Echidna Giving grantee portfolio (external)

Organization

Organization Mission Statement

Purpose

Strategy Area

Aangan Trust

Aangan envisions safe communities where protective systems are built ground up or strengthened wherever they exist. This system strengthening approach involves empowering local public institutions /officials and community actors to identify and address risk, and jointly address systemic gaps to protect children in their jurisdiction. The goal is to embed child safety into the mandated public institutions like the panchayats, schools, and police, making child safety everyone's business.

Building supportive schools in three vulnerable, tribal districts in Jharkhand where girls feel connected, safe, and motivated to stay leading to higher engagement, improved attendance, and reduced dropouts through peer-led and responsive school systems.

Adolescent Life Skills including Foundational Learning (ALS+FL)

ACE Policy Research (APRI)

To build institutional capacity and partnerships for research, advocacy, and policy development for evidence-based approaches towards institutional growth and socio-economic transformation.

Strengthening systems for education policy implementation in Uganda to improve opportunities for early and foundational learning through enhanced policy coordination and contribute to improved learning outcomes across the sector at all levels.

Foundational Learning at Primary School Ages (FL)

Africa Early Childhood Network (AfECN)

To serve as a platform for collaboration in protecting children’s rights through influencing ECED policies, programmes, and practices.

Strengthening advocacy for childcare at the continental regional, national and grassroots levels.

Early Childhood Development & Education (ECDE)

African Collaborative, Inc.

The mission is to provide African-led organizations with vital resources to create purposeful, locally-rooted change. African Collaborative Inc. advocates for structural transformation in philanthropy and development to promote equitable funding practices that shift resources to the frontlines of impact.

For general support to find, fund, and support African-led social impact organizations working to address complex challenges, with a particular focus on improving outcomes for women and girls' education.

Ecosystem

African Population & Health Research Center (APHRC)

To generate evidence, strengthening research and related capacity in the African R&D ecosystem, and engaging policy to inform action
on health and development

The grant will be funding the Human Development Program Support

Ecosystem

Africhild

The AfriChild Centre is a child focused multi-disciplinary research institution. Operating at the intersection between research, policy and practice, the Centre generates research evidence to inform policies and programmes to improve the wellbeing of children in Africa. The Centre strives for an Africa where children's wellbeing is realized for sustainable development. The goal of the centre is to contribute to public and private investment in child wellbeing. The Centre does this through three core programme areas; 1) Research Generation, 2) Increasing the use of research in policy and practice, 3) Organizational development.

General support to enhance Africhild's capacity for research generation, translation, and institutional development to deliver sustainable local solutions to improve early childhood care and education for marginalized children, especially girls.

Early Childhood Development & Education (ECDE)

Aga Khan Foundation India

The Aga Khan Foundation (AKF) is a global development organization committed to addressing the root causes of poverty and improving quality of life. AKF works across sectors including Agriculture and Food Security, Civil Society, Climate Resilience, Early Childhood Development, Education, Health and Nutrition and Work and Enterprise.

for strengthening gender-sensitive, inclusive early childhood care and education through curriculum and tool development, mentoring for Anganwadi Workers and Supervisors, and community engagement to promote shared caregiving and improve children’s holistic development

Early Childhood Development & Education (ECDE)

Agrasar

Strengthening social security and child wellbeing, ensuring greater protection and resilience for migrant and underserved communities.

Improving enrollment, retention, and classroom safety of girls from migrant communities

Foundational Learning at Primary School Ages (FL)

Ahvaan

Ahvaan envisions a future where every child has access to high-quality early childhood education that sets a strong foundation for lifelong learning and success

Project Buniyaad – Strengthening Girls’ Education in the Early Years

Early Childhood Development & Education (ECDE)

Amani Girls Organisation

Build resilience and create opportunities with girls and youth. The purpose is to advance girls' rights through the promotion of gender equality.

General Support for Amani Girls Organization Adaptive Strategic Plan 2023 - 2027: Empower adolescent mothers through coordinated education, gender, socio-economic, and policy support to return to school, support their families, break cycles of poverty and marginalization, while creating stable, nurturing environments for young children to thrive and reach their full potential.

Early Childhood Development & Education (ECDE)

AMPLIFY Girls

AMPLIFY Girls is an international network of community-driven organizations in Africa working to build agency in adolescent girls. Together, as a collective they foster the health of partner organizations through training, resource mobilization, and shared learning; engage in research and design tools that help partners understand and measure key outcomes for adolescent girls; and use amplification and advocacy tactics to bring partners’ presence and expertise into spaces they wish to influence. The mission is to amplify partners’ voices, work, and impact as they build adolescent girls' agency. AMPLIFY Girls envisions a world where agency and opportunity are granted to every girl and resources and respect are given to every community-driven organization that supports them.

For general support.

Adolescent Life Skills including Foundational Learning (ALS+FL)

Associates in Research and Education for Development Inc (ARED)

ARED's mission is to promote quality education in African languages, for African communities, through training, publishing, instructional innovations, and action research. ARED is guided in its work by the values of responsibility and solidarity and the principles of efficiency and integrity.

For the development and scaling of an accelerated learning program including reading and math in Senegal for second and third graders at high risk of school failure.

Foundational Learning at Primary School Ages (FL)

Basic Needs Basic Rights (BNBR)

BNBR's mission is to foster communities that value mental health and wellbeing using rights-based approaches. Resources and capabilities are dedicated to protect, promote and actualize the basic needs and rights of people facing challenges to their mental health and wellbeing as a basis of addressing the inequalities, dehumanization and or discrimination that they often face.

