It's not just crypto, and it's not just software. The grants round that opened today can be seen here: https://gitcoin.co/grants/#match-pools

It includes grants for climate change and grants for longevity.

To answer your question, the difference from kickstarter is that grants for public goods don't produce products - they produce public goods.

It is possible to have many cynical takes, but if you scratch the surface, you'll see that funding public goods really is what this is all about.