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.