This initiative does not accept requests for scholarship support.
Mission
To improve the socio-economic welfare and holistic well-being of women and children living in poverty in developing countries.
Priorities
- Address root cause issues of inequity and lack of female empowerment.
- Support women social entrepreneurs.
- Include a community-driven approach to problem solving and program implementation—with programs designed by people with proximity to the issues.
- Consider holistic models and multi-faceted approaches for woman and girls acknowledging that a woman’s health and well-being will be in jeopardy unless she has, for example, a home.
- Empower community-based organizations that are already doing the work and where a small amount of funding can unleash significant change.
Preferred Attributes
- Learn from and apply best practices as well as innovative solutions.
- Utilize integrated solutions and benefit from multi-sector partnerships.
- Support economic freedom.
- Build the capacity of communities to absorb environmental stresses and better adapt in the face of increasing natural disasters.
- Ability to share lessons learned and therefore scale tailored solutions regionally or globally.
Geographies
- Countries in sub-Saharan Africa or Southeast Asia that are rebuilding after economic collapse, war, natural disaster, and/or political strife, and whose residents live in extreme poverty (e.g. Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania, and Myanmar).
Types of Organizations/Projects
- Community-driven organizations where we are able to adequately assess risk (e.g. via partnerships, local partners, or experts on the ground).
- Organizations that have community-based women in decision-making positions.
- Organizations that operate in partnership with a larger non profit and/or a family foundation that has on-the-ground advisors with expertise in international development and health.
- Organizations that prioritize organizational health (e.g. low Executive Director-to-worker pay ratio, employees all have health insurance, conflict is handled with compassionate inquiry)—as this is key to effective use of funds as well as fraud prevention in the context of inequity and difficult environments.
- Overall organizational budgets in the low to mid six figures.
- Emphasis on quality implementation.
- 501(c)3 status or equivalency determination to establish tax exempt status.
- Occasionally, we will consider innovative, pilot projects or beta organizations of larger organizations that aren’t well-funded (due to structural constraints) but show promising early results.
Metrics
- Measured at the project / organization level.
- Tied to sustainable organizational effectiveness / improvements and partnerships, which are critical to building the effectiveness of small-to-medium organizations.
- Include the extent to which improvement was achieved with 1-2 simple metrics (e.g. target percentage increase in women’s income), in addition to the number of people reached.
- Designed to support quality implementation.
- Give grantees agency—not prescriptive.
Risk Management
- Uphold a calculated-risk based approach; taking risks such as funding a strong, young leader who doesn’t yet have an extensive track record or customizing a best practice to align with a local need.
- Acknowledge that most forms of financial reporting aren’t deterrents for fraud; actual incentives to prevent fraud—in the context of inequity and dealing with difficult environments—include, for example, ensuring that everyone on a person’s team has health insurance.
- Seek relationships with advisors on the ground, and partner with non-profits or foundations who have established relationships, to help us find & conduct due diligence on potential grantees.
- Partner with non-profits and other foundations with regional knowledge and expertise.
Types of Foundation Support
The Foundation will consider invited proposals for programs, projects, and coalitions, with grants in the $15,000-$25,000 range—our aim is to be influential by giving what for the organization is significant funding, but not to create an over dependency. Our preference is for unrestricted funding, however, grants for specific projects will also be considered, and multi-year grants will be made on a selective basis.
2023 | 5 Grants | $168,000
How to Apply
Due to the high volume of International Development inquiries already received, we can no longer accept letters of inquiry this year. Any LOIs submitted on June 16 onward will unfortunately be declined.