About Lever for Change

Lever for Change is a nonprofit affiliate of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. We help donors find and fund solutions to the world’s greatest challenges. We do this in two primary ways:

• We develop and manage customized philanthropic grant challenges that award a minimum of $10 million in funding (payable over five years) to rigorously evaluated proposals and provide other tailored opportunities to help donors find and fund bold solutions capable of accelerating social change.
• We invite all Lever for Change challenge finalists to become members of our Bold Solutions Network, a growing global network that helps members connect with donors, secure additional funding and amplify their impact.

Navigating this Collection

There are 6 projects featured in this collection that incorporate alternative financing models into their work and might be candidate for evaluation for alternative financing beyond grants. Five projects have current work locations in the United States, and 1 project (Sistema Bio - the first project in the collection) works internationally.

Neither Lever for Change nor MacArthur Foundation have evaluated the capacity of the project teams or organization to receive and manage investments outside of grant support and any potential funder would have to perform its own due diligence to determine the appropriateness to receive alternative financing, such as an impact investment . A project’s inclusion in this list is not a recommendation from or an endorsement by Lever for Change or the MacArthur Foundation that the project is appropriate for impact investing.  The projects were identified as potential case studies by Lever for Change to evaluate the transition from grants to impact investments.

The project tiles are organized alphabetically by lead organization name. You will find a brief snapshot for each proposal where you can gather key organizational details and project information that was captured during the challenge process. For ease of viewing, you may click on each tile to expand the snapshot.

Next Steps

These organizations are ready to solve critical problems and are seeking resources to implement their solutions. Please contact Karen Minkel, Philanthropy Director at Lever for Change, if you are interested in any of the following:

1. Requesting additional information about a proposal: We are happy to provide you with an organization’s full proposal and a summary of evaluations and due diligence, if available.
2. Connecting with the organizations: We can also facilitate introductions to the organizations featured on this list so you can learn more about their work and ask specific funding questions.
3. Supporting organizations: Ready to support one of these compelling solutions? We can answer questions you may have about how to best support the selected proposal(s) and/or organization(s).
4. Requesting another curated list: If you have other philanthropic interest areas, we’d be happy to share additional curated lists.