In such cases, you try to convince people to pay for your idea up front. Depending on how revolutionary/badly needed this idea is, it will get funded.
Kickstarter and clones are the answer.
Kickstarter and clones are the answer.
Even among the organizations that specialize in it, there is a problem that there are only a handful of people in the world that can even begin to evaluate the potential of a proposal. And in those cases, the people doing the vetting do not fully understand it, but they are the best outside experts capable of detecting any subtle red flags that suggests it will fail. This is the normal state of affairs for advanced research; no normal person could hope to evaluate advanced research.
Kickstarter type models would be poor for funding most types of serious research. Leaving this to popularity contests like Kickstarter is a recipe for a lot of clowns and wannabes with good PR getting funded in the absence of serious (and expensive) diligence and serious research being ignored because it can't be wrapped into a shiny soundbite that everyone understands.