Lever for Change is designed to help philanthropists overcome the challenges that often prevent them from achieving their philanthropic ambitions. While many philanthropists aspire to make “big bets” for social change, they often struggle to find, evaluate, and implement large grants, in part because they do not have the expertise or dedicated staff these efforts require.

Lever for Change provides donors with the expertise, infrastructure, and day-to-day support to identify the best ideas and solutions that align with their interests. We manage customized competitions on behalf of interested philanthropists, along with matching donors with the vetted proposals in the Bold Solutions Network, a searchable database which contains the top-ranked proposals from all of our competitions, including 100&Change.

Lever for Change centers its work on the core values of transparency, openness, equity, and inclusivity. We take intentional steps to ensure these values are represented throughout our activities and within each customized competition, including sourcing from diverse networks, and building community engagement into competition design from the beginning. We provide applicants with detailed information about the competition, such as evaluation criteria and scoring rubric, competition timeline and process, and the names of judges.

Yes. Lever for Change competitions can be designed to include a range of organizational structures, including but not limited to: nonprofit 501(c)3 organizations, for-profit corporations, benefit corporations, limited liability companies, joint ventures, and partnerships.

Lever for Change provides support to applicants in a variety of ways, including access to webinars, constructive feedback from judges and peers, and peer-learning opportunities. Additional resources that provide more intensive support, such as cohort-based workshops and coaching, may be available to select organizations and collaborations.

Furthermore, Lever for Change offers top applicants opportunities to gain greater visibility for funding from an array of donors. The highest-ranked proposals from all of our competitions are showcased in the Bold Solutions Network.

Yes. While specific competitions may be structured to fund organizations based or working within a specific geographic location, Lever for Change is a global effort and can source and select outstanding entities from anywhere in the world. More than half of the inaugural 100&Change competition applicants were global in scope, as were almost half (47%) in the second round of 100&Change, with many based outside the United States.

Lever for Change only shares final prospectuses with donors and technical assistance providers who are under non-disclosure agreements (NDAs). We do not share them with other parties. However, all finalists will receive technical assistance and advising throughout the process. Typically, teams have 20-30+ hours of support via one-on-one, bi-weekly check-ins and offline reviews, which we believe will benefit finalists much more than reviewing a sample of a successful prospectus.

As finalists, your final prospectuses will be added to our Bold Solutions Network, where we match donors with nonprofits and social enterprises whose solutions to significant social challenges were highly ranked after rigorous evaluation in one of our competitions. Learn more about the Network.

As a part of our effort to raise the visibility of all finalists and increase their potential to secure additional funding, Lever for Change (LFC) will share relevant proposal and due diligence information with potential donors. While we may share your original proposal and prospectus narrative with a potential donor, it is LFC’s policy to have a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) or other contract that contains an NDA clause in place before sharing any due diligence information or appendices with an external party. In response to an initial request from an interested donor or intermediary, LFC will share the following items, if available:

• Original submitted proposal
• Revised Proposal/Prospectus narrative
• Project Factsheet/Two-page solution overview

Should a prospective donor express interest in learning more about a proposal, including viewing a prospectus’ accompanying appendices or additional due diligence materials, LFC will work with the relevant party to execute a mutual NDA or other contract. Once a signed NDA is in place, LFC will share the following due diligence items as is appropriate and if available:

• Anonymized Peer-to-Peer and Evaluation Panel scores and comments
• Revised Proposal/Prospectus appendices
• Anonymized technical reviews
• Diversity, equity, and inclusion reviews
• Inclusion of persons with disabilities reviews
• Organizational legal and financial health reviews
• LFC insights as applicable and appropriate

Finalists can typically expect to receive the results of their reviews one month after being notified of finalist status. For the second round of reviews, the DEI technical assistance providers will evaluate your submitted prospectuses to understand how your diversity, equity, and inclusion thinking has continued to evolve over the prospectus development period. Finalists can expect to receive feedback two weeks after submitting final prospectus materials.

During the finalist stage, the DEI reviewers will be available for one-on-one conversations with you to go over the details of their reviews and provide additional feedback, resources, and support.