Waterloo Foundation
/OVERVIEW: The Waterloo Foundation awards global development grants to support education and WASH access. It’s environmental giving supports organizations that improve fish stocks, protecting tropical rainforests, and halting the practice of deforestation. It’s giving for child welfare prioritizes organizations that research Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Rolandic Epilepsy.
IP TAKE: Waterloo typically funds established organizations with proven track records of success. Grantseekers need to demonstrate not only that they have worked on global development work related to quality education and WASH access, but they must also demonstrate that their projects have resulted in sustained impact.
The foundation tends to support large charities with the capacity to undertake and execute substantial and transformative projects. It prioritizes organizations based in the United Kingdom, but will still make grants to NGOs based beyond the U.K.
Occasionally, Waterloo takes on smaller projects, but criteria for those grants are unusually specific. To get a minor grant from Waterloo, grantseekers need to be a social entrepreneur from Wales doing work in developing countries for beneficiaries with direct financial investments in the project being performed.
The accessible application process for the Waterloo Foundation is competitive; however, submitting proposals to Waterloo follows a straightforward process.
PROFILE: Heather and David Stevens founded the U.K.-based Waterloo Foundation in 2007 with a gift of Admiral Insurance shares valued at £99 million at the time. The Stevenses were part of a small group who launched Admiral in 1993. Based in Wales, the foundation is named after the central London neighborhood, Waterloo, where the couple first met. The foundation is “most interested in projects that help globally, with a particular focus on the disparity of opportunities, wealth and unsustainable use of the world’s natural resources.” The foundation supports grantmaking in World Development, child development, the environment and the Wales region.
Grants for Global Development, Women and Girls
Waterloo invests its global development grantmaking through its World Development program. The program has several main focuses. Education grantmaking prioritizes “improving the quality of secondary, primary and early childhood education” and “increasing the enrollment and retention of pupils at both primary and secondary level, especially girls and young women.” WASH grants promote “access to clean drinking water, sanitation and improved hygiene,” and particularly prioritizes projects that “consider the needs of girls and women, and specifically seek to address menstrual hygiene management.” Grants for Sexual And Reproductive Health seek to “fill gaps in regard to improving access to and use of a range of modern contraceptive methods and wider sexual health and reproductive services”; its three-pronged approach involves “in-country financing improvement,” “improving the reach of successful SRH initiatives,” and “in-country capacity building.”
Finally, grants for Nutrition seeks to promote “good nutritional practices, with a particular focus on mothers and children during the ‘1000-day window,’” provide “micronutrients for young children and their mothers and deworming drugs for young children,” and deliver “micronutrients through food fortification for all.” While Waterloo does not impose geographic restrictions on its grantmaking, it prioritizes giving to projects that support Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.
Grants for Marine and Environmental Conservation
Waterloo’s Environment program seeks organizations that combat widespread environmental damage. The foundation’s Tropical Rainforest grantmaking is primarily concerned with halting the spread of deforestation. It prioritizes projects that involve “exposing, addressing and overcoming the local drivers of deforestation,” “management of the specified area,” “methods to measure and monitor the protected area,” and “sustainable livelihoods for forest-dependent communities.”
In the Marine conservation space, the foundation seeks organizations combating declining fish stocks in developing countries, international and regional marine policy, sustainable fishing practices and eradicating illegal and unrelated fishing. Past marine conservation grantees include Blue Ventures, which received support for its work with coastal communities in Madagascar and Belize; and Oceana, which received a grant for its work related to ocean conservation, protecting marine ecosystems, and protecting endangered marine species.
Grants for Brain Research and Mental Health
Waterloo’s Child Development Program is “particularly interested in research related to neurodevelopmental disorders and their co-occurrence”--namely ADHD, Rolandic epilepsy, developmental trauma, and motor impairments. While the foundation predominately funds research, it also awards grants to scientists who disseminate research, as well as intervention projects. The foundation prioritizes research projects that “account for the fact that these children are often affected in more than one domain” and therefore focus on more than one of the foundation’s priority conditions. It also prioritizes projects that are clinically relevant and “closest to the point of making a difference to the lives of those affected by these conditions.” Grantees include the University of Surrey, Kids Company, Food and Behavior Research, and National Autistic Society.
Important Grant Details:
Waterloo grants typically range from $80,000 to $160,000. Examine Waterloo's grant examples for a more comprehensive look at the types of organizations it tends to fund. Grantseekers must summarize their project in two or three pages and email it to applications@waterloofoundation.org.uk.
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