For adolescent wellbeing and resilience school program and improved educational outcomes in Kenya

Adolescent Life Skills including Foundational Learning (ALS+FL)

BRAC

The mission of BRAC USA is to empower people and communities in situations of poverty, illiteracy, disease, and social injustice. Its interventions aim to achieve large-scale, positive changes through economic and social programs that enable everyone to realize their potential.

A community-led two-generation approach to support young mothers and their children in Sierra Leone.

Early Childhood Development & Education (ECDE)

Breakthrough

Breakthrough's mission is to prevent violence against women and girls by transforming the norms and cultures that enable it.

Contributing to the vision of creating a bold, new generation of young people, especially girls, who live their lives with equity and dignity and inspire others around them to have more progressive gender attitudes.

Adolescent Life Skills including Foundational Learning (ALS+FL)

Brookings

To conduct in-depth research that leads to new ideas for solving problems facing society at the local, national and global level.

$10,200,000 (a) support 20 Echidna Global Scholars through a six-month fellowship, including 4 months in Washington, DC at the Brookings Institution, to conduct research focused on improving learning opportunities and life outcomes for girls and expand their pathways for impact and (b) partner work with the Echidna Global Scholars Alumni Network to develop a shared research agenda, conduct collaborative research, pilot two regional hubs, and create a cohesive, global south evidence base and narrative about the transformation that is needed in girls’ education.

Ecosystem

Brookings

To conduct in-depth research that leads to new ideas for solving problems facing society at the local, national and global level.

for the Echidna Global Scholars Program

Ecosystem

Building Tomorrow Uganda

Building Tomorrow Uganda (BT) is a social impact organization operating in Uganda with a mission of community-powered learning and a vision of literacy and numeracy for all children. BT was founded in 2006 and has developed a model of community mobilization that leverages the power of proximate leaders, with an emphasis on female role models, to give underserved primary school-aged girls and boys the basic skills to stay in school and unlock their full potential. BT equips Community Education Teams to support education in rural, underserved areas in Uganda, mobilizing communities around the importance of education, enrolling out-of-school children (OOSC) in school, championing inclusivity, and above all facilitating the proven Roots to Rise (R2R) foundational learning camps, which contextualize a mix of Teaching at the Right Level (TaRL) and structured pedagogy elements to the Ugandan context.

For general support of BT Uganda’s programming, enhancing foundational learning and reducing gender inequities in rural Uganda.

Foundational Learning at Primary School Ages (FL)

CAMFED

CAMFED is a pan-African, grassroots-led movement tackling poverty, inequality and injustice through girls’ education and women’s leadership. Their focus is on vulnerable girls and young women in rural areas of Africa. This is where girls face acute disadvantage, and where unlocking their power will have a transformative impact.

general operating support

Adolescent Life Skills including Foundational Learning (ALS+FL)

Center for Catalyzing Change (C3)

C3 works to mobilize girls and women to achieve gender equality. Their vision is a future in India where girls and women are fully empowered and equipped to realize their rights, access opportunities and achieve gender equality. C3's mission is to equip, mobilize, educate, and empower girls and women to achieve gender equality. They address challenges that women and girls face in India at different stages of their life cycle.

To create an empowering eco-system to positively impact the life of disadvantaged adolescent girls in Nayagarh, Odisha, India, through a comprehensive approach that impacts and improves educational outcomes, including completing 12 years of education and preventing early marriages.

Adolescent Life Skills including Foundational Learning (ALS+FL)

Center for Health, Education, Training & Nutrition Awareness (CHETNA)

CHETNA works to empower children, young people and women, especially those from marginalized social groups, to take control of their own health and that of their families and their communities.

To strengthen early childhood foundation of children of Gujarat and sensitize them about gender equality .

Early Childhood Development & Education (ECDE)

Centre for Learning Resources (CLR)

CLR aims to improve the quality of development and education of socio-economically disadvantaged children and youth. They provide technical support in large-scale and smaller interventions by way of programme design, capacity-building, training, action-research, teaching-learning materials, and other resources in the following areas:

Parent/Caregiver Education for nurturing care of the pre-natal to 3 years age group
Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) for the 3 to 6 years age group (a sub-stage of the ‘Foundational Stage’)
Foundational Literacy and Numeracy (FLN)
Teaching of English in government regional medium schools and for youth outside schools and colleges.

For a program that promotes gender inclusiveness and equality for early childhood education in government pre-schools (Children - 3 to 6 years of age)

Early Childhood Development & Education (ECDE)

Centre for Math, Science and Technology Education in Africa (CEMASTEA)

To continuously develop capacity in STEM education for sustainable development through training, research, innovation and partnerships with related ecosystems

Year two: Life Skills grant in partnership with BNBR: Implementation of Teacher Training Program on Adolescent Wellbeing and Resilience

Adolescent Life Skills including Foundational Learning (ALS+FL)

Children in Crossfire/UVIWADA

To create a compassionate world where all children can reach their full potential by tackling the injustices facing children, through education.

Incubating the operations of the emergent Dar-es-Salaam daycare association (UVIWADA) to provide localized and strategic leadership in supporting quality pathways for private daycare centres and self-regulation at scale that is relative to the high-density low-income context of a rapidly expanding informal market of childcare services in Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania.

