Alexandre Mars, a tech entrepreneur and venture capitalist-turned-philanthropist, is on a mission to make it easier for his fellow tech moguls to give to good causes, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.

In discussions over a number of years with global tech executives and nonprofit leaders, the forty-year-old native of Paris — who is best known for selling his instant messaging service to BlackBerry in 2013 — found that many would-be donors don't know much about or trust the charities that approach them for funding. "They have no time — they're working all the time," Mars told the Chronicle. "And they don't have the knowledge about what organizations work and which ones don't." To address that knowledge gap, Mars has created a foundation that will promote a "portfolio" of vetted organizations to potential donors, much in the same way a business courts investors for an initial public offering.

Launched in January 2015, the New York City-based Epic Foundation is focused on funding organizations working on issues that affect youth in California, New York, Brazil, East Africa, India, Southeast Asia, and Western Europe. The foundation recently unveiled the first twenty nonprofits to be included in its "portfolio," which Mars will "pitch" to tech entrepreneurs, entertainers, athletes, and corporate donors with the goal of raising $10 million. With Mars himself underwriting the foundation's $1.5 million operating costs for the first year, 100 percent of all donations will be directed to the twenty portfolio organizations.

They include Aangan, which is working to strengthen India's child protection system; M'Lop Tapang, which provides shelter, medical care, counseling, arts and education programs, and protection from abuse for street children in Cambodia; the Nyaka AIDS Orphans Project in Uganda, which takes a holistic approach to community development, education, and health care; and Turma do Bem, which provides free dental care to low-income children in Brazil. U.S. organizations on the list include San Francisco-based First Graduate, which mentors teens who are the first in their families to attend college.

Informed by a tech entrepreneur's mindset, the foundation's approach was different from that of other funders, First Graduate executive director Thomas Ahn told the Chronicle. "The questions they asked were more about how ambitious we were — not how can we deliver more programming for few dollars per kid," said Ahn. "That's unusual. That's rare to be asked that."