How We Look at Things

The Foundation’s funding decisions are driven by the trustees’ admiration for enterprise, experimentation, strong design and leadership. As custodians of flexible philanthropic resources, we value enterprises that pursue and promote:

• Big bold goals and appropriate risk.
• Data-driven strategies.
• Positive and creative rather than negative or deficit based approaches.
• Strategies that get assets and social capital in the hands of poor people.
• A cause- focus rather than institution-building.
• Free expression and dialogue.
• Continuous learning that informs innovation and practice change

These values also define how we work as a grant-making institution. We tend to have a smaller staff than many comparable institutions, and to operate more informally. We often initiate rather than respond to proposals. Our trustees dislike bureaucracy, red tape, and formality.

We also like to know that our grantees are using our funding strategically, not to develop nice individual programs, but to change larger systems. We like silo-busting enterprises that connect and make better use of existing resources.

Knowing that philanthropy’s reach is limited, we try to work in collaboration and dialogue with government and other sectors to deepen our impact. We try to use all our resources: money, political and social capital to advance the causes we care about. In our philanthropy, we hope to be aspirational and inspiring, to show that one family can make a difference. Integrity and keeping commitments are central to our assessment of ourselves and others.

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