Arts & Culture
Africa No Filter
Africa No Filter
Africa is a creative, innovative, and progressive continent, yet its story is defined by poverty, corruption, disease, poor leadership and conflict. It’s an outdated perception. Africa No Filter works to shift this stereotypical narrative through investments in research that deepens the understanding of the prevailing stories and resulting narratives around Africa and their impact; grant-making to storytellers and artists, as well as arts, culture and media organizations; driving disruption campaigns through alternative stories/storytelling about Africa and building a community of narrative changemakers. Their goal over time is to leave an empowered narrative change ecosystem and an informed community of storytellers who work more deliberately to change harmful narratives within and about Africa. The donor collaborative is one of a few organizations working to shift stereotypical narratives that persist about and within Africa. It is funded by Ford Foundation, Bloomberg, Mellon Foundation, Luminate, Open Society Foundations, Comic Relief, the Hilton Foundation, the British Council and Hewlett Foundation.
Learn MoreBlack Trustee Alliance for Art Museums
Black Trustee Alliance for Art Museums
Our mission is to increase the inclusion of Black perspectives and narratives in North American art museums to make our institutions more equitable and excellent spaces of cultural engagement.
Visit WebsiteSpirit Aligned Leadership Program
Spirit Aligned Leadership Program
As a Sponsored Project of RPA, The Leadership Program aims to strengthen Indigenous communities and address pressing systemic problems and oppressions through investing in and elevating the inherent power of the undervalued assets of North American Indigenous women.
Visit WebsiteDiversifying Art Museum Leadership Initiative (DAMLI)
Diversifying Art Museum Leadership Initiative (DAMLI)
This funding initiative is a Sponsored Project at RPA and works to encourage greater diversity in the curatorial and management leadership of American art museums. Moreover, it addresses how future health of art museums and their continued ability to contribute to the vibrancy of their communities depends, in part, on their being relevant and appealing to the broadest cross-section of community residents.
Visit WebsiteTippet Rise Art Center
Tippet Rise Art Center
Created by the trustees of the Sidney E. Frank Foundation, who engaged RPA for advisory services through every step of conceptualizing and building the art center, Tippet Rise Art Center exhibits large-scale, outdoor sculptures and hosts classical chamber music and recitals on a 12,000-acre working sheep and cattle ranch in Fishtail, Montana.
Visit WebsiteArt for Justice Fund
Art for Justice Fund
A five-year initiative seeded by philanthropist and art collector Agnes Gund donating the proceeds from the sale of art in her collection. The Funds aims to turn art into action, investing more than $100 million into strategic efforts to reform the criminal justice system. RPA allowed the Fund a way to quickly and strategically begin operating and responding to an urgent issue facing the US by providing programmatic, advisory and governance support.
Visit WebsiteArtPlace America
ArtPlace America
A 10-year collaboration among 16 national foundations, federal agencies and financial institutions. It position arts and culture as a core sector of community planning and development in order to help strengthen the social, physical and economic fabric of communities. RPA brings a deep understanding of the systems and processes to the project by providing mechanism for ArtPlace to employ staff, receive grants from foundations and disburse grants and program-related expenses.
Visit WebsiteFundación Amparo
Fundación Amparo
RPA's work with a Mexican family foundation transitioning leadership to its next generation.
Learn MoreUpstart Co-Lab
Upstart Co-Lab
Upstart Co-Lab believes in the power of creative people to solve problems. With support from RPA on operational and financial management services, Upstart is disrupting how creativity is funded by connecting the $12 trillion of socially responsible and impact investing capital in the U.S. to the $804 billion U.S. creative economy.
Visit WebsiteClimate & Environment
Just Transition Fund
Just Transition Fund
The Just Transition Fund is on a mission to create economic opportunity for the frontline communities and workers hardest hit by the transition away from coal.
Visit WebsiteGlobal Commons Alliance
Global Commons Alliance
The Global Commons Alliance is an unprecedented partnership of more than 50 of the world’s most forward-looking organisations in philanthropy, science, business and advocacy.
