Propose your bold solution.
Thank you for participating in 100&Change.
Before starting your application, we recommend that you carefully read all the requirements provided by Lever for Change. We encourage you to review the Scoring Rubric that will be used to assess all valid applications. Applications must be submitted in English. Supporting documents (including financial documents) can be submitted in a different language. We understand that using English as the sole language for our review process may pose a challenge to those who do not speak it as their first language. However, we made this decision to ensure consistency and minimize the risk of translation errors or misinterpretations in the application process. Please note that English language proficiency is not a requirement for applying, and we welcome applicants from all over the world. We carefully selected expert reviewers from diverse backgrounds to provide a global perspective. Thank you for your accommodation and understanding. We encourage everyone to apply regardless of their language background.
The deadline for submitting your application is 5:00 PM U.S. Central Time on Thursday, September 5, 2024.
Kindly take note that if your project progresses through different stages of the challenge, it will be evaluated by no less than five fellow applicants during Participatory Review and no less than five Wise Heads, as well as 100&Change stakeholders and challenge administrators. Your application may be shared online and with other evaluators. To get a better idea of what information may be displayed, you can visit the Bold Solutions Network and view previous initiatives.
Make a powerful first impression by providing a concise and captivating summary of your project. Avoid using technical terms, acronyms, or complex language that may be difficult for the general public to comprehend. Keep in mind that this section will be publicly accessible online and will be reviewed by applicants during Participatory Review and by Wise Heads of 100&Change.
Provide a descriptive title for your project that sets it apart from other projects. This will make it easy for others to identify and understand your solution.
Provide a brief and simple description of your project using language that can be easily understood by individuals without specific/relevant expertise. Avoid using any technical terms or abbreviations.
For example: “Civic Revolution will develop a force of 100 million diverse citizens who consistently share news, policy, and voting information with friends and family, increasing voter participation and pressure for democracy reforms.”
Write an overview of your project that answers the following questions:
Your Executive Summary should be clear and concise, able to stand on its own, and convey your project's problem and solution to anyone who reads it. This summary will be used to introduce your project to readers, including applicants (during Participatory Review), Wise Heads, potential donors, and the general public. It should be accessible to a non-technical audience and avoid the use of jargon, abbreviations, and first-person language whenever possible.
As part of the project submission requirements, you need to provide a video that showcases your work and describes why it deserves support. This is a chance for you to demonstrate your enthusiasm and concisely present your story. We aim to give you an opportunity to express your vision to the reviewers in a unique way, not limited to the traditional written proposal format. This does not need to be a professionally produced video – a video shot on a smartphone is acceptable.
To successfully submit this portion of your application, your team must upload a short digital video using YouTube. Please ensure that the Privacy Settings on your video are either Public or Unlisted – do not set them to Private. Your video will be reviewed by applicants during Participatory Review and by Wise Heads of 100&Change.
When you submit your video, please keep in mind that it may be shared with the public and other donors. Therefore, it's important to create content that appeals to a wide audience. Video submissions should follow these guidelines to ensure your registration remains eligible. Failure to comply may result in disqualification.
Here are general suggestions for delivering a high-quality video pitch:
Examples of videos from past challenges can be found here. Additional technical guidance on creating and captioning videos can be found on our Video Supports page.
Previously, you provided a brief overview of your organization. Now we kindly request you to highlight the experience and management of your team. This section will be viewed by applicants during Participatory Review and by Wise Heads of 100&Change.
During the registration process, you identified the Lead Organization responsible for receiving and taking accountability for any grant funds, as well as providing the direction, control, and supervision for the project. If the Lead Organization has changed, please Edit Registration from the Profile menu to update this information.
Please share the URL of the website or social media page of choice for the Lead Organization. If your Lead Organization does not have a website or social media page, please enter “Not Applicable.”
