Call for Applications: Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation Grants for early-stage social impact organizations (up to $300,000 USD in grant funding awarded)
Application Deadline: Ongoing Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation accepts applications for funding year round.
Call for Applications: Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation Grants for early-stage social impact organizations (up to $300,000 USD in grant funding awarded)
Attributes of a strong DRK candidate organization
- Problem-first: Organizations addressing an urgent or critical social or environmental problem in an innovative fashion and in a way that directly benefits underserved populations.
- Systems-thinking: Organizations with solutions work within existing systems, leveraging existing stakeholders, infrastructure, and incentives to grow their impact.
- Scalable: Organizations with solutions can scale significantly, in that they can grow exponentially over time to directly impact a minimum of 10,000 lives within the next five years, and ambitions to grow well beyond that.
- Geographically aligned: Organizations operating in the priority geographies of Africa, Europe, India, and the United States, although Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation will also consider opportunities in Latin America in select situations.
- Independent entities: Organizations that are structured as independent nonprofit or impact first, mission-driven for-profit entities, including US 501(c)3 and its non-US equivalents, C corporations, B corporations, hybrid organizations, and fiscally sponsored organizations where there is a plan to spin out.
- Financially sustainable: Organizations that have at least a growable stream of earned income revenues or plans to develop an earned income revenue stream in the immediate future.
- Measurable evidence of impact: Organizations that are developing solutions based on data and clear evidence of what works, and through their pilot(s) have a demonstrated ability to clearly and effectively measure their impact on underserved populations.
What stage of growth is funded
- Early stage: Organizations that are early stage, which DRK Foundation defines as post-pilot and pre-scale. This typically means:
- Your program, product or service is already being used in the market or in the field,
- You have early indication that your model is having its intended impact on the beneficiary populations,
- Your organization is relatively young (ideally between two and five years old, although DRK Foundation will consider both younger and older organizations).
- Venture funding: In the case of for-profits, DRK Foundation typically support Seed to Series A organizations, and never lead rounds; we also generally but not exclusively refrain from participating in financings exceeding a $15M USD post-money valuation.
How DRK support its grantees and investees?
Capacity: The core of DRK’s model is deep and extensive operational and technical support for each portfolio organization, both through a dedicated hands-on Board service role and specialist capacity-building resources across leadership and board development, organizational and fundraising capacity building, financial sustainability, and scaling strategy thinking.
This involves one of DRK’s senior team members taking a board service role for a three year period and serving as a resource to help the grantee or investee navigate their pathway to scale, often involving weekly conversations on key issues. There is also engagement with the broader DRK portfolio support team on specific and targeted issues, such as building out fundraising capacity, establishing a talent strategy, or refining financial models. In total, the capacity support can add up to $500,000 USD worth of in-kind support.
- Capital: DRK provides up to $300,000 USD in either unrestricted grant funding or investment capital over a three-year period, usually in multiple tranches. The exact instrument and tranches are decided in conversation with the grantee or investee during the closing process.
- Community: DRK convenes its portfolio and alumni annually, facilitating both in-person and digital connections to and within its community. This ranges from small 1:1 meetings to large 200+ person gatherings, including our three-day annual portfolio retreat.
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