The Atlas Fellowship evolved out of a program called Uncommon Sense, which had a focus similar to the Atlas summer program and proved impactful for its participants. Sydney Von Arx, one of the co-founders of Uncommon Sense, partnered with Ashley Lin and Jonas Vollmer to found the Atlas Fellowship to vastly expand the scale and scope of that program—starting the Atlas Fellowship in 2022. The Atlas Fellowship is temporarily fiscally sponsored by the Centre for Effective Altruism, a nonprofit organization, and in the process of becoming an independent public charity.