Alexandre Mars
/SOURCE OF WEALTH: Mars Capital, ScrOOn, Phonevalley; tech entrepreneur
FUNDING AREAS: Global Development, Education, Work and Economic Opportunity
OVERVIEW: Alexandre Mars moves philanthropy through the Epic Foundation, which bridges the gap between a new generation of donors - philanthropists, corporations and foundations - and organizations supporting children and youth globally.
BACKGROUND: Born in Paris, Alexandre Mars graduated from the HEC Paris business school and Paris Dauphine University. He founded one of the first web agencies in France, A2X, in the late 1990s. Mars went on to launch and sell several start-ups in Europe and North America, including ScrOOn, a software company in the social media industry acquired by Blackberry in 2013, and Phonevalley, a European digital marketing enterprise. Mars started the Epic Foundation in 2015 in New York “to support domestic and foreign charitable organizations focused on child and youth welfare.” Through his foundation, Mars aims to “disrupt” traditional philanthropy by developing new tools focused on enhancing how donors select, monitor and experience their impact. Epic connects donors with fully vetted global organizations that focus on million children and youth in 11 nations.
ISSUES:
GLOBAL DEVELOPMENT
Epic’s global development giving has recently focused on families and children in Africa, India and Southeast Asia. One grantee-partner, Friends-International, works in Cambodia and Vietnam to provide health and social services to marginalized children and youth. Another recent grantee, Uganda’s Strong Minds, provides group interpersonal psychotherapy to women suffering from depression. Other global grantees include education and vocational training programs run by Reach Vietnam and Cambodia’s M’lop Tapang.
EDUCATION
Through the Epic Foundation, Mars has supported several organizations providing educational opportunities to underserved students in North America and Europe. U.S. grantees include Santa Clara County’s Pivotal, an organization that provides educational and vocational support to foster youth, and CommonLit, which provides free literacy instructional materials for students in grades 5-12. In Europe, the foundation has given to France’s Agir pour l’Ecole, which supports literacy and retention programs, and Belgium’s BeCode, which provides free digital skills training courses prioritizing job seekers with barriers to employment.
LOOKING FORWARD: Mars has said he will spend roughly $50 million of his own money in the foundation’s first decade.
