Over 1,000 analysts competed to pitch Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon and execs their philanthropic ideas—and win $650K for charity

It’s called the Analyst Impact Fund. And this year, more employees than ever faced off in the bank’s 11th event.

“Goldman Sachs is putting in the hands of our analysts the decision on where ultimately $6 billion of philanthropic grants have gone over the last 11 years,” Asahi Pompey, global head of corporate engagement and president of the Goldman Sachs Foundation, tells Fortune. 

A Frankfurt analyst team, called Every Cure, that has been using tech to move greater drug-disease cross-applications to clinical trials was just crowned the winner. 

With the $250,000 in charitable prize money, the group of four seeks to accelerate their AI-powered research and expand their team and get more approved drugs into the hands of patients. 

Meet the other tech-savvy finalists who won up to $100,000 in charitable prize money

This year’s cohort is the most technologically fluent cohort yet, Pompey says. Around 84% of analysts who participated brought AI into their pitches, including all of the finalists. 

Team Thorn—a Birmingham and London analyst team leveraging tech to combat online child sexual abuse, including threats with generative AI—came in second place, earning $100,000, plus another $25,000 in being voted the “fan favorite” by the 3,500 Goldman employees who tuned in. 

Build Change, a New York and Norwalk-based team, snagged third place and won $75,000 for strengthening disaster-resilience housing and community preparation for climate-related crises. 

In fourth came team WattTime in Bengaluru, which took home $50,000 for using tools to track electricity-related emissions and enable cleaner energy decisions. In the end, 25 teams advanced to the semifinals, each of which receiving grants of up to $10,000. 

The competition gives junior employees a chance to shape the bank’s philanthropy—but Goldman says the benefits extend beyond the grants themselves, helping analysts build skills that the bank looks for in its future leaders. 

“Our program gives analysts the opportunity to engage with complex global challenges while developing the leadership, resilience, and adaptability that will serve them throughout their careers,” Goldman’s CEO said in a press release.

Goldman says the competition builds the skills it looks for in leaders

The idea for the annual philanthropic competition emerged when two Goldman partners brainstormed ways to connect junior talent with the company’s “culture of service,” Pompey explains. 

What started out as a small competition with a few analyst teams presenting ideas to the CEO has since ballooned into one of the company’s most popular events of the year. Pompey says that there were only 1,000 analysts who participated in the program across its first three years—and in 2026, 1,063 workers across 45 Goldman offices competed in a single year. 

CEO David Solomon kicks off The Analyst Impact Fund every May by emailing analysts an invitation to participate in the competition. Employees form a small team, select a non-profit, and begin work on addressing the community challenge. Projects have ranged anywhere from disaster relief and the environment, to medical care and education. Once materials are submitted, the junior staffers are off to the races, spending months developing their proposals and working with their nonprofit partners to bring ideas to life, before getting judged. 

And the company says the benefits of the competition extend far beyond giving employees to invest in causes they care about. Through the program, workers also hone their presentation skills, collaborate across businesses, and connect face-to-face with senior executives. Pompey says that one in six partners at Goldman Sachs mentored a team, and some senior workers who have participated in the past coached the newest batch of associates. 

“This initiative means a great deal in terms of career development,” Pompey says. “The Analyst Impact Fund builds the skills that we look for in leaders: the ability to make something complex simple, the ability to lead peers with humility, the ability to know when to hold your ground and know when to yield, to know when getting the right answer is less important than asking the right questions.”