Your solution seems to include asking for a lot more money, to recruit outside leadership to work on what looks very much like an ambitious passion project right now, and coming up with a solution to turn it all around before funding runs dry while honoring the core idea behind the project (because that is what people will be donating/funding towards) — instead of betting on the current, apparently intrinsically motivated staff to maybe learn from their mistakes and do what they can to turn this around.

That strikes me, by far, as the more unrealistic solution.