Philanthropic Funds

You often see emergency responses taking away a lot of time from people who should be focused on the responses because the healthcare that arises is so splintered, often duplicative. And collective action has a broader ecosystem signal, so for us we see that partnerships have a sense of impact at scale.

Our communities and small businesses continue to face enormous uncertainty and the disruption of the past year will have lasting impacts that must not be overlooked. We are pleased to announce the latest group of small business and nonprofit recipients through the KKR Relief Effort and we plan to continue these programs in order to be part of the recovery and resiliency our communities need.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has long believed in the power of collaborative philanthropy to mobilize capital and unite partners to achieve a common goal. We are happy to join this effort to respond to the COVID-19 crisis and strengthen primary healthcare services across Asia.

Small businesses are at the heart of every country's economy and community. The impact of COVID-19 has reinforced the urgency of supporting SMEs and other impacted communities with their digitalization. With this Google.org funding, we are proud to support AVPN as they work with local nonprofits to help local businesses and impacted job seekers from underserved communities adapt and succeed for the sustainable future.

The more you work in philanthropy, the more you value the lens that other funders have when they look at the same situation, the same grantee, the same broader challenge in a particular context. And that learning is priceless. We try to put grantees and their wellbeing at the forefront and enable them to do their job better. Collaborative philanthropy facilitates that if it is done well because it reduces the burden on grantees to host multiple applications to multiple partners and to have one more streamlined reporting mechanism.

Personally, I think it’s a really interesting way to engage. Often we are operating a little bit insularly in our organisations, and you’re trying to get things done and caught up in your own activity. It’s really great just to step back and hear from others about what they’re doing and benchmark yourself informally against where you’re up to. If we take this fund as an example, we can take some lessons from that and apply it to other philanthropy.