Entrepreneur photo 2019

About Us

The Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation is a global venture philanthropy firm supporting early stage, high impact social enterprises. We believe that with early funding and rigorous support, exceptional leaders, tackling some of society’s most complex problems, can make the world a better place.

Borrowed from our venture capital legacy, we find, fund and support exceptional leaders with innovative and highly impactful ideas that have the potential to scale. We provide $300,000 of unrestricted capital over three years and, most importantly, we provide rigorous, ongoing support by joining the board of directors and partnering with the leader to help build capacity in the organization and scale their impact. Learn more about Our Model.

We invest in early-stage organizations and are often their first institutional investor, as well as their first “outside” board member. We invest in a wide variety of sectors:  our current portfolio includes organizations working both domestically and internationally, helping to provide critical access to healthcare, education, food security, social justice, water and sanitation, transparency and accountability, and shelter.

Since we started in 2002 we have invested in 151 social enterprises, representing some of the most exciting new initiatives in the social sector. With the support of 50 donor partners, we closed our third fund: $65 million dedicated to supporting the next generation of 100 social entrepreneurs who will change the world.