How to Turn Grant Applicants Into Billionaires
war-on-disease, 1-percent-treaty, medical-research, public-health, peace-dividend, decentralized-trials, dfda, dih, victory-bonds, health-economics, cost-benefit-analysis, clinical-trials, drug-development, regulatory-reform, military-spending, peace-economics, decentralized-governance, wishocracy, blockchain-governance, impact-investing
Nonprofits spend most of their time begging for money. Foundations spend most of their time deciding who to give money to. Everyone pretends this is efficient.
It’s not.
Traditional grantmaking creates a system where nonprofits compete for finite resources. This means they optimize for:
- Writing the best grant proposals
- Staying alive as organizations
- Not pissing off donors
They do not optimize for:
- Actually solving the problem
- Long-term collective impact
- Coordinating with other nonprofits
This is rational behavior. You can’t change the world if you go bankrupt first.
The Solution
Stop making them compete. Make cooperation more profitable than competition.
You offer a model that transforms the traditional “please give us money” relationship into “here’s how we all get rich together by solving the problem.”
Core philosophy: Make contributing to the broader mission the most profitable activity for everyone involved.
On The Two-Part Bribe
You offer two incentives that transform nonprofits from “please fund us” to “let’s get rich together.”
Part 1: Make The Organization Rich (Performance-Based Grants)
The Old Way
“Here’s $100K. Hope it helps. Submit a 47-page report in 6 months about impacts and learnings.”
The New Way
“Here’s $50K baseline to get started. Plus $10K for every 10,000 verified referendum votes you drive. No cap.”
The Offer
“Your organization receives a baseline partnership grant for setup costs. You also get a substantial performance grant for every X verified referendum votes (e.g., 10,000) driven through your unique link. This bonus is uncapped.”
What This Does
The nonprofit’s most rational path to maximizing their budget is to become your most effective mobilization partner.
Not: Write better grant proposals Not: Compete with other nonprofits Not: Please the foundation
Just: Drive referendum votes.
One metric. No ambiguity. Get paid for results.
Part 2: Make The Leaders Personally Rich (VOTE Points)
The Problem Grants Don’t Solve
Even performance grants can get absorbed into general operations. “We hired three more grant writers!”
This doesn’t solve the problem. This creates more grant writers.
The Solution
Give the leaders personal equity. Make them personally wealthy when the mission succeeds.
The Offer
“For your leadership in this partnership, you will be personally granted a significant allocation of VOTE points. These points represent a future claim on the VICTORY Incentive Alignment Bonds and the 1% Treaty Fund you are helping to create.”
What This Does
The Executive Director’s personal wealth is now tied to treaty success.
They’re not just an employee anymore. They own a piece. Their Tesla depends on it.
This creates an incentive to drive for the larger outcome, far beyond their organization’s quarterly budget.
On The Real Prize (Or: How to Stop Begging Forever)
The performance grants and VOTE points are just the appetizer.
The real prize is never having to write a grant proposal again.
The Transformation
The model is designed to turn grant applicants into the people who give out grants.
Stop begging. Start deciding.
How It Works
A 1% Treaty Fund will act as the treasury, receiving a $27.2B annual budget.
Your decentralized institutes of health (DIH) is the “coalition of coalitions” that governs this fund. It allocates multi-billion dollar budgets to specialized sub-DAOs:
- Decentralized Institute of Mental Health
- Decentralized Institute on Aging
- Decentralized Institute of [Whatever Issue You’re Addressing]
Who Controls These Billions?
The coalition of nonprofits who made a 1% treaty happen.
You helped create it. You govern it.
The Choice
Option A: Keep competing for finite grants. Write proposals forever. Beg foundations. Hope your competitor doesn’t write a better proposal.
Option B: Join the coalition. Help pass the treaty. Collectively govern a multi-billion dollar annual treasury dedicated to the mission.
One of these options involves begging. The other involves being the person everyone begs to.
Choose wisely.
Earning a Stake: Tracking Contributions for Treasury Allocation
To ensure fairness and reward meaningful contributions, you implement a transparent system to track the value each partner brings to the coalition. A partner’s governance stake and proportional share of their sub-Institute’s budget will be influenced by their verified contributions during the treaty ratification campaign.
Key performance indicators include:
- Direct Fundraising: The total amount of funding a partner raises for the campaign through their unique referral links.
- Referendum Mobilization: The number of verified referendum votes a partner drives through their network.
- In-Kind Contributions: The value of non-monetary contributions, such as staff time, access to resources, or strategic support, is formally assessed and credited.
This “contribute-to-earn” model ensures that the most dedicated and effective partners are rewarded with the greatest influence in the new, abundance-based system they helped create.
This is the endgame. You are offering your partners the opportunity to stop being grant applicants and become the grant-makers.
Conclusion: From Partners to Owners
This dual-incentive model transforms the traditional, often inefficient, grantor-grantee relationship into a true, performance-based partnership. By offering a mathematically superior path to both organizational funding and personal wealth creation, you make supporting a 1% treaty the most logical and profitable choice for your non-profit partners and their leaders.