Zapier CEO and Co-founder Wade Foster is a fundraising contrarian. But he doesn't think he should be. He shares how it's possible to approach financing as a boost — not a crutch — and ways to approach key business decisions early on to keep the itch to fundraise at bay.
Signaling theory in entrepreneurial fundraising and crowdfunding research
Researchers often employ signaling theory to explain the effect of entrepreneurial communication on fundraising success. This focus on signaling can lead researchers to overlook alternative explana...
Philanthropy 2.0: What the Evolution of For-Profit Investment Tells Us About the Future of Giving
Gaps in philanthropic funding for era-defining science and discovery demand a new approach. In this piece, we look at how learning from venture capital is a game changer for catalytic philanthropy.
Philanthropy 2.0: What the Evolution of For-Profit Investment Tells Us About the Future of Giving
Gaps in philanthropic funding for era-defining science and discovery demand a new approach. In this piece, we look at how learning from venture capital is a game changer for catalytic philanthropy.
Ten more unintuitive things about impact philanthropy fundraising
some more lessons I’ve learned, for the $free.99
From Code To Cash: Stack Overflow Co-Founder Jeff Atwood’s Unorthodox Path To Philanthropy
The more I looked at it, the more I thought the money should be actually out there working to make the world better in some form.
The Race to Allocate One Trillion Dollars in Philanthropic Capital
Frontier Lab IPOs are coming, and philanthropy isn’t ready
Reasonable
A straightforward funding mechanism that rewards innovators and risk-takers while remaining sensitive to the social impact of new…
Turning Fails into Features: Zapier’s Hard-Won Eval Lessons — Rafal Willinski, Vitor Balocco, Zapier
It’s Not Just Elon Musk — These Billionaires Are Also Neurodivergent
Some billionaires say their conditions helped them succeed in business.
One of the things we don’t have enough of yet in the atmosphere is people you can pay to help support you & solve problems & be strategic about opportunities on atproto. What you can do as a media & journalism org, is get in touch with @tylerjfisher.com and pay him.
Tyler Fisher
Hello journalism friends. Do you want your news organization's links on Bluesky to look fancy like this? Get in touch, I can help. blog.euphonos.studio/3lyfwrx7zn222
My boiling hot take on this is that, if tech companies are going to fund this kind of research (looking at Schmidt too), then the money needs to be given *no strings* to an independent arm's length research body, pooled with other funding, and treated as a donation not as direct funding.
Hetan Shah
Anthropic AI research fund offers $5m - $30m for social science research on themes of AI impact on workers; transition initiatives; income support; building worker stakes; and wider evidence on public investments. Total fund of $200m available anthropic.com/news/economic-futures-researc…
I wonder if having some kind of "atproto Foundation" would help with fundraising for the broader atmosphere? Currently there is no easy way to invest in the atmosphere so would-be funders default to bsky cc @ecosystemaction.com
Erin Kissane
Knight Foundation's kind of an exception here, tbh, and has a specific interest that's different from the VCs—and also a specific connection into the protocol. I'd love to see them send money to a slew of atmosphere projects and I wouldn't be super surprised if they did.
I need people to stop trying to solve funding problems in the Atmosphere by trying to be attractive to the same funders and funding models that put us in this situation in the first place. Empowering individuals and communities via technology was step one. Step two is doing the same for funding.
I wonder if having some kind of "atproto Foundation" would help with fundraising for the broader atmosphere? Currently there is no easy way to invest in the atmosphere so would-be funders default to bsky cc @ecosystemaction.com
Erin Kissane
Knight Foundation's kind of an exception here, tbh, and has a specific interest that's different from the VCs—and also a specific connection into the protocol. I'd love to see them send money to a slew of atmosphere projects and I wouldn't be super surprised if they did.
Funding / contribution structures
Alternative org, funding, finance, contribution structures towards... improving society somewhat
novel funding mechanisms
funding models that doesn't depend on VC. funding models that keep things accessible and open but yet provide enough incentive for people to pay
Company as a Commons
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Let's Talk Money - Interlinked
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