The Shuttleworth Foundation funds those who are not only brave enough to reimagine the future, but also brave enough to try. And we challenge ourselves to do the same.
When the goal is to create something that is beneficial for the world, rather than beneficial for the market, everything gets reconsidered. This has become our way of life. Practising philanthropy as a vision, not an intervention, means we question every rule, examine every outcome and discard any process that no longer serves our core mission. We are the long game – looking beyond today’s politics and daily headlines and the technology trends of the moment to those things that are more fundamental, more systemic. Reactionary funding is shortsighted. We are interested in ripple effects that are felt for decades. These are building blocks, not photo ops. We refuse to shortchange our future. In practice this means we have moved away from giving grants and creating arbitrary metrics for change. We no longer accept project proposals, nor do we drive ideas internally. We have moved towards partnership; towards a shared vision for how change can be effected across domains. This book will explore these ideas and how we have applied them.