In October 2025, 35 major donor families gathered in California under the banner of The Audacious Project — the collaborative philanthropic initiative housed within TED, the ideas nonprofit based in New York. In approximately two days, they committed $1.03 billion to 10 organisations working on some of the world's most pressing challenges. It was the largest single fundraising round in the project's eight-year history.
The 2025 cohort spans an unusually wide range of problems. The Arc Institute in California is building what it describes as the world's first high-utility virtual cell model — an AI system designed to accelerate drug discovery for diseases like Alzheimer's. The Ocean Cleanup is continuing its work removing plastic from the world's oceans and rivers. Imagine Worldwide is scaling solar-powered, offline educational technology to reach students across Malawi, Sierra Leone, and Tanzania. Tiko, based in Africa, is expanding services for teenage girls including contraception, HIV care, and responses to sexual violence. Destination: Home, based in San Jose, California, is expanding its homeless prevention model — which identifies families at risk of losing their housing and provides money and support before the crisis hits — to cities across the United States.
Since 2018, The Audacious Project has committed $4.6 billion to 70 projects. Grantees have subsequently leveraged an additional $3 billion from other funders, bringing total catalysed funding to $7.6 billion. In addition to the 10 new grantees, three previous recipients demonstrating significant results received nearly $50 million in follow-on funding through a new reinvestment pilot programme.