Impact partner profile

Co-Impact

A world where all women, men, and children can reach their full potential

Est. since

2017

Location of HQ

33 Cavendish Square, London W1G 0DT, United Kingdom 420 5th Ave | 19th Floor, New York, NY 10018, United States of America | c/o VALUEworks, Seefeldstrasse 60, 8008 Zurich, Switzerland

Partnership date with Thankyou

September 2020

Area of focus

Health, Education, Economic Opportunity, and Gender Equality

Regions

Latin America, South and Southeast Asia, Sub Saharan Africa, Middle East and North Africa

Website

www.co-impact.org

Co-Impact is a global collaborative of philanthropists and foundations who are coming together to fund large-scale systems change. This involves supporting coalitions that are based in the countries which they work, to build resilient and sustainable societies where women, men, and children can reach their full potential. Co-Impact uses open and transparent processes to identify coalitions of local communities, nonprofits, governments, and in some cases, businesses that are solving social injustices at scale. At the core of their model is a commitment to using an intersectional and gender-inclusive lens to support these partners to marshal the resources, technical capacity, and political will for enduring change.

Co-Impact recognise that there are many paths to systems change. They believe that partners who have the local relationships and know-how are best placed to achieve and sustain results for the communities they ultimately seek to serve.

The nature of the model developed by Co-Impact works to establish and maintain true partnerships rooted in mutual respect and trust. They provide flexible grants for initiatives that are highly focused on outcomes, and are accountable to the lives of the millions of people these initiatives hope to serve.

Current funders include Richard Chandler, The ELMA Foundation, Bill and Melinda Gates, Rohini and Nandan Nilekani, The Rockefeller Foundation, MacKenzie Scott, and Jeff Skoll. Co-Impact aims to encourage further philanthropic givers to support initiatives that assist in strong, holistic, large-scale solutions. Co-Impact also aims to catalyse more philanthropy towards supporting systems change and to influence philanthropy to be more effective.

Co-Impact believe in a world where all women, men, and children can reach their full potential irrespective of their birth circumstances. Their first fund (2017-2026) aims to impact at least 20 million people through partner initiatives. Their second fund, launching in 2021, aims to impact at least 50 million people.

Core impact goals

Support systems change efforts

Co-Impact’s goal is to support systems change efforts to achieve meaningful and enduring results, through grants to program partners and other non-financial supports, for millions of people in low and middle-income countries.

Advance a model for donor collaboration

To generate learning and action among the broader philanthropic community, Co-Impact aims to advance a model for system change that both inspires and learns from others.

Support partners to reduce structural barriers

Co-Impact aim to support partners in reducing barriers that prevent women (especially those further marginalised by race, class, caste/ethnicity) from holding power, exerting influence, and exercising agency.

Type of grant funding given

$2,000,000* AUD

*15 month unrestricted funded grant (October 2020 - December 2021)

FY2021 impact milestones

Co-Impact aims to reach the following impact milestones over the course of Thankyou’s grant period (15 months). Here’s how they went:

Award 3-4 full systems change grants in 2021 from their first fund’s second round of design grants.

In March 2021, the Co-Impact team presented a portfolio of recommendations for 3 partners that received an initial design grant. These recommendations come after 18 months of deep engagement with these program partners, including significant independent diligence and regular consultation with each partner and key external stakeholders. These grantees focused on increasing vulnerable youth opportunities for employment and increasing livelihood/economic outcomes for vulnerable, rural smallholder farmers. These three grantees, Harambee, Lend-a-Hand India, and One Acre Fund (partnering with Landesa), have fully executed their respective grant agreements and the first disbursements arrived in the last quarter of 2021.

Complete a third round of partner sourcing for their first fund in 2021, awarding 5-6 design grants.

Co-Impact awarded 7 design grants for its Foundational Fund and 4 design grants for its newly launched Gender Fund within the funding period. As Co-Impact is an organisation that funds large, systems-change grants across multiple years, design grants are the foundational first step for an organisation to build capacity in order to absorb such a large grant. The new cohort focuses on education, economic development, livelihoods, and food security outcomes for vulnerable communities across Brazil, Kenya, India, and Tanzania.

Further develop and launch a second fund in 2021 focused on women’s leadership and gender equality.

In March 2022, Co-Impact launched the Gender Fund. Through the Gender Fund, Co-Impact is aiming to raise and distribute $1 billion over the next decade to support predominantly women-led Global South organisations with significant, unrestricted, long-term, and flexible funding needed to transform systems to be more just and inclusive, advance women's power, agency and leadership at all levels and shift harmful gender norms that prevent progress. The Gender Fund aims to promote systems change to be more inclusive, hoping to ensure that at least 100 million people have better access to healthcare, quality education and the opportunity to thrive – regardless of their gender, class, ethnicity or race.

Continue to provide adaptive support to Co-Impact's current program partners as they respond to the ongoing global COVID-19 pandemic.

Co-Impact has responded to the COVID-19 crisis by both directly giving funding to its program partners and through its Systems Response Fund. Co-Impact has dispersed $17.9M through COVID-19 specific response grants.

Achieved

Milestone complete.