Please share a URL for your project website or social media page, if applicable. Please note that having either of these is not a requirement for 100&Change and will not affect your eligibility. If you have not created a project website or social media page, please enter "Not Applicable."
Please select one primary area of expertise for the Lead Organization. You may start typing in a subject area to narrow your search from this list.
Does your team consist of two or more organizations?
If your team consists of two or more organizations, please list them using the legal name of each partner and share the website and contact info for each partner organization. If your team does not consist of two or more organizations, please enter “Not Applicable.” If your team includes more than five partners, you can use the Case for Partnership or Why Your Team sections to list additional partners.
Enter partner organization name or “Not Applicable.” NOTE: A response to this question is required.
For the partner organization, enter location (country), website, contact first and last name, and contact email, or “Not Applicable.” NOTE: A response to this question is required.
If your team consists of two or more organizations, all of the partners working within a formal collaboration must execute a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) in which one organization clearly has control and discretion over the use of the grant funds. Learn more about MOUs by watching this webinar on Common Legal Challenges for applicants. For additional guidance, read the Requirements Regarding Any Proposed Collaboration.
A fully-executed MOU that controls the relationships among the parties must be uploaded. You must upload a single PDF file that does not exceed 10MB.
If your team does not consist of two or more organizations, please select “Not Applicable.”
If your team consists of two or more organizations and has executed an MOU, present a clear case as to why it is important to collaborate and why you believe this will be an effective collaboration. Have the entities successfully collaborated in the past? What can the two or more organizations accomplish together that they couldn’t accomplish alone? Explain how the partnership is positioned to deliver the solution as an integrated team.
If your team does not consist of two or more organizations, please enter “Not Applicable.”
Please provide a description of your team's leadership, members, and any collaborators or partners involved in your project. If applicable, explain the reasons behind the collaboration and how it was formed. Highlight how your team's unique positioning enables you to deliver results and why you are the optimal choice for solving this problem. Emphasize your team's relevant experience, skills, and dedication to successfully executing the project.
Kindly provide the first and last names of the top three project managers, along with the name of their affiliated organization and a brief biographical statement of up to 100 words. The statement should highlight the manager's title, relevant credentials, and experiences that contribute to the project's success.
In this section, you have the chance to elaborate on the challenge you aim to address and demonstrate your understanding of the nuances that have informed your strategy. This section will be viewed by applicants during Participatory Review and by Wise Heads of 100&Change.
Explain the problems/challenges that your solution aims to address, using non-expert language. Focus on providing context for the problem instead of discussing how you plan to solve it.
This section enables you to elaborate on your proposed solution to the issue you've identified. This section will be viewed by applicants during Participatory Review and by Wise Heads of 100&Change.
Select the option that best describes the stage of your solution. Please keep in mind that start-up/early-stage organizations with a new idea or approach may not be competitive in 100&Change.
Using non-expert language, address the following questions:
If your solution requires a technical, scientific, medical, or engineering process, then provide an explanation of your solution. Describe how it involves a technical, scientific, medical, or engineering process. Use this space to offer more detail for your specific technical approach that was not suitable for a non-expert audience. If necessary, you may cite academic literature or papers in this section by placing a bracketed number [#] next to each citation that you will later reference in your Bibliography.
If your solution does not require a technical, scientific, medical, or engineering process, please enter “Not Applicable.”
Select your priority population(s) as the primary target for your solution. While not all projects directly serve human populations, applicants should be able to identify a target population that will be served by the project (including advocacy or environmental projects where human populations may be indirectly served). You must select at least one priority population as your primary target, and you are welcome to provide up to three.
Compelling proposals will fully demonstrate a commitment to the values of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Not only do we expect teams to be thoughtful about working with a range of populations, but we also expect teams to think carefully about how to actively plan for and include people who have been marginalized from within those populations in solution design, program planning, and ongoing work. Explain how you will ensure or have ensured that the design and implementation of your solution authentically embrace diversity, equity, and inclusion, including persons with disabilities, religious or ethnic minorities, people of color, native/Indigenous peoples, women, gender identity and sexual orientation. Provide additional details on how you will provide opportunities and reasonable accommodations for those populations to either engage with and/or benefit from your solution, including staff, advisors, partners, et al.
