Co-Impact announced its first round of grants today totalling more than $80 million to improve education, health, and economic opportunities for an estimated nine million people over the next five years across Africa, South Asia, and Latin America. This is the first set of grants delivered by Co-Impact, a collaborative partnership founded in late 2017 by Olivia Leland, founding director of The Giving Pledge, and partners including Richard Chandler, Bill and Melinda Gates, Jeff Skoll, The Rockefeller Foundation, and Rohini and Nandan Nilekani.

Olivia Leland, Founder and CEO said: ‘At Co-Impact, our guiding mission is to make the biggest difference possible in the lives of millions, and I believe that our impressive first round of program partners are poised to do just that. I am also extremely pleased that Rohini and Nandan Nilekani have joined our group of Core Partners who see the great need – and opportunity – for pooling resources and knowledge to drive large-scale change. Deep collaboration is still a relatively nascent area for philanthropy. Co-Impact and our partners are committed to proving that it not only works but has the potential to drive much greater impact.’

Each of the grants announced today was selected as part of a rigorous assessment from an initial pool of more than 250 initiatives. Liberia’s National Community Health Assistant Program, the graduation approach to economic opportunity, Project ECHO, and Teaching at the Right Level Africa were selected to receive Co-Impact’s systems change grants over five years, while citiesRISE is receiving a two-year venture grant.

Olivia Leland, was interviewed by Alliance editor Charles Keidan, in the June 2018 issue on Philanthropy Infrastructure, and spoke of creating the collaborative means to use funds more effectively and create change at scale: ‘From the exploratory stage to the launch was three years so a lot of it was about building the idea through input from many people. That was a key part of the design of Co-Impact. What I was particularly focused on was bringing together a group that would be really interested in collaborating with others to create effects on a large scale.’

Read the full interview here: http://www.alliancemagazine.org/interview/olivia-leland