The Audacious Project, a collaborative funding initiative launched in 2018 by TED, the nonprofit devoted to "ideas worth spreading,” has announced commitments totaling $900 million in support of nine initiatives.

Grants were awarded in support of projects that provide bold solutions to the world’s most urgent challenges. Recipients include Code for America, which was awarded $64 million to help transform America’s social safety net and advance the equitable delivery of government services across the nation; the Woodwell Climate Research Center, which will receive $41 million to launch Permafrost Pathways, an initiative aimed at bringing together experts to inform and develop adaptation strategies related to climate-forced population displacement as well as mitigation strategies to address the local and global impacts of Arctic permafrost thaw; and Glasswing International, which was awarded $42 million to expand access to mental health support at the community level in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras.

Additional grants were awarded to the Center for Tech and Civic Life in support of efforts to strengthen local election administration in the United States; ClimateWorks: Drive Electric to accelerate the transition to clean transportation; the International Refugee Assistance Project to help refugees resettle safely; myAgro in support of efforts to give more than a million smallholder farmers in West Africa an easy, transparent, low-risk way to save; Noora Health to train family caregivers to provide care for their loved ones at home; and the Tenure Facility in support of efforts to assist Indigenous peoples in securing and defending 50 million hectares of forests.

“We are incredibly grateful for the support of the TED/Audacious Project community, and to those who have supported our work over the past 15 years,” said Celina de Sola, Salvadoran co-founder and president of Glasswing International. “For communities that are regularly exposed to so much violence, it is critical that frontline workers--like teachers, doctors, and law enforcement--be trained to understand and address the impacts of trauma on themselves and those they serve, and equip individuals with the tools to cope and begin to recover. We believe that communities can pave their own paths to healing with this kind of knowledge and skills.”

(Photo credit: Getty Images/Iuliia Alekseeva)