Our Vision

To create a network of partnerships fostering a shared responsibility in solving global issues.

A MESSAGE FROM OUR BOARD CHAIR AND CO-FOUNDER

Tracey

As many know, I stepped out of an operational role at GoPhilanthropic almost two years ago to focus on my family and to create the space for GoPhilanthropic to grow and fully embrace the transition from Co-Founder led to team led.

I missed so much about GoPhil – the wonderful people it attracts, the dedicated team, the amazing donors with whom I had shared so much, the deeply committed board and my fellow Co-Founders.

I also missed everything that GoPhil represents: a constant source of learning, a community of engaged and dedicated donors, and a deep source of inspiration, as our partners tirelessly go about their incredible community-based work, no matter what the challenges.

So, when I was asked in the fall of 2021 if I would consider the role of GoPhil board chair, I jumped at the chance.

First let me say that I have been incredibly impressed with all that has been accomplished during the 1½ years I have been away from GoPhil. The world entered into 2021 exhausted from the challenges of 2020 and optimistic for a better 2021, only to quickly realize it would be another year of challenges, causing all of us to dig deep and come together with strength and resilience for our community.

There is nothing like a crisis to focus the mind, bring clarity to your purpose and give ourselves the permission to let the rest fall away. This is where you ground yourself in your core values and vision and that is exactly what GoPhilanthropic did and did so well; listening to our partner’s needs, supporting their priorities quickly and providing networking and capacity building to help them navigate a changing landscape.

Our donors went well above and beyond, remaining loyal and concerned for our partners and their communities’ needs. Opportunities to personally connect, that we all so looked forward to, were on hold. This pause gave us the space to recenter learning as a core value and an educational series, GoLearn, was launched for our donors. This series provides opportunities to keep our minds traveling and curious until we can be together in person…fingers crossed for later 2022!

I would like to share a few exciting achievements seen with “fresh” eyes as I returned to GoPhil:

  • For the first time EVER GoPhil started this year with ALL our grant commitments for January fulfilled and by also getting a great head start on filling the funding gaps for grant cycles starting later in the year!
  • GoPhil welcomed 109 new donors last year as the new development and marketing strategies start to gain real momentum.
  • GoPhilanthropic expanded to Oaxaca, Mexico! The region was fully researched and several programs vetted. Pilot grants will be granted shortly to these new partners.
  • Behind the scenes numerous systems and structures were put in place to improve efficiency and workflow. The directors found their own rhythm and are full of great ideas for the future rooted in our core values and vision.

Overall, I find myself returning to a more mature organization with a solid foundation from which to launch GoPhil’s next chapter – all this during unprecedented times! What a great way to start this year!

My deepest thanks to the board, Co-Founders, staff, donors, and partners who pulled together, gave their all, and adapted to an ever changing situation. Our collective efforts brought hope, smiles, and light to many on the darkest of days showing how powerful we can be when we work together.

I am so excited to be back, to share this annual report, and I look forward to connecting with you more this year.

Warmly,
Tracey

CELEBRATING 10 YEARS OF IMPACT

On September 12th, 2021, the GoPhil community gathered virtually to celebrate the organization’s 10-year anniversary and reflected on the growth and impact of our global community.

Here are two of our most favorite moments from the event:

Arun Gandhi Joined the Celebration!

We were honored to have Arun Gandhi join us and offer some support and words of wisdom for our community. Arun Gandhi is the fifth grandson of Mohandas K. Gandhi, also known as Mahatma Gandhi. He was a journalist for the Times of India for over 30 years in addition to writing for The Washington Post. He is an inspiration to philanthropists and community leaders around the world and his encouraging words were all we needed to look beyond the challenges of the pandemic and continue our important work of empowering grassroots organizations.

AVANI’s School Girl Dance Routine

Another memorable highlight of the evening was a beautiful performance from our partner, AVANI’s, school girls! They wanted to express their gratitude for our community’s support and had worked so hard to put together the beautiful dance routine shown in the video. This served as a reminder that the work we are doing has an incredible impact that is often intangible, providing more positive opportunities and outlooks for our partners’ communities around the world.

2021 PROGRAM UPDATES AND PARTNER HIGHLIGHTS

GoPhil provided grants to 23 partners in 2021, supporting incredible efforts to deliver education, healthcare and human rights at the grassroots.

4 Partners in Cambodia

  • Free To Shine
  • HUSK Cambodia
  • Journeys Within Our Community
  • PEPY Empowering Youth

6 Partners in Guatemala

  • ASSADE
  • Aula Mágica
  • Centro Maya Servicio Integral
  • Comunidad La Esperanza
  • EntreMundos
  • Maya Traditions

6 Partners in India

  • AVANI Women and Children Rights
  • Equal Community Foundation
  • Shakti Shalini
  • SPID/SMS Center
  • TARA Child Protection and Empowerment
  • Vikalp Sansthan

1 Partner in Kenya

  • Maji Moti Enkiteng Lepa School

1 Partner in Laos

  • Laos Education Opportunities Trust

3 Partners in Nepal

  • Child Rescue Nepal
  • Collaborative Schools Network
  • PHASE Nepal

2 Partners in Vietnam

  • Blue Dragon Children’s Foundation
  • Children’s Educational Foundation

2021 was a year of immense challenges for community-based organizations across the world, with the pandemic disproportionately impacting vulnerable communities. Many organizations found themselves in increasingly fragile situations – having lost funding streams and donors, having to constantly adapt their programs according to ever-changing Covid restrictions, and still having to provide emergency support (such as food relief and medical aid) to their communities.