Early Childhood Development & Education (ECDE)

Children's Rights Innovation Fund (CRIF)

The Children’s Rights Innovation Fund is a collective challenge to reinvigorate and transform the global children’s rights field by building power with youth activists and their allies. They are a grantmaking fund and donor learning community. In partnership with funders, youth activists, practitioners, and allies, CRIF cultivates innovation and collaboration to dismantle the root causes of children’s vulnerability and strengthen the root drivers of their well-being.

CRIF is building on the learning from What’s Possible, which powerfully demonstrated what happens when donors follow youth leadership. Young people most often prioritized education-focused girl-led grantees. This phase isn't just about sustaining momentum, it’s about laying the groundwork for more permanent shifts in how youth leadership is resourced.

Ecosystem

Diers Consulting LLC (Feminist Ethics Collaborative)

Supporting philanthropy to move more and better resources directly to communities, fund adolescent girls and non-binary youth, and explore the use of storytelling to shift narratives and disrupt the hierarchy of evidence. Using executive coaching to accompany new and diverse leadership in spaces such as international non-profits, multilaterals (including the UN), and philanthropy. Creating spaces for feminist researchers and ethics committee members to be in dialogue with one another in an effort towards transformation of formal ethics processes.

For the Feminist Ethics Collaborative: a collective of feminist researchers and IRB members advancing the field and ethical guidance for feminist, girl-led, and child-led work in the Global South

Ecosystem

Dost

To get low-income kids school ready to increase their opportunity to escape generational poverty. Dost empowers parents of any literacy level in India to take charge of their child’s early development. They use mobile technology, research-backed curriculum, and behavior science to solve everyday parenting problems and nudge parents to nurture cognitive and socio-emotional development in their birth to 6 year old kids.

Support to make programs gender transformative, build evidence for, and grow the reach of Dost's integrated parenting support program.

Early Childhood Development & Education (ECDE)

Dream a Dream

To ensure every child can thrive by shifting mindsets about the purpose of education and engaging in the systemic transformation of the education system by embedding life skills and social emotional learning into mainstream government school systems.

To support the strategic intent to ensure every child can thrive by shifting mindsets about the purpose of education and engaging in the systemic transformation of the education system by embedding life skills and social emotional learning into mainstream government school systems.

Adolescent Life Skills including Foundational Learning (ALS+FL)

Early Childhood Development Action Network (ECDAN)

Hosted by PATH, the Early Childhood Development Action Networks catalyzes collective action with and for young children and their caregivers by connecting and aligning partners, sharing knowledge and good practice, and advocating for better policies, more resources, and accountability for results.

To support ECDAN’s fund for civil society advocacy in childcare.

Early Childhood Development & Education (ECDE)

Early Childhood Development Action Network (ECDAN)

Programmatic support for ECDAN's strategy implementation that catalyzes collective action to build a movement, exchange knowledge and learning, and advocate for action with and for young children and their caregivers

Early Childhood Development & Education (ECDE)

Early Years Count (EYC)

To secure a fair start for young children, 0-8 years through ensuring access to quality early childhood development services

Support for Advancing systemic change and Evidence-based Advocacy for ECD in Uganda

Early Childhood Development & Education (ECDE)

ECD Collective India

Early Childhood Development & Education (ECDE)

Educate!

Educate! prepares youth in Africa with the skills to succeed in today’s economy.

Educate! is requesting a renewed investment to move forward key organizational priorities from 2025-2027, building towards the long-term sustainability of Educate!'s education reform systems model, investing in preparation activities for the roll-out of Tanzania’s new secondary subject, and growing impact on young women unable to access school.

Adolescent Life Skills including Foundational Learning (ALS+FL)

Education.org

Education.org is an independent non-profit initiative that envisions a world where the education of all children and young people is transformed by the best evidence and the skills to use it. They aim to improve the learning of every child and young person by helping leaders access and use the best evidence to guide their national policies and plans’. Education.org believes it is not a lack of new evidence, but the inability to use what it is known, that lies at the heart of the global education crisis. Their novel Education Evidence Pathway bridges this ‘knowing-doing’ gap, by synthesizing existing research and distilling actionable insights for leaders.

A grant over 2 years to enable:
transition to a local partner anchor engagement model,
turn ‘grey literature appraisal guidance’ into a practical manual to help local partners to source, appraise, and use locally held evidence
document the fellowship program in Sierra Leone designed for civil servants to enable adoptability.

Ecosystem

Eklavya Foundation

Vision - Meaningful education for all to build an egalitarian and just society on the path of sustainable development.
Mission:
- Build a community of committed people in the country who have experience working for educational change.
- Generate and disseminate ideas and materials relating to meaningful education. Ideas should be academically sound, consistent with democratic values, and tested in field conditions.
- Contribute to the discourse and debates on education in the country through programmes and materials.

Enabling Community and Public System Embedded Gender-Responsive and Inclusive Education with pre-primary and primary students and teachers in Madhya Pradesh, India.

Ecosystem

Equimundo

Equimundo works to advance gender equality and create a world free from violence by engaging men and boys in partnership with women, girls, and individuals of all gender identities.

Achieving gender equality and social justice by transforming intergenerational patterns of harm and promoting care, empathy, and accountability among boys and men throughout their lives.

Ecosystem

FAWE Uganda

To enhance opportunities for girls to attain quality education and skills through sponsorship, social protection, institutional strengthening and advocacy

Addressing to barriers to education empowerment in Busoga sub region and breaking the cycle of multi dimensional poverty while addressing school attrition through 4 pillars, community anchored re-entry hubs, agency building and social norm transformation in Kaliro and Buyende districts in Uganda

Adolescent Life Skills including Foundational Learning (ALS+FL)

Feminist Approach to Technology (FAT)

To build collective leadership of girls so they can use technical tools, STEM innovation and feminist awareness, to bring sustainable change in their lives and communities.

