As far as I know small donors (in the ~$10K or below range) have traditionally not played a large role in funding new projects.
While this is not enough to contradict your point and while I agree the general process of small donor fundraising is inefficient, I think it is worth noting a single counterexample I know of—the Local Effective Altruism Network raised $65K for its 2016 chapter building initiatives entirely from donors donating under $15K each with many donors donating under $1K.
While this is not enough to contradict your point and while I agree the general process of small donor fundraising is inefficient, I think it is worth noting a single counterexample I know of—the Local Effective Altruism Network raised $65K for its 2016 chapter building initiatives entirely from donors donating under $15K each with many donors donating under $1K.