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.
Mar 30, 2026 at 5:22 PM
The Race to Allocate One Trillion Dollars in Philanthropic Capital
Frontier Lab IPOs are coming, and philanthropy isn’t ready
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.
Funding the Commons | Public Goods Funding
We convene researchers, builders, and institutions to develop the funding mechanisms, governance systems, and coordination tools that public goods need in an age of AI.
How We're Funded
IOI is supported through a mix of philanthropic support and financial commitments from institutions, consortia-based organizations, and more. As a sustainability focused not-for-profit initiative, we are keenly aware of the strains that exist on the current funding landscape for open infrastructure non-profits. We are dedicated at IOI to exploring revenue
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
Here's the updated "Funding Models Are Not Binary" slide from my Feature/Product/Business talk #ATmosphereConf. Turns out there are even more great examples already in the Atmosphere!
We just launched the Open Source Endowment, the first endowment dedicated to supporting Open Source maintainers, with $693,000 raised already. The world depends on Open Source, but making our ecosystem sustainable is a complex task. I hope that, with community consultation, the Endowment can help 🙏
A VC and some big-name programmers are trying to solve open source's funding problem, permanently | TechCrunch
techcrunch.comI 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.
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…
Today we're launching the Open Source for Science Fund, a new multi-donor philanthropic fund by Renaissance Philanthropy, seeded by @biohub.org and @wellcometrust.bsky.social, with support from @kavlifoundation.org and @researchsoftware.bsky.social 🧵 os4science.org/news/open-source-for-science-…
Open Source for Science Fund Launches to Power AI-Driven Discovery
os4science.orgI 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.
Early on in my time here I was sketching out a Bandcamp alternative hosted on the ATmosphere. The necessary affordances weren't there to make the market work (private data), but there was also not a way to get funding to build it because there is no moat or ROI. The data model is open, competition
Ted Han★ 韓聖安
I've been talking about this for months with others. SaaS products built around data moats are not a thing in the Atmosphere. The whole point is that users data should not be enclosed. This is a space that requires other types of business models.
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
Founders Hub | Transform Finance
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Let's Talk Money - Interlinked
Home | Sovereign Tech Agency
The future is low-tech: lessons from the early 2000s ft. Jésabel DC | Config 2026
The Real Reason that Substack is Collapsing
goals-based universal paywalls - pivot point - Obsidian Publish