Building a digital Community Learning Portal to support scaling up the “Feminist Approach to Technology” model, aka the “FAT model”.

Adolescent Life Skills including Foundational Learning (ALS+FL)

Firelight Foundation

Firelight supports the capacity of catalytic community-based organizations that are working with their communities to realize smart, sustainable, and potentially scalable community-driven systems change for children and youth in Africa.

Community-Driven Early Childhood Development in Tanzania and Kenya

Early Childhood Development & Education (ECDE)

FLIGHT

Foundational Learning at Primary School Ages (FL)

Forum for African Women Educationalists (FAWE)

To promote gender equity and equality in education in Africa by fostering positive policies, practices and attitudes towards girls’ education.

Driving systemic change through Evidence-based Advocacy: Institutional strengthening through Gender Inclusive Pedagogy, Community Empowerment, and deepening Collaborations. This Program will be implemented at the regional level and across three countries, that is, Nigeria, Zanzibar, and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)

Ecosystem

Foundation for Inclusive Community Help (FICH)

To transform Children, Adolescents, women and their families through education, training and opportunities in a thriving community.

To support foundation learning and promotion of gender equitable primary education in Northern Uganda

Foundational Learning at Primary School Ages (FL)

FXB Rwanda

FXB Rwanda’s mission is to address the root causes of poverty as means of securing children’s rights to survive, grow and develop.

Project funding will support Sugira Muryango's gender transformative impact during nationwide scale and government sustainment. Strengthening messaging in program materials will equip volunteers and leaders with knowledge and skills to better address family violence, creating safer home environments for children to thrive and build on SM's progress effectively

Early Childhood Development & Education (ECDE)

Girl Rising

Girl Rising is a girls' education non-profit with a mission to use the power of storytelling to change the way the world values girls and their education.

To evaluate the impact of a refined and significantly longer learner-centered program model and expanded curriculum that places girls at the center of the intervention, teaches additional life skills, and systematically engages and builds capacity of the multiple stakeholders in their learning environments.

Adolescent Life Skills including Foundational Learning (ALS+FL)

Girls Agency Lab, LLC (GAL)

GAL is a group of mixed methods research experts in the practice, measurement and impact of agency. They specialize in approaches supporting the rights and needs of adolescents and the communities that support them. Their work is multi-sectoral and interdisciplinary. It is applied and translational. GAL works with foundations to document impact of grant-making, community based organization to evaluate program and practice, and advise on questions of strategy, measurement and methods in the gender empowerment sector.

To adapt the Adolescent Girls Agency Scale (AGAS) for use in India in partnership with 16 Echidna partners and technical experts.

Adolescent Life Skills including Foundational Learning (ALS+FL)

Girls First Fund

The Girls First Fund is supported by leading philanthropic organizations and individual philanthropists who have come together to champion community-led efforts so that all girls can live free from child marriage and create their own future. The Girls First Fund is a philanthropic fund of Capital for Good USA, a 501(c)(3) public charity.

To support the continued operation of the Girls First Fund to champion community-led efforts so that all girls can live free from child marriage and create their own future.

Ecosystem

Girls Livelihood & Mentorship Initiative (GLAMI)

Mentoring secondary girls in Tanzania by combining educational opportunities with life skills to create empowered female changemakers.

General Support for Mentorship Program in Tanzania led by Girls Livelihood and Mentorship Initiative (GLAMI)

Adolescent Life Skills including Foundational Learning (ALS+FL)

Global Development Incubator (GDI Africa)

To bring together ideas, leaders and capital to build and scale the next generation of social impact solutions globally.

Between 2026 and 2028, NurtureFirst seeks $1.8 million from Echidna Giving to deepen and expand its work in Kenya and globally. The initiative will improve HBCC quality, recognition, and sustainability through evidence-based training, advocacy, and network-building.

Early Childhood Development & Education (ECDE)

Global School Leaders

Global School Leaders dream of a future where every school is led by an excellent school leader. Because they know excellent schools begin with excellent leaders.
GSL strengthen school leadership, particularly in LMICs, to ensure more children, especially those facing systemic barriers, have access to quality education.
GSL catalyzes the school leadership field in the Global South to improve policies and professional learning opportunities for school leaders.

Global School Leaders seeks to launch the Gender Equitable School Leadership Alliance to promote gender equity through school leadership, expand female representation, and drive policy change. This initiative will integrate practical tools, evidence generation, and coalition-building to scale impact across the Global South through a systems-level, locally grounded approach.

Ecosystem

Global Schools Forum (GSF)

Global Schools Forum (GSF) is a collaborative community of non-state organizations working to improve education outcomes for disadvantaged children in low and middle-income countries. Their vision is that all children can realize their potential through safe access to quality education.Since their establishment in 2017, they've grown their community to 172+ community members spanning 70+ countries from India to Uganda to Brazil, collectively running or supporting over 1.39m schools and centers and providing education to well over 137 million children.

For strengthening the capacity and scale readiness of locally led childcare organizations and systems to improve child development outcomes and enhance women’s economic empowerment in Kenya, Tanzania and Mozambique.

Early Childhood Development & Education (ECDE)

Going to School

Going to School creates design-driven stories to equip millions of children and young people with the 21st Century Sustainable Entrepreneurial Life skills they need to stay in school and transition from school to equitable work or sustainable enterprise of their choice. Going to School has a special focus on adolescent girls retention in school and transition from school to sustainable enterprise after Grade 12 with young women, young entrepreneurs problem-solving for Climate Change where they live.

