What it is
Every one of the Open Problems of Charitology states what would count as progress. Question Bounties would put a cash prize on that test. Whoever produces a result that meets it, wherever they are, would win.
Prizes for hard questions have a track record. In 2000 the Clay Mathematics Institute put a $1 million prize on each of seven unsolved problems in mathematics. One of them, the Poincaré conjecture, has since been solved.
How it works
Each prize would be attached to one open problem. Its size would depend on how much the answer could change where money goes, which is the question Open Problem 23, the Question of Questions, asks. Rules would be published before any prize opens: who judges, what evidence counts, how partial results are rewarded and how disputes are settled. Winning work would be published openly so the whole field can use it.
Today every open problem says the same thing about its prize: unfunded. Prize money needs a legal home, either a legal entity or a fiscal sponsor, and judges with no stake in the outcome. Until those exist, the program accepts no money.
Why it matters for the system
The Missing Profession hypothesis asks whether a shared craft could help coordinate work on questions that cross fields. A prize pays for answers rather than positions, so a graduate student, a retired statistician or a team in another country can work on a question without first finding an employer. Many of the open problems are measurement problems, so prizes also put money into the Measurement Gap, which the program proposes to help close.
Risks and limits
Prizes reward people who can afford to work before they are paid, and they can pull effort toward questions that are easy to judge. The program would reward partial results and pair prizes with the Charitology Fellowship, so the work isn’t limited to people with spare time and money.
What success looks like
Within five years of funding, at least three prizes have been awarded, at least one of them for a partial result, and the winning work has changed how some money is given.