Foundation-Funded Innovation Contests With Cash Prizes Attract More 'Average Joes'

Thursday, June 19, 2014
Foundation-Funded Innovation Contests With Cash Prizes Attract More 'Average Joes'
 
Government and private foundations increasingly are using prize money to allow even Average Joes to help find outside-the-box solutions to complex problems, according to a report funded in part by Bloomberg Philanthropies and The Rockefeller Foundation.
 
From a search for new technology to thwart robocallers to a bid to boost the number of college graduates living in cities, solutions to public problems are more often being sought from open contests in addition to more traditional methods, such as contracts with experts and consultants.
 
According to "The craft of incentive design," results from "citizen solvers" so far are promising, with more than 350 government and philanthropic prizes awarded since 2010. 
 
The median purse for the government prizes has jumped to about $10,000 in 2013 from about $2,000 in 2010, according to the report from Deloitte University Press, which also was funded by the Case, Joyce, Knight and Kresge foundations...