OVERVIEW: KL Felicitas focuses its grantmaking and impact investments on a broad range of market-based approaches to improve the lives and livelihoods of underserved and marginalized populations around the world.
IP TAKE: This funder favors groups that take a holistic, bottom-up or grassroots approach to their work, rather than those that apply a top-down method. Grantmaking is only one component of the foundation’s giving strategy, which also includes impact investing, so there are several opportunities for support here if you can develop a relationship with one of this Foundation’s many consultants.The Foundation also makes active use of grants to provide critical capacity building assistance and operational subsidy that help enterprises reach self-sustainability. For clues as to how the Foundation considers what to fund, examine it’s impacting investing interests.
While it welcomes contact, note that the Foundation has no staff, making it harder to get through here. Instead, the KL Felicitas Foundation relies on a number of consultants and advisors to conduct its work, which means it may take a bit to receive a response. The foundation really likes cross-sector partnerships, so if this appeals to your mission and organization, consider reaching out. Due to its lack of staff, this funder does not accept unsolicited applications at this time, but perhaps down the road that may change. That means, too, that funding will require some networking here to get on this funder’s radar. It also works hard to remain transparent in both its approach and financials.
PROFILE: The KL Felicitas Foundation was established in 2000 by Charly and Lisa Kleissner, who funded the nonprofit with $10 million. Born in Austria, Karl “Charly” Kleissner earned his M.S. and Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Technology, Vienna. Kleissner has held executive and senior engineering management positions at Ariba Inc., RightPoint, NeXT Software Inc., Digital Equipment Corp. and Hewlett-Packard. Kleissner is an impact investor behind such companies as Toniic. Their broad portfolio has more than 40 different investments, ranging from microfinance institutions to organic farms, land restoration funds to cookstove businesses.
The foundation takes an impact investing approach, which is rigorous, to all of it’s grantmaking. It is on a mission is to “[e]nable social entrepreneurs and enterprises worldwide to develop and grow sustainably, with an emphasis on rural communities and families.” The Foundation also conducts grantmaking, focuses on Social Enterprise and Social Entrepreneurship.
Grants for Global Health and Development
Through the Foundation’s Social Enterprise and Social Entrepreneurship focus area aims to “increase the impact of these social enterprises, specifically by helping them scale operations.” This grant program funds both national and international outfits.
- The Foundation facilitates this aim by supporting “social enterprises, and the social entrepreneurs who lead these hybrid organizations, by providing targeted interventions such as peer to peer learning, seed funding, access to business planning, mentoring, networking and access to significant investment capital.
- In addition to investing directly in social enterprises, the KL Felicitas Foundation supports “organizations and initiatives that build the capacity and business acumen of social entrepreneurs.”
- The foundation does not name other particularities for it’s giving, preferring a broad approach to global development giving.
- Recent grantees include Dasra Social-Impact (Mumbai), the Foundation’s pilot capacity building program for Social Enterprises in India; Social-Impact International; Global Social Benefit Incubator (University of Santa Clara, CA); Hawaiʻi Investment Ready Program; and the Investment Ready Program in Central and Eastern Europe.
Important Grant Details:
Grant amounts are on the modest side, generally coming in at $10,000 to $50,000.
- In the past, the foundation has awarded grants to the D.C.-based Grassroots Business Fund, which helps businesses in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
- KL Felicitas does not accept unsolicited grant applications or requests for funding.
PEOPLE:
Search for staff contact info and bios in PeopleFinder (paid subscribers only.)
LINKS: