Setting up a non-profit is not that difficult[1], especially if you're doing educational work vs say politics or NGO type work. You start with a "regular" LLC company, and then ask the IRS to certify it as a non-profit. An attorney that has done this before can probably set it up for $10 - $15K, less if they give you the friends and family rate. You could make it an S-corp which is a bit more complicated and might cost more, and for this purpose would be overkill.
Generating a grant is harder. I went through that process when I was working with IBM to fund some research at CU Boulder on machine learning work that was aligned with IBM's Watson research at the time. As the comment lower down in this thread indicates the University sets its own rules and takes its own share of any monies "donated" for research. The person you want to talk to is the University President and then probably the Provost. The President can point you to the right person and see that they are willing to take a meeting with you about your proposed grant. My experience is that professors will be very enthusiastic the University somewhat more reserved. My experience with CU Boulder was that the politics were pretty intense/petty[2]
My take was that the net amounts end up needing like 3x that is base grant to get what you want to give the professor something. Numbers that are still in the noise for very high net worth individuals but a barrier for less endowed individuals. The good news is that your non-profit can run fundraisers and bring in donations that you then funnel to research. This was something suggested to me as a way some people want to fund something but want to put a bit of space publicly between them and the funding. The non-profit has to report who donated (over say $5000) and how they spent their money, but it doesn't have to "connect the dots" directly so to speak.
[1] I happen to be the Treasurer of one which gave me an opportunity to see how they work in California and what's involved in doing the taxes :-)
[2] Silly example, the Department Chair was blocking any grant for an Associate Professor in the department unless it included a separate grant for a different professor in the department.
Generating a grant is harder. I went through that process when I was working with IBM to fund some research at CU Boulder on machine learning work that was aligned with IBM's Watson research at the time. As the comment lower down in this thread indicates the University sets its own rules and takes its own share of any monies "donated" for research. The person you want to talk to is the University President and then probably the Provost. The President can point you to the right person and see that they are willing to take a meeting with you about your proposed grant. My experience is that professors will be very enthusiastic the University somewhat more reserved. My experience with CU Boulder was that the politics were pretty intense/petty[2]
My take was that the net amounts end up needing like 3x that is base grant to get what you want to give the professor something. Numbers that are still in the noise for very high net worth individuals but a barrier for less endowed individuals. The good news is that your non-profit can run fundraisers and bring in donations that you then funnel to research. This was something suggested to me as a way some people want to fund something but want to put a bit of space publicly between them and the funding. The non-profit has to report who donated (over say $5000) and how they spent their money, but it doesn't have to "connect the dots" directly so to speak.
[1] I happen to be the Treasurer of one which gave me an opportunity to see how they work in California and what's involved in doing the taxes :-)
[2] Silly example, the Department Chair was blocking any grant for an Associate Professor in the department unless it included a separate grant for a different professor in the department.