Visit WebsiteFashion Makes Change
Fashion Makes Change
Fashion Makes Change is building a community in the fashion industry to advance progress on the UN Sustainable Development Goals in an effort to create a more equitable future.
Visit WebsiteGlobal Resilient Cities Network
Global Resilient Cities Network
The new Global Resilient Cities Network (GRCN) emerges from the 100 Resilient Cities Program with a unique reach, strength and legacy to understand and support the challenges of the ever-growing urban society. GRCN is a city-led initiative that will drive urban resilience to protect vulnerable communities from climate change and other physical, social and economic urban adversities and challenges.
Learn MoreShine Campaign
Shine Campaign
Shine is a global campaign to end energy poverty and an RPA Sponsored Project. More than a billion people – nearly one-sixth of the world’s population – live without access to electricity and 3 billion people still rely on kerosene, wood, crop waste, dung, and other biomass to cook and heat their homes. This has devastating impact on health, and the UN includes clean energy as one of its SDG goals.
Visit WebsiteShark Conservation Fund
Shark Conservation Fund
A funder collaborative, the Shark Conservation Fund is focused on reversing the precipitous decline of the world’s sharks and rays and ensuring their long‐term conservation and management. In addition to the funds that will flow through the partnership, this initiative aims to catalyze $100 million of support in the global conservation and sustainable management of sharks and rays by 2025.
Visit WebsiteClimate Nexus
Climate Nexus
A strategic communications organization that highlights the wide-ranging impacts of climate change and clean energy solutions in the US. RPA provides organizational support like strong governance, legal counsel, grants management, accounting, reporting, HR and finance.
Visit WebsiteThe Earth Charter Fund
The Earth Charter Fund
Established by Steven Rockefeller, Sr., this RPA Sponsored Project initiative aims to create a "soft law" document that sets forth the fundamental principles of an emerging new global impact ethic. The Earth Charter is the product of a decade-long, worldwide, cross-cultural dialogue on common goals and shared values. It seeks to inspire in all people a new sense of global interdependence and shared responsibility for the well-being of the whole human family, the greater community of life, and future generations.
Visit WebsiteOceans 5
Oceans 5
RPA is the home for Oceans 5, an international funder collaborative dedicated to protecting the world’s five oceans. Oceans 5 focuses on large, opportunistic projects and campaigns to establish marine reserves in places like the Seychelles and in the Arctic regions of Russia and Canada as well as constraining overfishing through policy and regulations development.
Learn MoreEducation
Promise Venture Studio
Promise Venture Studio
Promise venture studio is an RPA Sponsored Project that attracts, supports and connects entrepreneurs focused on early childhood development (ECD). The mission is to create a vibrant community that supports entrepreneurs and their ventures in ECD. They aim to catalyze system-wide change — and create sustainable impact for the most disadvantaged children (age 0-5) and their families in the U.S.
Visit WebsiteLumina Fund for Racial Justice and Equity
Lumina Fund for Racial Justice and Equity
The Lumina Fund for Racial Justice and Equity supports racial literacy acquisition and strategy development among 200 campus leaders at 5 to 10 colleges and universities, as well as the development and launch of an annual racial climate assessment of thousands of students on hundreds of campuses across the United States.
Visit WebsiteCollaborative for Spirituality in Education
Collaborative for Spirituality in Education
A project established by Steven Rockefeller, Sr. to promote the spiritual and moral development of young people in and through U.S. PreK-12 independent and public schools with the long-term goal of better integrating the head and the heart in all spheres and at all levels of American society.
Visit WebsiteAchieving Success in Postsecondary Education
Achieving Success in Postsecondary Education
Detailed reports providing an analysis of the state of student debt in the U.S., challenging business trends that universities and colleges encounter and qualitative and quantitative trends in postsecondary education funding. RPA and the TIAA Institute partnered to look at the landscape of student debt in the U.S. as well as trends and innovative approaches in private funding of higher education.