For implementing an integrated life skills, sport, and storytelling program for 150,000 adolescent girls in government schools across India, to improve school retention, gender equity, and transitions to enterprise or further education—supported by a gender-transformative MEL framework and public storytelling to influence systems change and community attitudes.

Adolescent Life Skills including Foundational Learning (ALS+FL)

Grassroots Nest for Innovation and Change (GRiC)

GRiC aspires to be a hub for strengthening the capacities of grassroots organizations to build innovative, sustainable and scalable solutions that increase opportunities for quality education for all children and youth in marginalized populations in African countries. They harvest the power of grassroots organizations to bring lasting change in vulnerable communities. With the belief that education is a social justice issue, all children and youth, irrespective of gender, race, class, where they live and their socio-economic status, should go to school, learn, succeed and thrive in a fast- changing world.

To support early years of learning for children 0-13 years of age and girls' education and empowerment in Kajiado and Nairobi counties in Kenya and in Oyam and Lira regions in Northern Uganda.

Foundational Learning at Primary School Ages (FL)

HakiElimu

HakiElimu's vision is an open, just and democratic Tanzania, where all people enjoy the right to education that promotes equity, creativity and critical thinking. This is guided by their mission to facilitate and promote the transformation of education, both in and out of schools by influencing policy-making and their effective implementation; stimulating public dialogue and social change; conducting research, policy analysis and advocacy; and collaborating with partners to advance participation, accountability, transparency, and social justice.

General support for implementing the organization's strategy, which aims to promote equity and inclusion in education, build movements to ensure increased CSO and citizen participation and engagement, and promote increased government transparency, responsiveness, and accountability.

Ecosystem

Harnessing Education Research for Impact in Africa (HERI Africa)

This grant will support the HERI Africa initiative, led by Zizi Afrique Foundation and the Commission for University Education, to strengthen Kenya’s education research ecosystem through a national research agenda, capacity building, five Research Chairs, democratized research communication, a sustainable Education Research Fund, and expansion across Africa.

Ecosystem

Ibtada

Ibtada, meaning "the beginning" in Urdu, was founded in 1997 to empower poor and deprived social groups to participate equally in development processes with full rights and access to resources. The organization's mission centers on empowering communities, especially women and girls, to reduce social and economic poverty and inequality across rural Rajasthan, particularly in the Mewat region. Through integrated interventions combining individualized support for girls, community engagement, women's economic empowerment, and involvement of boys and men, Ibtada has catalyzed measurable change. Educational retention rates have increased, dropout rates decreased, and average marriage age risen in villages where programs operated for over five years. Girls who once had no voice now articulate aspirations, negotiate for rights, and chart their futures. Ibtada's mission embodies holistic social transformation—recognizing that empowering girls and women requires addressing education, health, economic opportunity, legal rights, community attitudes, and leadership simultaneously. By putting women and girls at the forefront, Ibtada creates sustainable pathways from marginalization to agency, restriction to freedom, and dependency to self-determination.

For continuing and consolidating a gender-transformative, education-focused program for girls through village learning centers across 100 villages in Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, enabling 5,240 dropout girls from grades 6-8 to return and continue education through daily remedial STEM instruction, life skills curriculum, and regained confidence in their agency.

Adolescent Life Skills including Foundational Learning (ALS+FL)

Idara-I-Talim-O-Aaghai (Centre of Education and Consciousness) Public Trust (ITA-CEC)

Build a nation-wide social movement for progressive education, learning and skills for ALL children, adolescents and youth inclusively through evidence, innovations and partnerships.

For advancing gender-responsive foundational learning systems in Pakistan through national education data (ASER), system-level TaRL reforms, early childhood education, and girls’ empowerment programs, while strengthening institutional and digital capacities to support scalable, evidence-based policy and sustained improvements in learning outcomes across underserved regions.

Foundational Learning at Primary School Ages (FL)

IDinsight

To use data and evidence to help leaders combat poverty worldwide.

To address the primary drivers of gender inequality in education through the use of data and evidence for decision-making.

Ecosystem

India Life Skills Collaborative (LSC)

A life skills consortium focused on India

For the Life Skills Collaborative 2.0

Adolescent Life Skills including Foundational Learning (ALS+FL)

Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA)

To discover and promote effective solutions to global poverty problems

The project aims to improve kindergarten learning outcomes across Ghana by providing technical assistance for the scale-up of a comprehensive in-service teacher training package that promotes play-based pedagogy. The scale-up will reach 29,000 teachers and potentially benefit 2.4 million students over the next two academic years.

Early Childhood Development & Education (ECDE)

Institute of Adult Education (IAE)

To continuously design, develop and deliver accessible quality life-long education programs through blended learning for sustainable social-economic development of Tanzania, Africa and the rest of the world

For a national programme to strengthen life skills and learning persistence for re-entry adolescent girls in Tanzania, implemented by the Institute of Adult Education, focusing on improving completion, confidence, foundational learning, and transition to education and livelihoods.

Adolescent Life Skills including Foundational Learning (ALS+FL)

International Center for Research on Women (ICRW-US)

ICRW Asia is a part of the ICRW Network, whose mission is to advance rights and opportunities for women, girls, and structurally excluded populations with actionable evidence and solutions.

