The Legatum Foundation’s mission is to liberate the human potential of those suffering abject poverty. The Foundation seeks to influence and redefine conventional approaches to social development by promoting initiatives that enhance the optimal allocation of human, intellectual and financial capital.
Our Approach
Legatum Foundation’s grant investments are targeted at the bottom of the Prosperity Ladder, towards communities that, for one reason or another, are trapped by poverty and its consequences. This may result from a debilitating illness, a natural disaster, a loss of liberty, limited access to education or credit, or something as simple as a lack of clean water. Legatum seeks to assist individuals to climb onto the first rung of the ladder so that they can then enjoy the opportunity and dignity of helping themselves.
While Legatum focuses always on achieving substantial ‘Life Change’, supported by robust metrics, this is only ‘the good’. The ultimate goal is to stimulate a paradigm shift in philanthropy, creating an open, transparent and vibrant marketplace with greater accountability and the more efficient allocation of capital: this is ‘the great’.
Legatum is advised by Geneva Global, a professional philanthropic service that provides origination, evaluation and reporting as well as active portfolio management. For more information, please refer to www.genevaglobal.com.
Strategic Initiatives
Strategic Initiatives form a core part of the Legatum approach to granting. They are innovative because they encourage collaboration within communities and the focusing of resources, ideas and capital related to a particular social problem in a specific geographic area. A single Strategic Initiative is composed of a cluster of high impact projects, all working in a specific location and addressing a specific, high priority poverty issue, such as human liberty or education. Through Strategic Initiatives, Legatum Foundation is able to coordinate the efforts of otherwise isolated programmes and increase the size and depth of the impact over multiple years. Strategic Initiatives achieve greater efficiency by avoiding duplication of effort, minimising overhead and hastening the timeline for change. Each project is reviewed annually to evaluate outcomes and measure change. Those that underperform are removed from the portfolio and resources added to others that are more successful.