Learn MoreCollaborating Districts Initiative
Collaborating Districts Initiative
In 2011, NoVo Foundation and CASEL launched the Collaborating Districts Initiative (CDI), a national effort aimed at supporting districts’ capacities to promote Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) for all students. The CDI has two primary goals. The first is to develop districts’ capacities to plan, implement and monitor systemic changes that will impact schools and classrooms in ways that enhance students’ social-emotional development and academic performance. The second goal is to document lessons learned that can inform future efforts to support systemic SEL implementation in districts across the country.
Visit WebsiteThe Earth Charter Fund
The Earth Charter Fund
Established by Steven Rockefeller, Sr., this RPA Sponsored Project initiative aims to create a "soft law" document that sets forth the fundamental principles of an emerging new global impact ethic. The Earth Charter is the product of a decade-long, worldwide, cross-cultural dialogue on common goals and shared values. It seeks to inspire in all people a new sense of global interdependence and shared responsibility for the well-being of the whole human family, the greater community of life, and future generations.
Visit WebsiteEchidna Giving
Echidna Giving
Echidna Giving joins critical thinkers, innovators and practitioners to advance girls’ education in the developing world. RPA helps Echidna Giving with flexibility to make grants, cover operation expenses and sponsor special programs to make progress against their mission.
Visit WebsiteInternational Commission on Financing Global Education Opportunity
International Commission on Financing Global Education Opportunity
A major new global initiative engaging world leaders, policy makers and researchers to develop a renewed and compelling investment case and financing pathway for achieving equal educational opportunity for children and young people.
Visit WebsiteLIGHT Awards
LIGHT Awards
The Light Award Leverages innovation by growing and honoring teachers. In creating the LIGHT Awards, RPA led the Intrepid Philanthropy Foundation through a thoughtful program-design process that emphasized input from educators. It involved benchmarking, focus groups and a retreat attended by current and former teachers, and was capped off by a pilot year of LIGHT Awards grants to selected teams of teachers in the greater San Francisco Bay Area. RPA remains a critical partner in the management of the program.
Learn MoreFinancial Inclusion
AfricaNenda
AfricaNenda
RPA currently sponsors the AfricaNenda project, an investment initiative designed to convene African digital payments experts to coordinate and accelerate the growth of instant and inclusive payment systems. Over three years, AfricaNenda aims to support the deployment of 6+ real-time retail payment systems (RT-RPS), with the potential to provide financial access to 150M+ excluded African adults. RPA and the AfricaNenda team aim to achieve this objective through a mutually reinforcing two-track approach - (1) Providing critical Pre-Project planning support as well as (2) Policy support, Advocacy, and Capacity building for African institutions, payments experts, and other key stakeholders of the digital finance ecosystem. This project is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Visit WebsiteGender Centre of Excellence
Gender Centre of Excellence
With a mission focused on advancing women's financial inclusion, the Gender Centre of Excellence seeks to be the premier centre of excellence and knowledge hub for innovative and scalable solutions in Nigeria and beyond.
Learn MoreFinnSalud
FinnSalud
FinnSalud measures financial health outcomes would allow relevant stakeholders to assess the extent to which financial inclusion efforts actually improve people’s ability to manage daily expenses, prepare for and overcome financial shocks, achieve life goals, and take advantage of opportunities for economic mobility.
Visit WebsiteCatalyst Fund
Catalyst Fund
RPA currently sponsors the Catalyst Fund, an investment initiative designed to provide early stage capital injections for fin-tech start-ups that design and produce financial inclusion solutions. Over three years, RPA expects to make up to 20 investments in small firms that are sourced by a network of investors that includes Accion Venture Labs, Gray Ghost Ventures, Quona, Omidyar Network, and 500 Startups. Capital for this effort is provided by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and JP Morgan Chase.
Visit WebsiteHealth
Ebola Survival Fund
Ebola Survival Fund
During the 2014 Ebola crisis in West Africa, actor Jeffrey Wright approached RPA to open a new grantmaking fund to help those impacted on the ground in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. RPA helped get the Fund up and running so that donations could be processed and the money used to meet urgent needs. We also worked with a coalition of international health organizations and local NGOs to respond with funding that not only met immediate needs but also invested in long-term solutions that strengthen the health delivery infrastructure in Sierra Leone and Liberia.
