Request for Proposals: Incubation

We are excited to announce a new Request for Proposals (RFP) for impact-oriented incubators: organizations that identify promising ideas for new high-impact organizations, recruit and train the founders to run them, and support those organizations through their launch and first years. We define ‘incubator’ broadly — we are also looking to fund accelerator organizations which do not launch new ideas but help existing impact-focused organizations to scale effectively. We are specifically interested in incubators and accelerators that support highly cost-effective organizations working on Coefficient Giving’s priority areas, such as global health and wellbeing, high-impact policy, farm animal welfare, and reducing global catastrophic risks. Through this RFP, we aim to scale the strongest existing incubators and accelerators and help launch new ones.

At a glance

• Who can apply: Existing incubators and accelerators (Stream 1), and individuals or teams starting new ones (Stream 2).
• Funding: We expect to fund both existing incubators, and at least one new incubator, likely with two- to three-year grants.
• How to apply: Complete a Stage 1 application, designed to take about two to three hours, by December 18, 2026.

What we mean by ‘incubator’

An incubator takes a new organization from idea to launch. The strongest incubators we know of do four things well:

1. Support and launch cost-effective ideas. They launch organizations around promising interventions, whether researched in-house or drawn from vetted sources. To the latter point, we’ve included a list of organizations we’d like to exist below.
2. Select founders. They run rigorous recruitment to find people with the drive and judgment to build an impactful organization from scratch.
3. Train and support. They teach founders how to plan, measure cost-effectiveness, fundraise, and operate, and they stay involved after launch through mentorship, operational help, and network effects.
4. Help secure early funding. They connect newly launched organizations with seed funding so good ideas can be put into action immediately.

We use “incubator” broadly. Studios, accelerators, fellowships, and venture-style programs that launch or grow high-impact organizations are all welcome to apply, even if they do not do all four of the above.

Why we are excited to fund incubators

We think the world is short of thousands of philanthropic startups and the talent to run them.

Incubators help close that gap. We believe new organizations are one of the highest-leverage ways to prepare for the billions of dollars in new philanthropic capital that may become available in the coming years. Good incubators turn well-researched ideas into well-run organizations, and do so repeatedly. The best have launched many highly cost-effective organizations using the same model year over year. For example, AIM’s Charity Entrepreneurship program has launched dozens of effective charities, including LEEP, which works with governments to eliminate childhood lead exposure, and Fortify Health, which fortifies wheat flour with iron in India.

What we hope to achieve

Incubation is a central focus of our Effective Giving & Careers program over the next year. Through this RFP, we hope to:

• Scale incubators with a strong track record so they can launch more organizations.
• Help launch one or more new incubators, especially in geographies or cause areas where the model is underused.
• Share the specific organizations our program teams would like to see exist, motivating incubators to build cohorts around them.
• Discover incubators and would-be incubator founders we are not yet aware of.
• Better understand funding needs and gaps across the incubation space.

The scale of ambition

We care more about launching a few breakout organizations than many average ones. A breakout organization is one that becomes highly cost-effective at scale and results in outsized improvements to the world, often doing orders of magnitude more good per dollar than a typical organization in its field.

Cost-effectiveness is a top consideration. In practice, the most cost-effective proposals tend to score well on our importance, neglectedness and tractability (ITN) framework:

• Importance: How large are the problems that incubated organizations would address?
• Tractability: Is there evidence for the interventions they would run and a credible plan to deliver them?
• Neglectedness: How likely is it that these organizations would exist without incubation, and how underfunded are their areas relative to their importance?

Two funding streams

Applicants are invited to apply to one of two streams. If you are unsure which is the better fit, use your best judgement and include additional detail as necessary; we may consider you for either stream.

Stream 1: Scaling existing incubators

This stream is for incubators, studios, and accelerators that have already launched organizations and want to scale. We are especially interested in incubators that could run a cohort dedicated to one or more of the priorities our program teams list below. Funding could support:

• Running an additional or larger cohort.
• Expanding into a new cause area or geography.
• Running an accelerator cohort that helps young organizations grow and get ready for more funding.
• Strengthening core functions such as cause prioritization research, founder recruitment, or post-launch support.
• Offering seed grants to newly launched organizations, so they can start work right away.

Stream 2: Seeding new incubators

This stream is for individuals or teams who want to start a new incubator.

We are particularly excited about new incubators in geographies where many high-impact organizations could operate but few incubators exist. In these regions, we strongly prefer incubators that are headquartered in the country where work will take place and predominantly staffed by locals. We are open to other geographies and to specialized incubators that focus on a single cause area or type of organization. We’re looking for people who have founded or run a high-impact organization, are familiar with the geography or cause area they’re proposing, have a clear plan for finding ideas and founders, and can commit full-time for several years. We welcome applications from existing organizations that want to spin up a new incubation arm.

