ABOUT OUR GRANTMAKING

Global Philanthropy Alliance is a non-profit, public foundation organized under 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Service Code. We make small grants ($2500-$10,000 USD) to youth led or youth empowering organizations in Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa working to find entrepreneurial solutions to social problems in their communities.

Meet Our Grantees—Youth Making a Difference!

Youth can be a powerful driver of change in communities everywhere. Investing in youth is a unique opportunity to empower future leaders and capture their positive energy for sustainable development and poverty reduction.

OUR GRANTMAKING STRATEGY

We seek out leading grassroots organizations who are addressing issues in their communities by using new and innovative ideas, empowering youth to be leaders of change, and promoting local philanthropy.
We work to link donors, grantees and other partners to achieve greater impact.
We seek to learn from our grantees and their work in an effort to share best practices and improve our grant-making.
Projects are selected based on their potential to engage local stakeholders, empower youth and create positive change in their community.

THE ROLE OF OUR AFRICA COUNTRY COMMITTEE IN GRANTMAKING

Grantees are chosen by our board. They are first sourced and recommended by our Africa Consultants, individuals with GPA experience living and  working in in the region they serve.  This committee serves to assure that the efforts engaged in the developing world are appropriate for the communities and to achieve the goals.

LOCAL ORGANIZATIONS

Only a small percentage of U.S. philanthropic donations go to local people and organizations in developing countries. We believe that these social entrepreneurs and organizations are positioned to have the greatest impact of any development effort due to their distinct ability to assess community needs and devise unique solutions to address issues of greatest concern to the health, wealth and well-being of their community.

SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURS

GPA supports young social entrepreneurs. We fund social entrepreneurial organizations, or social enterprises, that use business practices to benefit their community, creating positive social change. We have many examples on our website https://globalphilanthropyalliance.org/who-we-serve-2/.  The central element of these enterprises is that they become sustainable by generating income and generally create jobs or other income-producing opportunities. Becoming sustainable results in “profit”, which some organizations choose to plow back into expanding the organization’s activities, thus retaining their non-profit nature. Others may become for-profit organizations, which we applaud but cannot fund. We will fund registered for-profit organizations through a fiduciary non-profit organization if they are early in their development (and not yet taking a profit), and who otherwise qualify for a GPA grant.

TRANSFORMATION

In order to be sustainable, development must be a transformational process facilitated by communities and involving a variety of stakeholders. GPA seeks to support change-oriented community leaders and organizations by linking them with additional resources support their efforts and working collaboratively to evaluate and learn from their projects.