Autodesk Foundation
/OVERVIEW: The Autodesk Foundation awards disaster response and relief grants, in-kind donations, and employee volunteers to help recovery efforts.
IP TAKE: Autodesk seeks scrappy organizations with leaders and teams of established, large organizations that can scale quickly, often at the international level, in order to carry out disaster response and relief work, which doesn’t leave space for smaller organizations. It’s relatively accessible, but it’s going to require some persistance. This funder offers a full package of support, which includes in-kind software donations, subsidized training, and pro bono employee expertise. To meet these funding goals, Autodesk takes an incubator approach to giving by providing “risk capital directly to nonprofits and social impact startups in the form of grant funding and investments (equity and debt).” The foundation also funds “accelerators, incubators, and impact funds to bolster the growth of the entire field” to help ecosystems of giving scale.
PROFILE: The Autodesk Foundation is the philanthropic arm of the software company of the same name. The foundation supports “organizations taking on humanity’s biggest challenges” and responds to global calamities with grants, in-kind donations, and volunteers.
Grants for Climate Change, Humanitarian and Disaster Relief and Global Health
In it’s efforts to “Build Back Better,” the Autodesk Foundation seeks to “build global Autodesk-centric solutions using technology, design, and engineering” to address humanmade and natural disasters, unrest and global pandemics. While the foundation does not have a separate giving program for climate change issues, it appears to give grants to organizations whose work focuses on humanitarian or disaster aid spurred by climate change pressures. Overall, Autodesk likes to use technology to prevent or lessen impact from various disasters.
Autodesk invests in a range of organizations around the world. In particular, it seeks organizations that, according to it’s site:
Champion innovative solutions to address climate change and inequality
Develop unique solutions that have a path to scale
Demonstrate qualified, visionary leadership, and a skilled team
Maintain a commitment to measuring and managing toward the impact of their work
In this light, the Autodesk Foundation, rather than maintain clear programs, invests in evolving initiatives that center on “Energy & materials, Health & resilience, and Work & prosperity.”
Recent tax filings suggest this funder backs Disaster Response and recovery efforts more often than humanitarian crises.
The Autodesk Foundation makes grants through three programs, beyond it’s initiatives:
Software donations through the Autodesk Technology Impact Program.
Employee expertise through the Autodesk Employee Impact Program.
Industry expertise through the Autodesk Technology Centers.
Important Grant Details:
Grants typically range from $10,000 to $20,000, and Autodesk does not make a large number of awards each year. In the past, the foundation has offered support in the wake of the Nepal earthquake, Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines, and the Ebola crisis in Africa. To learn more about organizations receiving Autodesk support, explore its grantees page.
The Autodesk Foundation does not accept unsolicited grant applications or requests for funding. Instead, it uses its “extensive network” to seek out suitable grantees.
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