The West Foundation » Portfolio 2013

Agora Partnerships

Agora Partnerships was gifted $15,000 for its Women Accelerators Program, which exists to find and support women in growing their small-to-medium-sized enterprises by brokering impact investment funding to provide low-interest business loans to the participants. This program operates much in the same way as the organization’s main program by matching candidates with MBA candidates to assist in developing a business plan, then holding an annual competition to pick the top plans to receive assistance. The organization then locates and brokers loans for the winners. Started in Nicaragua in 2005, Agora Partnerships works to accelerate the success of early-stage impact entrepreneurs across Latin America who share a common commitment to solving social and environmental challenges through business.

Aspen Institute

Aspen Institute is in the midst of a three-year, $60,000 grant to initiate a new program, the Alliance for Artisan Enterprise. This endeavor will work in a variety of capacities to raise public awareness of and provide assistance to the millions of artisan handcrafters whose work comprises $32 billion in international trade annually, yet who lack access to markets, appropriate compensation, and healthcare. Many of these issues are inherent to an industry that is highly informal and lacks the appropriate coalitions and networks required to lever change in the overall business environment. The Alliance will work to establish and promote best practices for the industry (including such linkages), conduct research for the industry, market and publicize the industry to achieve public awareness regarding authenticity and sustainability of products, and create a worldwide coalition of artisans, aid-to-artisan organizations, foundations and corporations to begin the work of formalizing and regulating the industry...

Blue Planet Network (BPN)

Blue Planet Network (BPN) is in the midst of a two-year, $16,000 grant to strengthen and test its metrics and evaluation system, then implement the broad scale use of this tool among its member organizations. The project will provide members with a tool to systematically track baseline, output, and outcome measures. Use of consistent measurements and sharing of rich data throughout all projects, will allow BPN to help its members create more effective and impactful water interventions and improve access to safe water and sanitation around the globe. Blue Planet Network (BPN) is a global collaboration network of 107 member organizations working in 27 countries to promote the adoption of effective ways to create sustainable water and sanitation programs. Member’s programs are managed and tracked across organization and region, from idea through implementation and long-term impact to improve outcomes. The organization maintains nearly $50 million of member program data that...

Building Tomorrow

Building Tomorrow received a gift in the amount of $10,000 to further its fund raising efforts. The Indianapolis-based organization builds community-sustained schools in Uganda. Recently recognized by the Clinton Global Initiative, the organization has made a pledge to build and open 60 schools across Uganda by 2016 using its unique fund raising model. Chapters are established at colleges and universities; each raise $20,000 to build a 10-room school to house 325 children. As a chapter finishes its fund raising cycle, it begins to raising another $20,000. In order to complete its pledge, the organization must expand its fund raising efforts and recruit additional college chapters. Monies granted enabled the organization to complete the recruiting effort and add additional chapters to fund raising efforts. For the last six years, Building Tomorrow has empowered young people to invest their resources, time and talents in providing students in East Africa with access to...

CARE

CARE was granted $20,000 to hire a media/marketing/public relations agency to assist the organization in conducting a strategic initiative designed to establish new channels of internal and external communications as the organization becomes a subsidiary division of another non-profit organization, Feed the Children. This merge will allow World Neighbors to achieve greater and financial security and outreach through Feed the Children’s network of on-the-ground partnerships and donors while at the same time bringing the World Neighbor’s community-based model to Feed the Children. For more than sixty years, World Neighbors has worked throughout the Global South to build self-sufficient communities with the purpose of eliminating the suffering caused by hunger, poverty and disease. The organization focuses on training and educating communities to find lasting solutions to the challenges they face by investing in local leadership and indigenous organizations that can continue functioning independently after the program has completed its work in an...

CARE International

CARE International was granted $15,000 to assist in implementing PHASE II of its SHOUHARDO (Strengthening Household Ability to Respond to Development Opportunities) program in Bangladesh. This program combines women’s empowerment with health, nutrition, education and other household interventions. The first phase of this program dramatically reduced childhood stunting (an indication of malnutrition), achieving twice the rate of normal USAID funded programs. The objective of Phase II is to build upon the success of SHOUHARDO Phase I by deepening the program’s reach, and continuing to reduce childhood malnutrition rates in Bangladesh while providing a platform for women’s empowerment in other areas. For more than 65 years, CARE International has worked to serve individuals and families in the poorest communities in the world. A global leader in both emergency relief and international development programs, the organization’s projects span the spectrum of poverty elimination efforts, with nearly 1,000 projects currently being operated in...

Containers 2 Clinics

Containers 2 Clinics received a gift of $15,000 to assist in training Community Healthcare Workers (CHWs) for its newest clinic in Camp Coq, Haiti. CHW training will consist of pre- and post-clinic opening segments. Pre-opening training will focus on “social marketing,” consisting of making residents aware of the services that will be offered and answering community questions regarding the clinic and its operations. Post-opening training will cover important health topics such as clean water, nutrition, safe pregnancy and sexual health. The goal of Containers 2 Clinics is to provide low-cost, high-quality, community-sustained health clinics in ultrapoor areas of the world with a focus on maternal/child health. Its model is innovative: creating clinics through use of two 8’ x 20’ medical shipping containers that provide enough space for comprehensive and portable care. Each clinic provides two private consultation areas, laboratory, pharmacy and a shaded waiting/patient area and space for recordkeeping. ...

GoodWeave

GoodWeave received emergency funds in the amount of $15,000 to sustain its Afghanistan program until a promised tranche of funding from USAID is able to be released. In 2012, the foundation assisted the organization in successfully establishing a new certified rug-weaving program in Kabul, Afghanistan. All benchmarks for the new program had been, or were on target to be achieved; a six-month delay in receipt of pledged monies from USAID would have forced GoodWeave to disband the program. Funding from the West Foundation and other supporters enabled inroads previously made in Afghanistan to continue through the fourth quarter of 2013 when government funding was released. GoodWeave works in Afghanistan, Bhutan, India and Nepal, and aims to stop child labor in the carpet industry and to replicate its market-based approach in other sectors of the handicraft industry.