A pooled fund that has combined tens of millions of dollars from Bill and Melinda Gates, Jeff Skoll, and other Giving Pledge signers will make its initial grants, totaling $80 million over five years, to five large-scale international efforts to improve health and education and bring people out of poverty.
The fund, called Co-Impact, debuted in late 2017 with plans to raise half a billion dollars in support of large “systems-change” efforts that attempt to improve the lives of millions of people. Olivia Leland, the group’s chief executive, declined to say how much progress has been made toward that fundraising goal.
The fund is among a recent series of “big bets” in which organizations or other donor collaboratives devote large sums of money to attack the root causes of problems. Other examples include the MacArthur Foundation’s 100&Change grant of $100 million to Sesame Street Workshop and the International Rescue Committee, the $250 million Audacious Project, and Blue Meridian Partners, a group of donors that has pooled $1.7 billion to bring children out of poverty.
Roots in the Giving Pledge
The idea for Co-Impact was born out of the Giving Pledge, a commitment by 187 of the world’s wealthiest individuals and couples to give most of their fortunes away. Several years after its 2010 launch by the Gateses and Warren Buffett, some of the pledge signers wanted to ensure that their gifts would truly be effective.
Over the past year, they’ve worked to identify projects in which large investments in teams of nonprofits, working in conjunction with government agencies and businesses, could combine to improve the lives of millions of people. After intense vetting and a unanimous green light from the group’s core donors, groups that get the seal of approval from Co-Impact are able to attract additional investors, Leland said.
“Oftentimes in philanthropy we come in with our own thing, which is not as effective as having funders truly align on a goal,” she said. “There are other funders coming alongside now.”
The Importance of Partnerships
Each of Co-Impact’s first grantees includes several partners working on a common goal. Leland declined to say how much each effort would receive, and she did not disclose how much additional support had been provided by other donors. She stressed that much of the work undertaken by Co-Impact would be to provide technical assistance, monitor results, and assess whether more support is necessary.
The grantees are:
Liberia’s Community Health Assistant Program. The program’s partners include Liberia’s Ministry of Health and Last Mile Health, which will work to develop health care workers and provide universal care in remote areas.
The graduation approach to economic opportunity. Co-Impact will support a multicountry approach to poverty reduction that has many partners, including Fundacion Capital and Partnership for Economic Inclusion. The approach includes direct cash gifts as well as access to financial services and training for people living in poverty.
Project ECHO. An effort to expand the reach of community health-care providers in India that uses technology and remote mentoring to treat chronic, complex diseases.
Teaching at the Right Level Africa. An educational approach in which students are given one-on-one assessments and then taught at their ability level, rather than according to their age. The project is a joint effort that Pratham, an Indian education charity, and Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab have put in place in India and Zambia. It also has pilot programs in several other African countries.
CitiesRise. A multiparty effort to create a network of “mental-health friendly” cities that plans to mobilize youth leaders and use technology to destigmatize mental illnesses.
The CitiesRise grant is a two-year pilot grant to support programs in Chennai, India, and Nairobi. The other grants are for a five-year span.
$25 Million Commitments
To be a Co-Impact “core partner,” a donor must contribute at least $25 million. In addition to the Gateses and Skoll, the other founding partners are Richard Chandler and the Rockefeller Foundation. Nandan and Rohini Nilekani, co-founders of the EkStep Foundation who originally provided technical assistance to the group, recently joined as full core partners.
When Co-Impact was first launched, technology entrepreneur Romesh Wadhwani was announced as a core partner. Leland said Wadhwani has stepped down from that commitment but will still invest in particular Co-Impact projects. Wadhwani did not return calls placed to SymphonyAI, a company he founded, or to the Wadhwani Charitable Foundation.
In addition to allowing donors to give to individual grantees as co-investors, smaller donors can become Co-Impact “community members” by giving at least $250,000 a year for a minimum of three years.
“I never thought there’d be an opportunity for me to play in this field,” said one such donor, Elizabeth Sheehan, founder of Care 2 Communities, a nonprofit that supports the provision of health care in Haiti.
Sheehan, a board member of the Women Moving Millions donor network said the sheer size of investment driving Co-Impact’s work could help it become more effective. While it’s possible that smaller charities could get overlooked by the effort, Sheehan is confident that concentrating large grants on a common goal has a good chance of improving the lives of women and girls on a mass scale.
“This is big money trying to do things differently,” she said. “We’re not getting there putting out a million different grants in a million different directions.”
Sheehan said she’s helped persuade two other Women Moving Millions members to join in the effort. In all, Co-Impact has more than 20 community members and co-investors.
Seeking More Collaboration
Ultimately, Leland hopes the grants spur interest among individual philanthropists and other networks of donors.
In addition to keeping tabs on the grants and arranging trips for other donors to chart progress on the ground, Leland said the group plans to share what it has learned about corralling megadonors in support of big bets. She said Co-Impact has been sharing notes with other pooled funds such as Blue Meridian, Dasra, and the Freedom Fund. “There’s been a lot of discussion about collaborative philanthropy, but it’s still not the norm,” she said. “There’s still a lot of work to be done.”