Deepening and scaling of school-based program to promote gender equality and school retention of girls in Jharkhand, India

Adolescent Life Skills including Foundational Learning (ALS+FL)

Issroff Family Foundation

Issroff invests in social sector leaders and their organizations through learning, networking, and funding, in order to positively and sustainably impact the lives of children and youth.

To provide grants for general operating support for women-led community-based organizations operating in the education space in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, and Rwanda.

Ecosystem

Jan Sahas

Jan Sahas aims at ending violence against women and children, and ensure safe migration and worker protection for the most excluded social groups.
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For a pilot and action research to develop a model of portable ECDE services for children from migrant communities.

Early Childhood Development & Education (ECDE)

Jatan Sansthan

Jatan envisages a society where young people lead a healthy, safe and empowered life, free of all forms of discrimination. Jatan strives to empower the youth of Rajasthan by giving them a platform where they can freely express their concerns. Jatan also provides them with information that would enable them to seek social and scientific solutions thereby helping them become agents of change in their communities.

The primary aim is to enhance preschool preparedness for children by strengthening Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS). To achieve this, Jatan will extend capacity building to a broader range of stakeholders, including Anganwadi Supervisors, Child Development Project Officers, Nursery Teacher Training (NTT) teachers, mentor teachers, and Anganwadi attendants.

Early Childhood Development & Education (ECDE)

JM Education & Research Centre (JMERC)

Envisioning a world where all children and youth, especially girls, learn, achieve and thrive. JMERC provides a school-wide ecosystem of support to uplift learners' life-outcomes with a focus on intervention for youth, teachers, school leaders and parents/caregivers. They support youth, especially adolescent girls, to develop the social and emotional skills they require to transform their life, families and communities.

Resilient and Empowered Adolescent Girls through Social and Emotional Learning (REASEL) Programme in Uganda

Adolescent Life Skills including Foundational Learning (ALS+FL)

J-PAL

To reduce poverty by ensuring that policy is informed by scientific evidence. They do this through research, policy outreach, and training.

For J-Pal's Innovation Research and Scale-up of Education Programs in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: J-PAL Education Initiative and J-PAL Innovation in Government Initiative

Ecosystem

J-PAL Africa

To reduce poverty by ensuring that policy is informed by scientific evidence. They do this through research, policy outreach, and training.

For advancing gender equity in education by embedding evidence use in education systems across sub-Saharan Africa, through technical partnerships, curated knowledge products, and a network of policy champions.

Ecosystem

Kenya - Madrassa Early Childhood Programme

Promote inclusive and equitable early childhood development care and services for children aged 0-8 from
marginalized communities in Kenya to have a best start in life. By working collaboratively with local communities,
frontline ECD workers, governments, and other stakeholders, MECP-K aims to increase access to high-quality
ECD care and services to ensure children’s physical, cognitive, emotional, and social needs are nurtured and
supported.

To strengthen the provision of quality early childhood education and care as a critical driver of holistic development and learning for boys and girls, while contributing to women’s economic empowerment in three Coast region counties in Kenya.

Early Childhood Development & Education (ECDE)

Kenya National Examinations Centre (KNEC)

To assess abilities and certify learner achievements in conformity with global standards.

For strengthening inclusive, gender responsive and evidence driven education assessment system in Kenya through foundational learning, research, capacity building and establishment of centre of excellence in assessment, research and inclusive learning outcome.

Foundational Learning at Primary School Ages (FL)

Key Education Foundation

To improve the capacity of government systems to deliver quality Early Childhood Education

This grant will support high-quality early education in 500 Anganwadis and promote gender inclusiveness through a Body Safety curriculum and a gender audit of the state ECE curricula in 2-states.

Early Childhood Development & Education (ECDE)

Kidogo

Improve access to quality, affordable Early Childhood Care & Education in East Africa's low-income communities.

For general support to strengthen and scale Kidogo’s model for delivering high-quality, affordable childcare in low-income communities in Kenya, with a focus on quality assurance, child development outcomes, and systems change.

Early Childhood Development & Education (ECDE)

Kimanya

Kimanya-Ngeyo Foundation for Science and Education aims to contribute to the social and economic development of the country by strengthening the capacity of communities to act as protagonists in improving their own material and social conditions. Kimanya-Ngeyo holds the firm conviction that access to knowledge is at the heart of development. The organization thus strives to empower local populations, especially youth, to assume ownership of, and engage meaningfully in, the process of applying, generating, systematizing, and disseminating knowledge. More specifically, a knowledge that benefits from the latest advances in modern science while respecting and tapping into local knowledge, one that is relevant to local realities and embedded in practice, and which responds to the true aspirations of rural and peri-urban communities for prosperity and progress.

For general support, though funds will prioritize Learning to Learn Teacher Development Program activities in Uganda.

Foundational Learning at Primary School Ages (FL)

Kukuza Education (Komo)

Transforming Ugandan Schools into more creative, engaging, equitable and safe learning spaces.

This grant will support the Do It Yourself (DIY) Program in secondary schools across Uganda. The program aims to close the life skills and psychosocial support gaps among learners, especially girls, so they can fully benefit from and thrive throughout their secondary education journey.

Adolescent Life Skills including Foundational Learning (ALS+FL)

Labhya Foundation

Labhya is an India-based nonprofit that enables children and adolescents from low socio-economic backgrounds with the necessary social & emotional skills to cope with challenges and become effective learners.

Enabling children's wellbeing and learning at scale, with intentional integration of gender inclusion

Adolescent Life Skills including Foundational Learning (ALS+FL)

Language and Learning Foundation (LLF)

LLF's vision is that all children will have strong foundational skills and abilities of language and literacy, thinking and reasoning in their home and additional languages. Based on this strong foundation, all children will learn and grow to their full potential.

