Osprey Foundation
/OVERVIEW: The Maryland-based Osprey Foundation supports global development, immigrants and refugees. It also works broadly to support social services and education in the Baltimore area and runs an interfaith social justice initiative.
IP TAKE: Osprey’s largest grantmaking area is WASH (water, sanitation and hygiene), and it makes grants and impact investments to bring basic amenities to underserved rural populations in Africa. Other areas of interest include immigrants and refugees and social services in the city of Baltimore.
This funder does not accept applications for funding or review unsolicited proposals. Prospective grantees working in Osprey’s areas of interest should reach out to the foundation via its contact page. While it’s not accessible, it is responsive.
PROFILE: Founded in 2003 with wealth accumulated from a successful career in finance, Bill Clarke now dedicates himself full-time to the Osprey Foundation. His years spent working in the Mayan communities of the Guatemalan highlands inspired his current focus areas: WASH and sustainable cookstoves for the developing world. In addition to its global development grantmaking, this funder supports immigrant and refugee causes, interfaith organizations and the city of Baltimore.
Grants for Global Development
Osprey’s global development funding consists mainly of grants to organizations involved in clean cooking and WASH (water, sanitation and hygiene) initiatives. Osprey’s clean cooking grantmaking supports projects that enable people in rural areas of developing countries to transition from cooking on open stoves with wood or coal to safer and cleaner options including biomass and petroleum-based fuels in more efficient stoves. Cleaner cooking grantees include the Clean Cooking Alliance, which aims to build the infrastructure and availability of cookstoves in developing countries of Asia and Africa, and Spark+, an nonprofit that invests in private sector companies in the cook-stove industry.
Osprey’s WASH funding supports “initiatives that deliver effective, sustainable and scalable services” to communities that lack running water. The foundation has supported Water for People, which collaborates with communities, businesses and governments to bring sustainable plumbing to underserved areas in Bolivia, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, India, Malawi, Rwanda and Uganda. Other WASH grant recipients include Splash, WaterAid and the international organization Agenda for Change.
Grants for Immigrants and Refugees
The Osprey Foundation supports immigrants and refugees via its social justice and empowerment initiative. In the U.S. the foundation has given to CASA of Maryland, which provides legal assistance, citizenship education and vocational training to immigrant families. In Guatemala, the foundation has partnered with the Guatemalan Human Rights Commission, which documents and addresses a range of human rights issues that drive migration.
Other grantmaking
A significant portion of Osprey’s grantmaking stays in the state of Maryland, where the foundation supports a broad range of social service, educational and economic opportunity initiatives, mainly in Baltimore. Past grantees include the Center for Urban Families, the Open Society Institute of Baltimore, public radio station WYPR, the parent education program Side by Side and Well for the Journey, a spiritual and wellbeing organization in Towson.
The Osprey Foundation also maintains an ecumenical and interfaith funding program, which supports “faith-related” organizations that work for justice and equity “across lines of religious difference.” Past grantees include Baltimore’s Institute for Islamic, Christian and Jewish Studies, St. Mary’s Ecumenical Institute, the Interfaith Youth Core, the Presbyterian Church of the U.S., and the Protestant Center for Pastoral Studies in Central America.
Important Grant Details:
The Osprey Foundation makes about $3 million in grants each year, with grants ranging anywhere from $5,000 to $500,000 and an average grant size of about $50,000. Its grantees range from small community-led organizations to large multinational NGOs. Information about past grantees is available at the foundation’s partners page. In addition to its grantmaking programs, the Osprey Foundation participates in impact investment opportunities in the area of WASH.
This funder does not accept or review unsolicited proposals. Prospective grantees can reach out to the foundation via its contact page.
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