GoPhil did not take on any new partners during the year as travel limitations impacted our ability to carry out rigorous in-person vetting of potential new partners. Instead we chose to focus our efforts on supporting the stability and sustainability of our current partners.

We did this by providing….

  1. Critical funding for our partners to help them to continue running their programs
  2. Emergency support grants through our Rapid Response Fund
  3. Capacity building support.

RAPID RESPONSE FUND

We provided 20 Emergency Support grants through our Rapid Response Fund (RRF) to 14 partners across India, Nepal, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Guatemala. This brings the total RRF grants provided by GoPhil in 2020 and 2021 to $200,000.

The huge generosity of our donors continued into 2021 and the many RRF donations we received throughout the year meant we were able to respond – mostly within a remarkable 24-48 hour timeframe – to almost all requests received from partners for an RRF grant.

When we launched our Rapid Response Fund in response to Covid-19, none of us had predicted how long and difficult the pandemic would be. Between the horrific and terrifying Delta wave in India and Nepal in April/May 2021, the extended lockdowns in Southeast Asia throughout 2021, and the curfews and outbreaks in Guatemala meant that for much of the year, almost every region was in crisis.

RRF Case Study: Vikalp Sansthan, India

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“At present, we are able to run 8 learning centers continuously with the response fund of GoPhil. In which 500 boys and girls of the deprived class and tribal community are studying for three hours daily. Along with this study, Youth Fellows also get them to do different life skill activities. Due to this, the education of children is being done continuously. These children were saved from being dropped out of education, child labor has stopped and many child marriages have also stopped. On behalf of all those families and children, Vikalp says a heartfelt thanks to GoPhil Friends and Donors. Together, we will continue to work to create a just world.”

Usha at Vikalp

RRF case study: HUSK, Cambodia

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“GoPhil’s Rapid Response Fund has been so helpful for families in our communities. During the pandemic, many families in our communities were badly affected. Some people moved to other towns and some parents even left their children behind with their relatives and went to other cities to look for a job as they had hunger. Since we started our food relief program with support and help from your “Rapid Response Fund” we noticed that many of the parents came back to their communities and reunited with their children. More children were able to attend our school and continue to learn. ”

Sokheurm at HUSK

“GoPhil is a very easy donor. Which can be remembered in any crisis. GoPhil was the first to come forward and offer support during COVID. It was great. At that time we were wondering who would help all of a sudden but GoPhil was there. GoPhil came first in the second wave as well. Thank you so much to the entire GoPhil team and members”

Anonymous, Partner Feedback Survey

PROVIDING CAPACITY BUILDING SUPPORT

In the context of increasing challenges faced by organizations, this support is now more crucial than ever before.

We have always been passionate about providing capacity building support and cross-learning opportunities, alongside the financial grants to our partners. In early 2021, we worked with our newly created Advisory Panel (made up of representatives from four GoPhil partners) to put together a survey for our 23 partners to identify areas where they would like support and areas where they have experience and expertise that they would be happy to share with other partners.

Unsurprisingly, fundraising and communications – in particular corporate social responsibility, running online fundraising campaigns, social media and local income generation – came out as a top ‘need’ from all regions. Monitoring and evaluation support and help with strategic planning and budgeting also featured strongly in the surveys. These results have been hugely beneficial for the GoPhil team to begin planning how we can better support our partners moving forward. We are grateful for the generosity of many in our donor community who supported our capacity building and learning efforts!

Skills training for India partners
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Monitoring and Evaluation and Communications Skills workshop for Shakti Shalini
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Workshops on parenting techniques and sexual education for TARA team
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Establishing the first-ever GoPhil Guatemala Learning Network
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Fundraising and communications support for our partners in Southeast Asia
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“These workshops have reminded me why I choose to get up every morning to go to work at La Esperanza school. The students are my motivation and I want to make sure that I am energized and focused when teaching. Self-care is imperative to achieve that. I look forward to sharing these practices and experiences with them. It is crucial for them to grow up being mindful about self-care.”
Zoila Chan, Comunidad La Esperanza Academic Coordinator
“The whole team received a thorough understanding of M&E starting from the basics. It was such new information for most of us and yet, the manner in which Munish did it, the entire team irrespective of educational and professional background, felt a grasp over it and felt included in the process. Our deepest gratitude for providing us support for capacity building. This training has been priceless for us and the team is also very excited for the subsequent training lined up for the rest of the year.”
Shakti Shalini
“I identify with the difficulties faced by other organizations that other participants have been sharing. I am learning a lot both from the tools and information being taught, and the anecdotes shared by other participants… We learned how to ask powerful questions for conflict resolution and that helped me to resolve a problem with a team member amicably. I look forward to sharing these tools with the rest of my team in our upcoming retreat.”
Viviana Contreras, Director of Programs & PR, Centro Maya

GOPHIL’S LEARNING JOURNEY AND SHIFTING POWER

As learning is of GoPhil’s core values, 2021 saw us continue our efforts to be a better donor and partner and address some of the underlying, inherent power dynamics between grantors and grantees.

