What We Do

The Global Philanthropy Alliance is a public foundation, receiving funds as well as making grants. We make small grants (5000-15,000 USD), initially to organizations in Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa working to alleviate poverty, improve their community and empower youth.

Our Grant-making 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.

Advisory Council

Grantees are chosen by our Advisory Council, a group consisting of African Diaspora faculty in the US but working or having major involvement in Africa, African community leaders, with experience serving non-profit organizations whose purpose is to advance youth development and/or community socioeconomic development, and major US donors to GPA projects. 

The Advisory Board serves to assure that the efforts engaged in the developing world are appropriate for the communities and to achieve the goals.  Advisory Board members will nominate projects to be supported by GPA, as funds are available and as the group collectively learns the most effective approaches to reach 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.

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.