I've been thinking of the same issue recently, and was considering some sort of help grow a fish initiative. The purpose is to help those who are here to grow in the long term and don't get in the whale and curation guilds radar.
Each month or every fortnight, a handful of accounts, say 10 would be selected and a curation trail will upvote them. Those who follow the trail will be encouraged to set their upvote to say 10c or whatever they can afford so it doesn't drain their VP. The trail itself will vote maximum 10 x 100% each day.
There will of course be strict criterias on selecting the accounts, eg quality and engagement is key, not power down or withdraw funds are others.
Those selected in each cohort will be closely monitored, perhaps even daily so if they start to go rouge for the upvotes, or get curated or whale support then the trail won't vote.
The idea is that during each cohort, the account will get better rewards for their quality work, and hopefully more recognition.
This idea isn't innovative and there are probably people doing it already, just that I'm not aware