Know someone who should start an incubator? Please tell us using this referral form.

Eligibility

Any organization or team that launches (or plans to launch) new high-impact organizations can apply, including nonprofits, venture studios, fellowships, and individuals or teams. Incubated organizations should work in areas aligned with Coefficient Giving’s strategic priorities, such as global health, global aid policy, economic growth, scientific progress, farm animal welfare, and global catastrophic risks.

Organizations our program teams want to see incubated

Program teams across Coefficient Giving have identified specific organizations they would like to exist. We share them here as a starting point, but you do not need to choose from these areas to apply. We expect, and hope for, many strong applications to focus on other ideas.

If you’re excited to take on any of the ideas below, tell us which ones and how. If you are proposing your own ideas, explain why the organizations you would launch are high-priority.

Global aid policy and effectiveness

• Policy and advocacy organizations that push for more cost-effective aid, whether focused on US aid, multilateral development banks, or European donors. We are particularly interested in:
  • More sophisticated “think and do tanks” that develop practical, “off-the-shelf” policy proposals that save decision-makers time, identify and engage key actors at each stage of the decision-making process, and tailor messages strategically to different audiences
  • Organizations that credibly develop and/or advocate for a positive right-of-center vision of aid in any of our markets
  • In Europe, we are interested in organizations that work in an individual market (Germany, the UK, and Sweden are priorities, though we are open to considering others), across multiple European markets, and/or that address the European Commission
  • Organizations that strategically use c4 funding (which we can and are excited to fund)
• An independent group that assesses how cost-effectively the largest global health and development funding platforms spend resources, and recommends reforms
  • A “benchmarking” org that rank-orders the ~20 big global health platforms (Global Fund, Gavi, IDA, MDBs, etc.) on their ability to spend money cost-effectively, and tells each what it would need to do to score higher, i.e. a group producing EA/CGD-style reform recommendations per platform (outcome-based goals, allocation formulas, procurement, M&E, and horizon-scanning).
• Policy and programming advice for European and US donor governments on how to approach AI in development, including how to support developing-country governments’ AI policy

Economic growth in LMICs (including AI and development)

• Independent think tanks working on economic growth policy for large, poorer Indian states (contingent on FCRA registration)
• A growth think tank in Nigeria that combines rigorous policy analysis with access to decision-makers
• New think tanks researching how advanced AI could affect economic growth and tax policy in LMICs, including which countries are most exposed and how they should respond, ideally with strong ties to the relevant government bodies
• Organizations focused on finding and pursuing the most cost-effective ways to expand internet access in Sub-Saharan Africa
• Forecasting and early-warning efforts that track how fast advanced AI is changing jobs, growth, and public finances in LMICs

Science, health R&D, and regulation

• Research that looks ahead at emerging technologies and how US regulation could adapt to them
• Work that turns ideas for faster drug development into regulatory guidance regulators could adopt
• Patient advocacy for faster, more efficient clinical trials across all diseases
• Organizations that help regulators, health technology assessment bodies, and procurement systems in LMICs prepare for a much faster flow of new treatments
• Work to cut administrative burden on scientists and speed up federal grant review
• Groups strengthening research integrity through replication and fraud detection, including AI-enabled tools

Lead exposure

• Organizations that intervene on specific lead-acid battery use cases (e.g. battery-swap-and-recycle services for e-rickshaws, particularly in South Asia, or exploring interventions for off-grid solar in Africa), complementing policy-level work.
• Work that rapidly increases the enforcement capacity of regulators in countries with existing but underenforced lead limits (including India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nigeria).

Air quality

• Organizations that work to eliminate open waste burning in a specific high-burden city by fixing the municipal failures behind it (collection gaps, dumpsite fires), with measured outcomes and a playbook meant to be replicated
  • Preferred geographies include India (contingent on FCRA registration), Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Vietnam, Nigeria, Kenya, and South Africa
• Organizations that work to cut emissions from a specific small-industry cluster (re-rolling, foundries, sponge iron, brick kilns, lead smelting) by making tried-and-tested technology upgrades happen: demonstrate them, get them financed through the cluster association/government, and work with the regulator to position upgrades as the alternative to shutting the cluster down.
  • Preferred geographies include India (contingent on FCRA registration), Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Vietnam, Nigeria, Kenya, and South Africa

Abundance and growth (US / Europe)