How will you provide opportunities and reasonable accommodations for persons with disabilities to actively participate and/or benefit from your solution, including as staff, advisors, partners, consultants, etc.?
State your project’s theory of change and the underlying evidence that supports the results you want to achieve. Emphasize the methodologies that you intend to employ and how they create a causal link to your shorter-term, intermediate, and longer-term goals. As you develop your response, consider these Theory of Change resources.
Describe any barriers to the short- and long-term success of the project and your plans to mitigate them. Barriers can include problems inhibiting solution scalability, political or public policy concerns, or any other potential operational or tactical hurdles that may hinder your solution’s success. What are the most threatening barriers? How are you prepared to address them?
Select the primary subject area of the solution that you and your team are proposing. We understand a solution could fall under more than one subject area. You may select a secondary subject area in the following question and describe other subject areas in responses to Executive Summary, Challenge Statement or Solution Overview.
Select the secondary subject area of the solution that you and your team are proposing.
Where are you currently implementing your solution? Select up to five locations that apply. If your work is national or regional, please select locations that best represent the work your organization does. If you are not currently implementing your project, you may select NOT CURRENTLY IMPLEMENTING SOLUTION.
State / Province
For U.S. only. For all other countries, select “Not applicable.”
Where do you plan to implement your solution if awarded this grant? Select at least one and up to five locations that apply (only one location is required). These locations may or may not be the same as the locations where you are currently implementing your solution.
State / Province
For U.S. only. For all other countries, select “Not applicable.”
The United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are considered by many donors when looking to support both domestic and international work. Select one to three of the SDGs that align(s) with your solution. To learn more about each SDGs and/or to understand better where your work fits into the SDG framework you can read more here. Please select no more than three SDGs. If not applicable, please select “Not Applicable.”
Provide a list of up to 5 keywords or phrases that can best be used to describe your project [e.g., social enterprise, vocation, internship, training]. Choose keywords that capture the essence of your project and its intended outcomes. The keywords should be different from the selected “primary subject area.”
This section provides the opportunity for you to provide evidence that supports your solution.
What evidence do you have, or why do you believe that the solution you propose will work? Present any internal evidence or formal academic evidence. You may cite academic literature or papers in this section by placing a bracketed number [#] next to each citation that you will later reference in your Bibliography.
What kind of data do you collect and/or will you collect to measure success? Which best describe the kind of evidence you currently have or will have to show that your solution works? Select all that apply.
As you develop your responses, review our Guidance for Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning for context. The MacArthur Foundation values monitoring, evaluation, and learning activities that are capable of flexing as the context may change and as the work evolves, yet sufficiently rigorous to document and measure results, learn from them, course correct, and adapt, as necessary.
Briefly describe what you expect to learn over the course of implementing your solution and how you plan to learn it. This is the first step toward developing a more comprehensive Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning plan. Your response should address:
Describe your plan for scaling your solution and its benefits. Scale may mean expanding to new populations or geographies, or it may mean how you intend to amplify your impact more deeply in one geography or population or context. If appropriate, explain whether and how you will need to tailor and adapt your solution for scaling and/or amplifying impact. What is the evidence, or why do you believe your results can be replicated? As you prepare your response, read Scaling-Up: Tools & Techniques for Practitioners.
Describe the durability of your solution. Does your solution expect to solve the problem in five years or create a pathway to solving the problem over a longer time horizon?
If you included citations [#s] in the Technical Explanation section above and/or in the Evidence of Effectiveness section above, provide your bibliography here with a corresponding bracketed number [#] for each citation. If you did not use citations, offer a list of resources that may be used to validate general claims made in your application. Please link to any articles that may be accessed online, even if behind a paywall.
