Vodafone Americas Foundation
/OVERVIEW: Vodafone Americas Foundation supports global development organizations that apply mobile tech solutions to improve the lives of vulnerable and marginalized populations around the world, and it supports organizations empowering women and girls in the technology sector, as well as projects and programs protecting them from violence.
IP TAKE: Overall, Vodafone prizes technology; in particular, mobile technology. Since mobile technology offers a plethora of innovative potential, Vodafone often takes risks on creative solutions to some of the most entrenched global development problems. This funder seeks sustainable projects that are affordable to the populations they are serving.
Unfortunately, Vodafone is not an accessible foundation preferring a proactive approach to giving. While you can contact them online, expect delayed responses given the competition for information and grants. However, note that it seems that this funder has been ramping up giving in recent years with no signs of slowing down. Vodafone also offers some support for disaster relief through employee volunteering.
PROFILE: The Vodafone Americas Foundation is the U.S.-based charitable arm of telecommunications conglomerate Vodafone. It is one of 27 local Vodafone Foundations focused on different geographic regions around the world; each is country-specific, and each operates under the principle that mobile communications technology can solve “some of the world’s most pressing humanitarian challenges/social issues.” Vodafone Americas seeks to foster "social change in global and local communities through innovative solutions” and to “connect an ecosystem of partners that use technology to empower women and girls." The foundation mobilizes those challenges through four programmatic areas: Improving Lives, Strengthening the Global Development Sector, Sparking Innovation, and Empowering Women and Girls.
The foundation also operates an Employee Community Grants program, a matching program designed to encourage employee engagement with their local communities.
Grants for Global Development, Women, and STEM
All of Vodafone America’s programs support global development efforts in one way or another. As well, much of this funding is conducted through a gender and STEM lens. Its Empowering Women and Girls initiative was established in 2019 and uses innovative technology to improve women and girls’ lives. It supports NGOs that use wireless mobile technology to increase opportunities in education and promote the health, safety, and sustainability of local communities in developing countries. Together with their partners, the Vodafone Americas Foundation work to promote human dignity by “promoting social justice and equality, ensuring healthy lives and well-being; and ending violence against women.” These interests are loosely defined permitting for broad grantmaking. The initiative also works to invest in women and girls’ economic empowerment, voice, education and leadership opportunities. Past grantees include Nomi Networks, World Pulse, Girls Who Code, and DreamSave.
As part of this initiative’s mission, the foundation partnered with MIT Solve in order to combine the legacy of its Wireless Innovation Project program with their distinguished Solver teams awards for Global Challenges. Together the two created the Vodafone Americas Foundation Innovation for Women Prize, which awards solutions that use “technology to empower and enrich the lives of women and girls.”
Connected Learning grants feature several programs that benefit women, children, refugees, people with disabilities and the elderly. M-mama connects mothers to healthcare in rural Tanzania, where almost half of all women giving birth at home do so without the care of a skilled health worker. Girls and Mobile connects girls with resources to help them advance and survive.
The foundation also makes related global development grants through its other initiative dedicated to women and girls, Social Innovation. This initiative centers on innovative wireless technologies used to improve lives. The foundation’s grants support organizations narrowing the gender gap by providing women and girls with increased economic opportunities. Vodafone supports projects in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM), advocacy work to increase women’s presence in the technology sector, programs protecting women and girls against violence, and solutions for health issues specific to women, among other interests.
Grants for Refugees
Vodafone also conducts global development grantmaking through its Instant Network Schools initiative, which was established in 2013 through a partnership between the Vodafone Foundation and UNHCR, the U.N. refugee agency. The initiative aims to give “young refugees, host communities and their teachers access to digital learning content and the internet, improving the quality of education in some of the most marginalized communities in Africa.” Grantmaking here centers on vulnerable refugee children, including boys. At the time of this writing, there are 36 Instant Network Schools operating across eight refugee camps in Kenya, Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan. Note that Vodafone’s grants for refugees center only on children for now.
Grants for Gender-based Violence
Beyond opportunities through its Empowering Women and Girls initiative outlined above, the foundation also offers support for gender-based violence prevention through Vodafone’s Apps Against Abuse, which uses cell phone apps to connect women and children to resources for advice, support and education.
Important Grant Details:
While the Vodafone Americas Foundation does not accept unsolicited proposals, it encourages grantseekers to contact the foundation if they feel their projects are closely aligned with the foundation’s grantmaking interests.
Grants typically range between $10,000 to $50,000. View each program page to see a select list of past grantees and partner organizations.
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