TIME100 Phlianthropy 2026, Anna Verghese

In October, Anna Verghese assembled 35 of the wealthiest donors on the planet for a two-and-a-half-day marathon of giving that culminated in over $1 billion for 13 nonprofits. It’s among the largest commitments by philanthropy in such a short time span. The effort was for the Audacious Project, a collaborative funding initiative housed within TED that helps to facilitate donors funding “big ideas to solve the world’s most urgent problems.”

Among the billionaires involved in the funding event were Pivotal Ventures founder Melinda French Gates, Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings and his wife Patty Quillin, and Connie Ballmer, co-founder of the Ballmer Group. Causes that won funding range from biomedical research to reducing plastic pollution in the ocean.

Since its launch in 2018, the Audacious Project has channeled more than $8 billion in multi-year, unrestricted funding for 70 projects around the globe. “This kind of collaborative philanthropy space is fledgling. It’s growing year by year,” Verghese says. “But to see more folks doing this kind of philanthropy together would be amazing.”