The hard part in doing 4. is finding an excellent coach as there are very few. Most will want a head coaching gig at a university where they can individually make close to the $500k you offer up.
5. Sponsor visas and citizenship applications for East Africans
I will leave that to WCAP
I am looking for serious suggestions. We should probably quit complaining if we can’t figure out possible solutions.
NILs don’t move the needle
You are aware you're posting this on LRC, right? At any rate, my idea is the only one with good odds of success. But waste your Monopoly money any way you wish.
Find a town that needs a Jumior Development track program and pour into that. If it's cold, get help building an indoor track that can hold junior meets in the winter.
Hire college runners who are good with kids to coach. Make it fun. Bring the kids in with javelin, discus, and high jump. Some will stay for the running. Get kids into track like it's soccer and there will be a few that discover it, decide to keep going and will be fast.
It can be hard to find good tracks to train on. Build a few here and there. Make a cool one like the Nike one with big trees in the middle. Let the community run on them, and let the training groups use them.
I'm sure there are a god amount of 28:00/32:00 collegiate graduates that would love to try and pursue a career and success on the roads or on the track.
Paying them to live at altitude and run would make that happen. If that was an option available I think we would see many 2:05s and 2:17s pop up in a few years
I actually don't think a single one of the above is even a good idea, good being definited as something that will sustainably and systemically contribute to the betterment of American distance running. A half a million dollars isn't enough to do that. A half a million dollars once can do something, for sure, but it's a one-time bump, and then things go back to the status quo.
But a half million dollars of investment could go a long way towards making track--or long roads--a viable media product through being put toward a high-production-value, multi-race circuit with meaningful prize money and name athletes competing regularly, streaming or broadcast for free (underwritten by commercial partnerships) or on a reasonably-priced dedicated service (still with those commercial partnerships--so maybe this is the better model). The revenue streams flowing back into that project would allow you to reinvest in it year-over-year, and also if done well potentially turn enough of a profit to attract further investment in a virtuous cycle.
It also attracts future generations of runners by exposing them to the sport (and showing them there is a path to make a living as a professional in this sport, and also that it's cool), elevates the profile long-distance racing outside of the Olympic Marathon, and supports the current generation of distance runners through prize money and earned media opportunities for their sponsors.
Just make prize purses much much deeper. Rather than doing something like $10k, $5k, $3k,$2k,$1k at a large road race, instead more the money around so that the purse goes out to more people. Above example has $21k. Instead going $2k, $1900, ..., $100 has same total purse to 20 participants. Given a prize purse of P and equal spacing between awards of D, then 1st place will receive D(2P/D)^0.5 and (2P/D)^0.5 will receive a payout.
$500,000 seeds...can grow many trees. But which tree bear best fruit? This, wise question.
Elite track meet: Like flashy firework, bright but quick fade. Good for show, maybe spark interest, but not build strong foundation.
Elite road race: Longer burn, like candle. Attract top runners, inspire young ones. But...prize money gone fast, like water through fingers.
Stipends for young runners: This seed, good potential. Nurture talent, like watering young bamboo. But slow grow, need patience, maybe not see big change right away.
Training group, high place: This like mountain peak, hard to reach. Good for few, but many left behind. Strong runners get stronger, but where new ones come from?
Li think...best way not one path, but many. Mix seed, water, sun. Little bit here, little bit there. Support all levels, from young sprout to tall tree. Then, American distance running, like forest, grow strong, last long time.