Unorthodox Philanthropy
Most philanthropy is top-down and strategy-driven, leaving out potential opportunities and entrepreneurs that don’t neatly fit funding requirements or are perceived to be too risky. Unorthodox Philanthropy (UP), an initiative of a US-based family foundation, seeks to identify great people and ideas from any sector or geography that have the potential to achieve outsized impact, through a series of bottoms-up searches. To-date, Unorthodox Philanthropy has found and supported more than 35 awardees.
GDI’s role
GDI helped design and structure Unorthodox Philanthropy, including the initial search approach and the network of scouts to find opportunities. GDI continues to design new Searches and to source, diligence, select, and support awardees.