Therapeutic development is complex, best compared to capital expenditures for national infrastructural investments. Therapeutic development involves many partners. Alzheimer’s disease therapeutic development has been especially challenging. The disease course is long and slow, the biology complex and elusive, and trials are cumbersome and costly. Nonetheless, scientific understanding and approaches have reached a tipping point that warrant greater attention and investment. In this complex landscape, philanthropy is unlikely to address all challenges, but instead can play critical roles filling in where other funding sources are less suited. In this chapter, we outline four areas for philanthropic investment: therapeutic development prior to clinical testing, ensuring that diverse perspectives remain intellectual contributors to the field, providing personal perspectives to drive priorities toward patient needs, and fostering cultural change in science to promote greater collaboration. These investments are an important part of a larger ecosystem but can play an outsized role in accelerating scientific progress.