[jagiammona]

You should look into the Ronin Institute. Since it is very hard or impossible to get grants without being affiliated with an institute, the Ronin Institute is a remote institute that any researcher can apply to join. http://ronininstitute.org/

I think they've been pretty successful at attracting a network of interesting non-traditional researchers. I bet there are some good lessons there about how to grow an institute and bootstrap its prestige.