
What We Fund
DRK’s hope is to support outsized impact through entrepreneurs and enterprises that create a transformational paradigm shift to meaningfully address a pressing societal problem affecting people’s lives.
DRK Funds:
- Organizations addressing a critical social or environmental issue as the focus of their work.
- Founders who intend to expand their impact significantly over time.
- Organizations operating in Africa, Europe, India, Latin America, and the United States.
- Independent nonprofit and impact first, mission-driven for-profit entities, including US 501(c)3 and its non-US equivalents, C corporations, B corporations, and hybrid organizations.
- Fiscally sponsored organizations in select cases where there is a plan to spin out (in our experience, independence creates stronger enabling conditions for growth).
- Post-pilot, pre-scale organizations. This typically means:
—Your program, product or service is already in the market or in the field.
—You have early indication that your model is having its intended impact.
—Your organization is 3-5 years old (this is not a rule, but a guidepost). - Organizations with one or more founders who are full-time or intend to be.
—We believe that full-time leadership from the organization’s founder(s) is critical to an early stage organization’s growth.
—We recognize that going full-time requires resources that you may still be putting together, and if that is the case we are happy to start a conversation with you in the meantime. - We value diversity of people proximate to the problem at hand and a commitment to foster justice, equity, inclusion, and belonging practices.
DRK Prioritizes:
- Evidence of focused alignment, systemic social change, data-based decision making.
- Leaders who are continually learning and iterating and welcome a deep working relationship with DRK for 3 years. Leaders who intimately understand the opportunity and the communities they serve. Leaders committed to advancing justice, equity, diversity, inclusion and belonging for all.
- Organizations who are designed to realize their impact at scale.
DRK Does Not Fund:
- Idea or pre-pilot stage organizations.
- Organizations that do not plan to expand or scale their impact to achieve their mission.
- Projects housed within an established, mature organization (unless there is a plan to spin out).
- Awareness or field building campaigns.
- Organizations whose sole focus is the development of research.
- Programs promoting religious doctrine.
- US 501(c)4 organizations.