By 2027, influence classroom practices of 2 Million teachers and teacher educators in collaboration with State Governments. This will potentially improve the learning outcomes of 35 Million children across 140,000 schools of 10 states in 10 Languages This is almost 30% of all children in grades 1 – 3 in government schools who are at the risk of not learning foundational skills.

Strengthening FLN Outcomes for Children especially girls in Government Primary Schools through gender-inclusive programming in 3 States in India.

Foundational Learning at Primary School Ages (FL)

Leadership For Equity (LFE)

Leadership for Equity (LFE) exists to improve the quality of learning in government run schools in India. The vision is to ‘build strong government school systems that refuse to let children down’. The mission is to improve the learning of 25 million children by equipping 1 million government teachers with future-ready learning resources, sustained academic support, and strengthened teacher education programs by 2030.

Exploring Gender Bias in Classrooms through TEACH Data: Evidence for Advancing Girls’ Education in India

Foundational Learning at Primary School Ages (FL)

Literacy and Adult Basic Education (LABE)

To promote literacy practices and increase access to information particularly among women and children in local communities in order to actively demand and protect their rights

General support to a Program that uses an integrated whole family two-generation approach for the development of home-based early childhood services that address both child- and adult-focused outcomes in marginalized communities of Uganda

Early Childhood Development & Education (ECDE)

Lively Minds

To get quality early childhood development to last mile communities in the Global South. And to do this by empowering marginalised parents as ECD providers

For general support in achieving strategic goals of expansion, innovation, optimization, and system change.

Early Childhood Development & Education (ECDE)

Luigi Giussani Foundation (LGF)

To create opportunities for professional and personal development starting with the dignity and infinite value of the person, developing one’s methods of personal engagement and the meaning of work, targeting teachers, students, parents and other professionals.

For Girls Education and Mentorship Support (GEMS) in Uganda

Adolescent Life Skills including Foundational Learning (ALS+FL)

Magic Bus

Magic Bus works with adolescents and young people from marginalized communities, taking them on a journey from childhood challenges to achieving livelihoods and overcoming poverty. The mission is to equip vulnerable young people with the life skills that enable them to thrive in the transition to adulthood.

To scale up teacher-led life skills education delivery in Government Schools of Maharashtra and Tribal Residential and Non - residential Schools in Madhya Pradesh, impacting lives of 550,000 adolescents studying in grades 6-10 over a period of 4 years.

Adolescent Life Skills including Foundational Learning (ALS+FL)

Magic Bus

To support this critical transition period for the Rajasthan and Jharkhand projects

Adolescent Life Skills including Foundational Learning (ALS+FL)

Makerere University

CHDC’s mission is to promote the wellbeing of children and women in Uganda through multi-disciplinary research, training, and strengthening of the partnership between the university, communities, and government.

Scaling up the Uganda Parenting for Respectability and Early Childhood Development to prevent violence and enchance early childhood outcomes led by Dr Siu Godfrey

Early Childhood Development & Education (ECDE)

Malala Fund

Malala Fund works to ensure all girls can access and complete 12 years of education. They believe that by completing 12 years of quality schooling, girls will have the knowledge, skills and confidence they need to reach their full potential, make their own choices and engage meaningfully with the world around them.

For general support to implement Malala Fund's 2025 - 2030 strategy, focused on advocating for resources and policies that secure girls' rights to secondary education.

Ecosystem

Milaan Foundation

Milaan Foundation is a nonprofit, social impact organisation working with and for adolescent girls from socially and economically marginalised communities in India with a mission to create an inclusive and equal world where every girl is educated, healthy and safe.

To build out an M&E team, conduct a process evaluation, and expand the Girl Icon program with redesigned curriculum.

Adolescent Life Skills including Foundational Learning (ALS+FL)

Milele Zanzibar Foundation

Accelerating progress in education, health and livelihoods through grassroots, sustainable development practices in rural and remote communities. MZF’s strategy positions education as the anchor sector because education provides the structure through which children and youth acquire knowledge, skills, and values, and because it is the gateway to opportunity. At the same time, education cannot succeed in isolation. Health and livelihoods are both essential inputs into and outcomes of education. Healthy children learn better; families with stable incomes are better able to support children’s education; and in turn, education leads to healthier choices and greater economic participation. This strategic direction embraces this interdependence, with education as the spine that connects and reinforces health and livelihoods.

Strengthening Gender-Responsive Foundational Learning in Zanzibar

Foundational Learning at Primary School Ages (FL)

Mizizi Elimu Afrika (Zizi Afrique)

Mizizi Elimu Afrika collaborates with those closest to children and youth to shift mindsets, improve learning experiences, strengthen relationships, use evidence, and influence policies and resourcing to ensure that children furthest behind have the foundation to learn, relate, and thrive.

This grant will sustain and deepen the Action for Life Skills and Values in East Africa collaborative, advance government-led numeracy systems reform in Kenya, strengthen early childhood and school readiness systems and strengthen Mizizi Elimu's capacity and systems for eco-system building and collective impact.

Adolescent Life Skills including Foundational Learning (ALS+FL)

Mobile Creches

To influence multiple stakeholders at National, State and Local levels by promoting Early childhood Care and Development through providing and supporting services, enhancing capacities and campaign building.