• An organization that drives down the cost of building major U.S. transportation infrastructure toward international benchmarks
• An organization that turns permitting and transmission reforms into infrastructure actually built
• Groups accelerating the deployment of abundant, affordable energy, including geothermal and batteries
• An organization that helps government reduce the procedural barriers that make agencies slow
• Work to increase the supply of doctors and nurses (e.g. scope-of-practice, residency slots, licensing) to lower the cost of care
• Groups that make it easier for highly skilled people to live and work where they’re most productive

Meta / field-building

• Programs that build skills and capacity among people in positions of leverage, such as government officials in low- and middle-income countries or small teams at agencies like WHO
• Organizations that grow and professionalize the Abundance and Progress Studies communities (e.g. talent pipelines, convenings, and state/local chapters)
• New think tanks and advocacy groups building the abundance policy ecosystem in Europe

Funding amount and grant structure

We expect grant sizes to vary widely, and we don’t want applicants to anchor on a single number. Our past incubation grants have ranged from $20,000 to $7.5 million, the largest being a three-year grant to scale an established incubator. We expect most grants under this RFP to last two to three years. Grants to new incubators typically cover the core team, initial research, founder recruitment, program delivery, and the potential for seed grants for the first cohort if needed. Scaling grants typically cover additional or dedicated cohorts, core functions, and pass-through seed grants.

In your application, you will be asked to share and justify your budget. We rely heavily on cost-effectiveness when making decisions, so we are looking for clear explanations of what each line item buys and how many organizations you expect to launch.

If your incubator is not yet incorporated, we encourage you to decide early whether you plan to incorporate a new entity or work with a fiscal sponsor, as this can significantly affect how quickly we’re able to disburse funds. Please include any associated costs, such as fiscal sponsorship fees and legal costs, in your requested budget. We can share a list of fiscal sponsors on request.

Selection criteria and evaluation process

We expect to consider the following factors in our assessment:

• Cost-effectiveness. Our assessment of the impact the organizations you launch would have, relative to the costs, including whether those organizations would have existed absent your proposed incubator.
• Team. Your team’s experience, judgment, and fit for the work. This carries the most weight for Stream 2, where there is no track record to assess.
• Track record (if applicable). How many organizations you have launched, how they performed, and how you measure success.
• Idea generation. How you identify and vet ideas, including whether your proposed incubator has a research function and how you incorporate existing research to inform your priorities and your explanation as to why these are the highest-priority organizations to launch.
• Founder selection and support. How rigorously you select founders, and how you support them before and after launch.
• Fit with our priorities. Alignment with our program teams’ priorities, or a strong case for important gaps we haven’t listed.
• Scalability and growth potential. How the incubator could grow over time, especially for Stream 2.
• Seed funding plan. How the organizations you launch will secure their first funding.

How to apply

We use a two-stage process.

Stage 1: Short application. Complete this application, which should take about two to three hours. It asks for:

• Basic information about you and your proposed organization, including which stream you are applying to.
• A summary of what you do, or plan to do, and what funding from Coefficient Giving would enable.
• How you choose ideas, and 3–5 specific organizations you would launch during the grant period.
• How you expect to find and select founders.
• CVs or LinkedIn profiles for your core team, and why you are the right people for your proposed project.
• A rough budget: Grant duration, requested amount, what it would pay for, other funders, and how many organizations you expect to launch.
• Stream 1 only: Your track record in numbers, and the 2–3 strongest organizations you expect to launch.
• Stream 2 only: Your current stage, and why this incubator needs to exist (~150 words).

Word counts are guides and bullet points are fine. Concrete numbers and honest uncertainty are more useful to us than polished prose. You can preview all application questions here.

Stage 2: Full proposal. We will invite shortlisted applicants to submit a longer proposal tailored to their stream and the ideas they proposed. Requests will differ from project to project, but we’ll likely ask for more detail on your portfolio of launched organizations, cost-effectiveness and counterfactual estimates, your seed funding plan, and, if relevant, a detailed plan for incubating ideas from our program teams’ list. We may also ask for an interview.

We will screen out applications that are unrelated to this RFP or appear to be largely AI-generated. With your permission, we may share your application with other funders who might want to support your work; you can opt out in the form. Due to the number of applications we expect, we can’t provide individual feedback to applicants.

Rough timeline

• Applications: November 9 to December 18, 2026 (11:59 pm PT).
• Assessment: January–March 2027.
• Grant decisions: Expected by the end of April 2027.

Due to limited capacity, we won’t be responding to questions about individual applications, except for urgent logistical issues. Please use the FAQ and your best judgment, and flag any uncertainties in the application itself—we’ll follow up if needed. We will not be fielding any questions beyond December 10th.