Our Vision of Talent
We believe talent is more than a checklist of achievements or a spark of creativity that fits neatly into existing molds.
The talents we seek to cultivate are the ones that often go unseen or undervalued in a world obsessed with efficiency, metrics, and immediate returns.
Our Investment Philosophy
We're investing in people who combine intellectual rigor with spiritual depth and creativity, at the intersection of Athens, Jerusalem, and Silicon Valley.
Many frameworks for identifying talent focus on disruptive potential or competitive edge. We invest in people who show spiritual seriousness, moral imagination, and the courage to pursue the good over the merely expedient.
We are in it for the long-term.
What We Fund
- •People who are doing small, specific, spiritually meaningful work.
- •Individuals, friends, and small groups working on solving discrete cultural problems, or finding new opportunities to create vertical (spiritual) value.
- •People as young as 13, if they have a fiscal sponsor.
- •Work that is specific, service-minded, and hard to categorize.
- •Hospitality-related missions that are responding to a clear human or cultural need.
- •Anti-mimetic ideas and action.
What We Don't Fund
- •Individual development assistance (e.g., tuition, continuing education, financial support, emergency aid, etc.)
- •With rare exceptions, start-up funds for larger projects
- •Scholarships
- •Events (e.g., fundraisers, conferences, workshops)
- •Art projects, startup businesses (bookstores, etc)
- •Travel
Grant Recipients
August Lamm
2025August is a writer and artist from New Haven, CT. Her essays have appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, and The Free Press. She has spoken about the low-tech movement on NBC and NPR, and is the author of two non-fiction books: a drawing guide (Octopus 2022) and a technocritical book, forthcoming from Vintage. She was a 2024 MacDowell fellow in fiction writing, and her debut novel Lambing Season will be published in 2026.
The Center for Archaic Networks is dedicated to the research and revival of human networks predating social media. Projects include a print magazine, a series of booklets tracing the history of human networks, and an offline community center in New York, which will feature this century's first screen-free co-working space.
Thomas de Monchaux
2025Thomas Demonchaux is an architect and an award-winning architecture critic. His writing about design has appeared in The New Yorker and The New York Times, and in such journals as Log and n+1. He is an Assistant Professor of Architecture at Columbia University. His most recent book, with architect Deborah Berke, is Transform: Promising Places, Second Chances, and the Architecture of Transformational Change.
His “Envisioning Cluny” grant sent him to Harvard to report on an exhibit showcasing the historical Cluny Abbey, and the architectural historian Kenneth Conan.
Sisters of the Little Way
2025The Sisters of the Little Way of Beauty, Truth, and Goodness are a private association of the faithful intending to become a religious institute. As religious sisters and consecrated women, they live a mission of listening, healing, and reparation in solidarity with people on the fringes of the Church, especially those who have been wounded, scandalized, or abused by members of the Church.
Apply
If you are someone who embodies these principles, we want to hear from you. We're looking for thinkers, builders, creators, and caretakers who understand that talent is not merely a possession but a vocation.