Explain your project plans and the related costs to implement your solution.
Project Phases
Divide your project into three phases over a five-year grant period. For each of your three phases, provide a name, the total duration in months, and a brief description. As part of your description, explain the milestones that you intend to measure and any key activities critical to reaching those milestones to know if you are successful or on track to be successful during the prescribed duration. This could be a plan for achieving full impact, if your solution can be completed in a five-year grant period, or this could be a plan to show your interim results toward achieving longer-term impact over more than five years. Your description of each phase will be used later to compare any details for achieving milestones against the financial details of your project.
PHASE 1 Name
PHASE 1 Duration (number of months)
PHASE 1 Description
PHASE 2 Name
PHASE 2 Duration (number of months)
PHASE 2 Description
PHASE 3 NAME
PHASE 3 Duration (number of months)
PHASE 3 Description
Will the total projected costs exceed $100 million (USD)? Your budget must be a minimum of $100 million to be considered. If your total projected costs exceed $100 million (USD), then explain how you have secured (or plan to secure) the balance of any necessary funds. You may find these financial sustainability resources helpful.
If your total projected costs do not exceed $100 million (USD), please enter “Does not require more than $100 million.”
Please provide the following information for at least three and up to five of the top funders of your organization over the last three years. For each funder, provide the legal name of the entity responsible for funding your organization. Provide the period of funding (in months to date) for the funding. Last, provide the amount of funding within the prescribed period.
If your project has not received any support from other funders, please enter “Not Applicable” under Funder #1.
FUNDER #1 Legal Name
FUNDER #1 First Year of Funding
FUNDER #1 Last Year of Funding
FUNDER #1 Amount of Funding (total dollar amount in USD)
Offer a broad and narrative description of your budget needs for the $100 million (USD) grant. As you draft this narrative, map your costs against each of your three defined phases. Here are general guidelines for writing your Budget Narrative:
As you link descriptions of your budget needs to the three phases that you have previously described, a reviewer should be able to read your description of the phases and key results and understand how your budget relates to the milestones that you are planning to achieve.
Based on the three phases that you have described, provide a detailed breakdown of total costs for each phase. Cost categories for each phase should include, but not be limited to, descriptions that you’ve already explained in more detail as part of your Budget Narrative. You are encouraged also to include any more detailed cost categories that support a more thorough description of your total costs. Use this opportunity to reflect and clarify any general explanations provided in your Budget Narrative and elsewhere in your application. As you describe each line item for each phase, avoid terms that are ambiguous or vague (e.g., miscellaneous). Instead, offer descriptions of costs which directly correlate to your previous explanations of the project. A reader should be able to review your detailed budget and understand how the pieces fit together.
The sum of all costs for all phases must total $100 million (USD) for proposals to be eligible.
How do you plan to operate and sustain the impact of your project over time? Given the time-limited, one-time nature of this support, how would you handle staffing up and then staffing back down as the project concludes? If your plan requires additional resources in the future, above and beyond the $100 million (USD) budget, to be sustainable, describe the most likely pathway for securing any additional and ongoing support. If you believe your plan will NOT require additional financial resources to be sustainable, explain why.
This is your opportunity to describe your need for any non-financial resources, to achieve the goals articulated in you plan.
The following information is required to ensure your compliance with specific legal conditions, which are further explained in the Rules.
What is the charitable purpose of your project? Describe how the public or a subset, which is a charitable class, will benefit from your project. A charitable class must generally be an indefinite number of individuals who are the subject of the charitable purpose and not a limited number of specified individuals. For example, the class can be needy persons within a disadvantaged community but not a specified person in the community, even if the person is disadvantaged. There can be a comparatively small number of individuals, if the individuals are not identified and the class is open-ended. Learn more about Charitable Purpose by watching this webinar on Common Legal Challenges for applicants.