Learn MoreThe Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Fund
The Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Fund
Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors has been honored to serve as a strategic partner of the Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Fund since 2008. The Illumination Fund invited RPA to help document and assess its Healthy Food & Community Change initiative and to flesh out insights that could be helpful to others who are involved in, or considering involvement in, philanthropy that uses food as a vehicle to improve communities.
Learn MoreCommunity Health Acceleration Partnership
Community Health Acceleration Partnership
As a sponsored project of RPA, Community Health Acceleration Partnership is a partnership of governments, NGO's, academic institutions and corporations jointly working to attain the UN Millennium Development Goals around child survival, maternal health and the devastation caused by HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.
Visit WebsiteImpact Investing
Impact Investing Handbook
Impact Investing Handbook
This in-depth, detailed, and practical handbook provides asset owners--including families, individuals, foundations, and corporations--insight on how to more fully align their full range of investments with their values.
Learn MoreImpact Investing: an Introduction
Impact Investing: an Introduction
This guide is part of our Philanthropy Roadmap series and is expressly written for donors who may wish to complement traditional grantmaking approaches as they invest their assets to promote change.
Visit WebsiteImpact Investing: Strategy and Action
Impact Investing: Strategy and Action
This guide explains how to take practical steps towards implementing your first impact investment.
Visit WebsiteCatalyst Fund
Catalyst Fund
RPA currently sponsors the Catalyst Fund, an investment initiative designed to provide early stage capital injections for fin-tech start-ups that design and produce financial inclusion solutions. Over three years, RPA expects to make up to 20 investments in small firms that are sourced by a network of investors that includes Accion Venture Labs, Gray Ghost Ventures, Quona, Omidyar Network, and 500 Startups. Capital for this effort is provided by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and JP Morgan Chase.
Visit WebsiteUpstart Co-Lab
Upstart Co-Lab
Upstart Co-Lab believes in the power of creative people to solve problems. With support from RPA on operational and financial management services, Upstart is disrupting how creativity is funded by connecting the $12 trillion of socially responsible and impact investing capital in the U.S. to the $804 billion U.S. creative economy.
Visit WebsitePhilanthropic Practice
Fondation CHANEL
Fondation CHANEL
Fondation CHANEL has the vision "for women and girls to be free to shape their own destiny." In preparation for an upcoming increase in organizational resources, RPA conducted a multi–pronged evaluation of its grantmaking programs, processes, governance, and operations. RPA’s evaluation included interviews, surveys, metrics, and additional research. Based on the findings, RPA made recommendations to help the foundation attain its goals as it prepared to scale up.
Learn MoreFondazione CRT
Fondazione CRT
Fondazione CRT engaged RPA to help identify opportunities for integrating an SDG lens in its work. As part of these efforts, RPA worked with CRT to help it understand how its work aligns with the SDGs, assess progress on relevant SDGs, and identify key indicators that demonstrate the foundation’s contribution to priority SDGs. As a result, RPA provided CRT with an analysis of current work, developed an SDG-focused strategy for maximum impact, and developed robust implementation and communication plans.
Learn MoreResilience Initiative
Resilience Initiative
The Resilience Initiative (RI) was established in December 2017 as a project of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, and funded by the Packard Foundation to build the operational and personal resilience of organizations as they adapt to shifting policy and programmatic demands and increasing challenges to their operations and the wellbeing of their staff.
Learn MoreTheory of the Foundation
Theory of the Foundation
At RPA, we actively work to understand the future of giving. As we build knowledge and collaboration in our field, our expertise grows, allowing us to place our client work within a deep understanding of the broader context in which we’re working. Our Theory of the Foundation initiative represents a key example of how our research shapes the sector and informs our partnerships.
