The Audacious Project, a collaborative funding initiative launched in 2018 by TED, the nonprofit devoted to “ideas worth spreading,” has announced commitments totaling more than $1 billion in support of its 2023 cohort.

Grants were awarded to 10 initiatives designed to drive impact on a grand scale. Recipients include the Restore Local project led by the World Resources Institute, which was awarded $100 million over four years to accelerate landscape restoration in Africa that will reinvigorate ecosystems and community livelihoods through locally led initiatives; Think of Us, which will receive $47.5 million to accelerate the transformation of the child welfare system by leveraging data and technology and centering the lived experience of those impacted by the system; and Canopy, which was awarded $60 million to scale the use of next-generation pulp in key supply chains to conserve endangered forests.

Additional recipients include CAMFED, which will help girls in sub-Saharan Africa thrive in school and beyond; the Clean Slate Initiative, which was awarded $75 million to enact a 50-state strategy to clear arrest and conviction records and unlock opportunity; Global Fishing Watch, which will work to leverage the power of data to safeguard the ocean by calling attention to unwitnessed fishing activities; Innovative Genomics Institute, which will engineer microbiomes with CRISPR to improve the world’s climate and health; Jan Sahas’ Migrants Resilience Collaborative, which aims to unlock life-enhancing benefits and services for India’s domestic migrant workers; ReNew2030, which will work to accelerate renewable energy for a climate-secure future; and Upstream USA, which will increase equitable access to high-quality contraceptive care across the United States.

“We started the Audacious Project five years ago as an experiment to see what could happen when we invite changemakers around the world to dream as big as they dare, and then shape their boldest ideas into viable plans,” said Chris Anderson, head of TED. “It’s absolutely thrilling to see this much money raised for these projects. I’m in awe of the teams behind them—and of the donors who are funding them. Our experiment is gaining traction, and we believe it can achieve even more in the coming years.”

(Photo credit: Getty Images/Armand Burger)