Will private interests (such as shareholders, for-profit companies, contractors, consultants, or other individuals) benefit more than incidentally from the project as compared to the public or charitable benefit?
If your project will trigger any private benefit to one or more individuals, provide an explanation of how the public benefit cannot be achieved without necessarily benefiting those individuals and to what degree any private benefit compares to public benefit. It is insufficient to say that benefits gained will be due to all of humanity benefitting. Learn more about private benefits by watching this webinar on Common Legal Challenges for applicants and by reading our Private Benefit Rules.
If your project will not benefit any private interests, provide an explanation of your response.
Does your project involve any efforts to affect public policy through changes in existing legislation or the enactment of new legislation, and does your project require lobbying activities with respect to a specific legislative proposal? Refer to our Lobbying Policy for clarification.
If your project does involve any lobbying activities, then explain how these lobbying activities comply with the Lobbying Policy.
If your project does not involve any lobbying activities, please enter “Not Applicable.”
Should your application be selected as a Finalist, you will be asked to describe any specific research that involves human subjects. You will be asked to Include in your response evidence of specific plans and the support mechanisms required to safeguard the rights and welfare of those human subjects. Refer to our Human Subjects Research Policy for clarification.
Does your project require any research that would involve human subjects?
Should your application be selected as a Finalist, you will be asked to describe how you intend to treat such intellectual property to comply with the Rules. If your project relies on existing specific technology, products, ideas, or processes on which there are existing claims of copyright or patent right, review our Intellectual Property Policy, which describes the treatment of Grant Work Product (as defined therein) funded by the MacArthur Foundation.
Does your project involve the creation or use of any technology or other products, ideas, or processes on which copyright will be asserted or patents claimed?
In this section, we ask you to provide some additional information about the Lead Organization. Before answering, use the Organizational Readiness Tool to understand your ability to be competitive according to the size of your annual operating budget.
The Lead Organization must be incorporated in an appropriate jurisdiction. Typically, an identifying number is provided upon incorporation. Select the Country and Identification Type of number that the Lead Organization has been provided.
Based on your selection above, enter the associated identification number for the Lead Organization. Any identification number that you provide will be used to link your application to other key data that is publicly available for the associated organization.
If you selected OTHER and your country does not provide an identification type of number, please enter “Not Applicable.”
What is the annual operating budget in United States Dollars (USD) of the Lead Organization? If the Lead Organization is a program, center, or department within a larger institution (e.g., college or university), please indicate the annual operating budget that the specific program, center, or department has at its disposal.
How many full-time employees does the Lead Organization employ? If the Lead Organization is a program, center, or department within a larger institution (e.g., college or university), please indicate the number of full-time employees that the specific program, center, or department employs. The following categories are standard across Lever for Change initiatives.
Does at least half of your organization’s leadership (e.g., leader and leadership team or leadership decision-making body) reflect the community you serve in any of the following respects?
We require information necessary to understand the financial health of the Lead Organization. Upload audited financial reports from the past three (3) years for the Lead Organization.
Financial Records will not be shared during the participatory review process. However, financial information is important to assessing your financial health and potential to receive a $100 million (USD) grant from the MacArthur Foundation. Financial records may be shared with the following persons: MacArthur staff and directors, financial, technical and other experts assisting MacArthur with the assessment of applications, persons assisting with administrative reviews, and other consultants retained by MacArthur in connection with the competition.
You may submit the three years of audited financial records in any standard format. You must upload a single PDF file that does not exceed 10MB. NOTE: Audited financials can be submitted in a different language, if necessary.
If your team is invited to participate in any future phases of this competition, you may be required to provide additional information (refer to the Rules and Timeline), including but not limited to:
The MacArthur Foundation reserves the right to perform background checks on key individuals associated with the project, and the refusal by the key individuals to provide necessary authorizations will be a reason to reject any application for further consideration. Background information and the results of any background checks will be kept confidential.
