GSR Foundation: Year in Review
In 2023, GSR formalised its existing corporate responsibility commitments by pledging $10m to establish the GSR Foundation.
Operating as a distinct independent entity, the GSR Foundation envisions a world in which no one is excluded from participating in, or benefitting from, the advancement of technology and its role in progress. Funded by regular donations from GSR, the Foundation offers financial and expert assistance to excellent non-profits globally that work towards this vision.
The philanthropy of the GSR Foundation is based on trust. We typically give unrestricted income, through a light light-touch application process, and keep prospects well informed of timeframes. We spend less time asking how the money will be spent, and more time learning what was achieved.
What we did in 2023:
Recruited an experienced executive director and independent non-executive directors to ensure that our grantmaking is guided by practical, professional, and lived experience.
Established 30 partnerships with nonprofits across the world, in which we provided grants (around $1.3m in total), expert advice, and moral support.
Developed research and introduction pathways to make us efficient at identifying prospects that typically would face barriers in building a relationship with a traditional funder.
Supported a number of partners looking at the use of new decentralised web technologies and their application to create social value.
What we will do in 2024:
Continue to monitor the human resourcing requirements to deliver on our mission, and recruit accordingly - while minimising typical barriers to inclusion.
Build a co-creative grant reporting approach that generates high-quality data both for internal strategy and external dissemination.
Build a collaboration platform to connect our partners with each other, and with relevant experts, for pro-bono consulting and training.
Materially increase our grant making by over $1m, and evolve a number of the initial grants into multi-year partnerships.
Build further ‘Empower’ partnerships with global NGOs, enhancing our reach and prospect pipeline for ‘Enable’ grants.
Build out our ‘Expert’ thought-leadership programme and publish reports and guides covering any relevant learnings from our operation.