports people, institutions and some types of influential networks building projects to face the world’s social challenges.  They grant NGOs with proposals about global climate change, human rights, nuclear risk, incarceration issues, vulnerable population, journalism among other areas related to problems that affect social sectors.

Based in Chicago, the organization is one of the largest grant-giving institutions, and it operates in 50 countries across the world.  It works as a private philanthropic foundation and has no government support.

The grant is a mechanism for financial assistance provided for a particular project for charitable purposes to make it operate, and MacArthur has a grantmaking structure where projects are evaluated in a comprehensive and strategic way. The goal is to provide financial aid to projects that, according to experts, will have a significant impact on particular population or sector.

100&Change is built around one major question: Are you ready to solve a problem?

The competition was announced on June 02, and a single idea will be granted with an incredible amount. The proposal must be designed to help solve a critical problem and be structured to be meaningful and with a possible impact.

Any organization can apply, even if is not a foundation but any other type of legal entity. Government agencies or groups supported by any government are the only philanthropic-linked organizations that are not under the scope of the competition.

There are not a limited structure for ideas. Instead, the Foundation wants groups to be creative and address an issue they consider relevant, implementing a major problem-solving project. However, the proposal must be focused to solve a single problem.

Although most grants provided by the Foundation go to organizations in the United States, 100&Change will be open to proposals from across the world to solve problems anywhere. The idea must be as realistic and measurable as possible. Five judges will review and score proposals.

The MacArthur Foundation released the mechanism of the competition:

Up to ten Semi-Finalists will then be asked to supply further details on their proposals and show engagement with their target communities. From this group, a smaller number of Finalists will be selected. These Finalists will present their solutions at a live event in the fall of 2017. Selection of the final award recipient rests with MacArthur’s Board of Directors.

The idea is to provide financial support that overrides what’s typical in the grantmaking sphere, to support solutions to radically severe problems. According to the Foundation,  a larger amount of money to help philanthropy means that more complex problems can be addressed. This number will certainly support the proposal to have an impact on a larger scale.

Applications will be open from June 2 until October 3, 2016.

Source: 100 and Change