For strategic support towards building a gender-transformative ECD and care ecosystem

Early Childhood Development & Education (ECDE)

Msichana Initiative

To advocate for reforms of discriminatory legal frameworks and enforcement of gender-sensitive approaches through engaging girls, community and relevant stakeholders.

Enhancing girls’ agency and ensuring systems support girls to remain in school and excel

Ecosystem

NalandaWay Foundation

NalandaWay Foundation is a 20-year-old non-profit that uses the arts to empower children and adolescents from disadvantaged communities by strengthening their resilience, agency, and emotional well-being. Working in partnership with governments and local communities, they have integrated arts and well-being initiatives into government-run schools, Child Care Institutions (CCIs), urban slums, and Anganwadi Centres, ensuring their impact spans both bustling cities and remote villages.

To support mothers and children through Mother Circles that strengthen maternal agency, promote gender-equitable caregiving, and enhance children’s school readiness in partnership with Anganwadi Workers, families, and community leaders.

Early Childhood Development & Education (ECDE)

Nirantar

Nirantar is a feminist resource center committed to promoting empowering educational processes through developing contextual pedagogies and materials from an intersectional lens. They encourage transformational formal and non-formal learning processes that enable members from marginalized communities to articulate and address their lived realities better. Nirantar develops feminist leadership at the community level and brings grassroots voices and perspectives to mainstream education discourse.

Gender mapping of school practices in the Government School of India and creating alternative learning opportunities from a gender and sexuality lens for out of school girls from marginalized communities

Ecosystem

NYU Abu Dhabi

To welcome and educate global citizens, and produce knowledge in order to promote human understanding and to better society. Through distinctive global liberal arts education and graduate programs, Abu Dhabi enables students and graduates to achieve intellectual, personal, and professional fulfillment and empowers them to make significant societal contributions to the world. Through cutting-edge research, Abu Dhabi develops knowledge, fosters creativity, innovation, and helps solve humanity’s shared challenges. Together, Abu Dhabi contributes to the knowledge-based economy and society, and plays a central role in NYU’s global mission.

The grant is to study the effectiveness of an innovative educational program targeting underprivileged adolescent girls at KGBV, Karanataka, led by David Blakeslee and four other team members.

Adolescent Life Skills including Foundational Learning (ALS+FL)

Organisation for Early Literacy Promotion (OELP)

To enable young learners from underserved communities to actualize their innate potential with fullness through high quality foundational learning skills regardless of their socio-cultural and linguistic backgrounds and gender.

A project to support implementation of high-quality Foundational learning for children especially girls from underserved and low literate communities

Foundational Learning at Primary School Ages (FL)

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) is an international organisation that works to build better policies for better lives. They draw on more than 60 years of experience and insights to shape policies that foster prosperity and opportunity, underpinned by equality and well-being. The OECD works closely with policy makers, stakeholders and citizens to establish evidence-based international standards and to find solutions to social, economic and environmental challenges. From improving economic performance and strengthening policies to fight climate change to bolstering education and fighting international tax evasion, the OECD is a unique forum and knowledge hub for data, analysis and best practices in public policy. Their core aim is to set international standards and support their implementation – and help countries forge a path towards stronger, fairer and cleaner societies.

Support international costs for India’s participation in the third round of the Survey on Social and Emotional Skills (2025-2027).

Adolescent Life Skills including Foundational Learning (ALS+FL)

Oxford Policy Management India (OPM)

OPM works with bilateral and multilateral agencies, national and international foundations, academic institutions, government, international donors, local organisations, and partners, helping them develop and implement policies that reduce poverty, improve livelihoods, and reform public services.

Landscape review of Gender and Early Childhood Education in India

Early Childhood Development & Education (ECDE)

PAL Network

PAL Network generates robust evidence on learning outcomes through oral one-on-one assessments conducted in households. They collaborate with government and non-state actors in the education sector to implement evidence-based programs that enhance learning outcomes. They generate new insights to understand learning contexts and issues by analyzing data from assessments, action programs, and other research studies. They use evidence to track and report on global progress while advocating for equitable, inclusive, and high-quality education.

General Support to the PAL Network.

Foundational Learning at Primary School Ages (FL)

Pastoral Women Council (PWC)

To sustainably empower indigenous pastoralist and agro-pastoralist women and girls in northern Tanzania to ensure their rights and voices are respected, they are economically empowered, and they have access to quality social services

To support a girls education program in pastoralist communities across northern Tanzania

Foundational Learning at Primary School Ages (FL)

Peepul India

Peepul aims to enable and deliver excellence in government schools in India through direct programmes where they run interventions as well as systemic change efforts that drive engagement, quality and accountability within the system. They dream of a world where every child is enabled and supported to live up to his / her potential. Their belief is simple – every child in a government school should receive a high-quality education, regardless of background or circumstance, that allows them to realize their full potential. They envision a world where government schools compete with elite private schools in terms of quality. Peepul exists to improve the quality of education for the poorest children in India. They work in deep partnership with the government to undertake system transformation programmes that improve learning outcomes of children coming from lower income communities for whom government schooling is the only real option at availing a high-quality education.

This grant will support incorporating gender equality within the organisation and its programmes.

Foundational Learning at Primary School Ages (FL)

Population Council

To improve the well-being and reproductive health of current and future generations and to help achieve a humane, equitable, and sustainable balance between people and resources.

Evidence for Gender and Education Resource

Ecosystem

100

Population Council

To improve the well-being and reproductive health of current and future generations and to help achieve a humane, equitable, and sustainable balance between people and resources.

Early childhood development and education research in India

Early Childhood Development & Education (ECDE)