Learn MorePhilanthropy and the SDGs
Philanthropy and the SDGs
In 2015, all 193 Member States of the UN pledged to achieve an ambitious set of 17 goals over the next 15 years. To help the philanthropy sector engage more effectively in the global development goal processes, RPA launched the SDG Philanthropy Platform, in partnership with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and Foundation Center (FC), with seed funding from the Conrad N. Hilton, Ford and The MasterCard Foundations, and growing support from other partners and handed it to the WINGS Philanthropic Network in 2019. RPA also authored two guides on Philanthropy and the SDGs to help funders maximize impact.
Learn MoreRights & Equity
Abundant Futures Fund
Abundant Futures Fund
Abundant Futures Fund is a new funder collaborative to widen the circle of funders and allies supporting immigration issues and the immigrant justice movement. The first national effort of this magnitude to focus on increasing funding for immigration, AFF aims to raise $100 million in the next five years to ignite meaningful change on immigration.
Learn MoreFondation CHANEL
Fondation CHANEL
Fondation CHANEL has the vision "for women and girls to be free to shape their own destiny." In preparation for an upcoming increase in organizational resources, RPA conducted a multi–pronged evaluation of its grantmaking programs, processes, governance, and operations. RPA’s evaluation included interviews, surveys, metrics, and additional research. Based on the findings, RPA made recommendations to help the foundation attain its goals as it prepared to scale up.
Learn MoreLemann Foundation
Lemann Foundation
Making Brazil a more just and equitable place by guaranteeing access to high-quality public education for Brazilians of all backgrounds while supporting the development of leaders committed to the social transformation of Brazil.
Visit WebsiteBlack Trustee Alliance for Art Museums
Black Trustee Alliance for Art Museums
Our mission is to increase the inclusion of Black perspectives and narratives in North American art museums to make our institutions more equitable and excellent spaces of cultural engagement.
Visit WebsiteAfghan Future Fund
Afghan Future Fund
This special-purpose fund is intended to support humanitarian response, relief, and recovery efforts for Afghan people.
Visit WebsiteIRIS (International Resource for Impact & Storytelling)
IRIS (International Resource for Impact & Storytelling)
Imagine the future. Transform the present. Story making a world of change.
Visit WebsiteCollaborative for Gender + Reproductive Equity
Collaborative for Gender + Reproductive Equity
As an RPA Sponsored Project, The Collaborative for Gender + Reproductive Equity (CGRE) seeks to provide new funding to advance reproductive health and gender equity, recognizing these as inextricably linked.
Visit WebsitePop Culture Collaborative Fund
Pop Culture Collaborative Fund
The goal of Pop Culture Collaborative is to help transform narratives in pop culture about people of color, immigrants and refugees, Muslims and other communities that are deeply affected by harmful portrayals and stereotypes.
Visit WebsiteLumina Fund for Racial Justice and Equity
Lumina Fund for Racial Justice and Equity
The Lumina Fund for Racial Justice and Equity supports racial literacy acquisition and strategy development among 200 campus leaders at 5 to 10 colleges and universities, as well as the development and launch of an annual racial climate assessment of thousands of students on hundreds of campuses across the United States.
Visit WebsiteCollective Future Fund
Collective Future Fund
The vision of the Collective Future Fund is to create a future where all girls and women, cis, transgender and gender non-confirming, can live, learn and work with safety and dignity. The collaborative will focus on supporting strategies to remove structural barriers, starting with the workplace as a focus of inequity and violence, as well as a potential site for movement building.
Visit WebsiteArt for Justice Fund
Art for Justice Fund
A five-year initiative seeded by philanthropist and art collector Agnes Gund donating the proceeds from the sale of art in her collection. The Funds aims to turn art into action, investing more than $100 million into strategic efforts to reform the criminal justice system. RPA allowed the Fund a way to quickly and strategically begin operating and responding to an urgent issue facing the US by providing programmatic, advisory and governance support.
Visit WebsiteJust Beginnings Collaborative
Just Beginnings Collaborative
Just Beginnings Collaborative is a movement-building platform designed to initiate, cultivate and fund strategic efforts to end child sexual abuse. As the Collaborative's U.S. fiscal sponsor, RPA provides employment services, grants and financial management for the team to develop an effective social change campaign.
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