One of the crucial tools GoPhil now uses is an annual partner feedback survey, where all partners have an opportunity to anonymously share feedback on GoPhil and suggest ways we can improve.

We were thrilled to read that 100% of respondents felt GoPhil had a good understanding of their organization’s strategy and goals, that they had a good understanding of GoPhil’s strategy and mission and that all respondents felt comfortable to approach GoPhil if any difficulty arises. This mutual understanding, care, and trust is something we work hard to foster and are all very proud of.

Here is what our partners have to say about our partnership:

“GoPhil takes full participation in the partner organization’s planning and strategies ”

Partner Feedback

“A democratic donor and sensitive to partners’ ideology”

Partner Feedback

“GoPhil brings out the best in its partners and it is a pleasure to work with them”

Partner Feedback

“GoPhil strikes a great balance between showing genuine interest and engagement with us, without placing too many demands in terms of providing data, reports, updates etc. It’s a tricky balance to strike. Some donors are too hands on and some are too hands off. We think GoPhil gets this balance right.”

Partner Feedback

“Understand that it is the service the team provide[s] that is the biggest part of our work, where other donors want to fund the “shiny” things. GoPhil actually get[s] it, and GoPhil actually care[s], and that means SO much!”

Partner Feedback

LEADING THE WAY TO ‘SHIFTING THE POWER’

In June 2021, GoPhil was very honored to have the opportunity to host an event at the Council on Foundations annual conference. With the theme of the session being ‘Shifting Power’, Co-Founder, Linda DeWolf, Director of Programs, Emily Bild, and GoPhil partner, PEPY Empowering Youth’s former Executive Director, Sarakk Rith, hosted an engaging discussion on how donors can better address power dynamics and shift power to their partners. They worked together to develop a 10-point plan to provide tangible and concrete ways to achieve this.

Learn more

GRATEFUL TO OUR DONOR COMMUNITY

GoPhil supporters do more than simply give. They listen and learn about our partner communities and truly care about making a real and meaningful difference. They believe that those closest to the problems understand the issues more deeply and that long-term and sustainable change happens at the grassroots.

We would like to express our greatest gratitude to our donor community of  humanitarians, global citizens, travelers and learners for their support over the last 10 years. Thank you to all those who contributed to the growth of GoPhilanthropic Foundation and for their unwavering support for our partners as they continue to work towards a more just and equitable world for all!

Hear from members of this vibrant donor community as they share why they support GoPhil:

OVERFLOW OF KINDNESS, COMPASSION & GENEROSITY DURING THE PANDEMIC

Despite another challenging pandemic year, our donors went above and beyond to support our program partners. With Covid exposing the growing inequalities and injustices around the world, we find comfort in the ongoing commitment and compassion of our donors.

Thank you to all our donors for stepping up to help us continue to fund our partners’ critical needs, for their generous emergency contributions throughout the year to help our partners through Covid and other disasters, and for supporting capacity building sessions and learning networks for our partners – contributing towards their sustainable growth!

Moreover, our long term supporters and ambassadors launched their fundraising campaigns to rally their network to support the causes they care about. We can not thank them enough for their generosity and kind heart!

Bruce and Elaine opened their powerful Journeys of the Heart Network to raise support for Blue Dragon in Vietnam to help their rescue missions and the rehabilitation of victims of human trafficking. We can not thank them enough for supporting this important work!

Jessica reached out to her network to raise support for Vikalp Sansthan in India that works with youth and adolescents to  address  gender – based violence and child  marriages and empowers  them  to  become  agents  of change in their communities.

Leo led a successful online campaign to raise funds for our partner Maji Moto in Kenya to support quality education for local Maasai children. He was inspired by the work of the organization after visiting their school and witnessing the incredible impact of the organization.

Amy stepped up again to help GoPhil fill urgent funding gaps and raised support with a matching campaign for our partner SPID-SMS in India. Children of sex workers are extremely vulnerable as they face prejudice, discrimination and structural inequities. SPID-SMS is the only organization in the red light district in New Delhi that provides 24-hour shelter, protection, education, and nutrition to these children.

Jeanie launched a successful Facebook campaign to raise funds for ‘where needed most’. Her campaign helped us designate funds to programs with the most critical needs and we greatly appreciate her trust in GoPhil!

We maintained a donor retention rate of

0%

With our personalized approach, we will continue providing our donors with a platform to learn about some of the most pressing issues of our times and also provide engagement and travel opportunities to connect first hand with the programs they support and interact with other like-minded global citizens and humanitarians.

To the 109 new donors we welcomed last year, thank you for joining our community!

We are committed, now more than ever, to providing our donors with a personalized and transparent vehicle to learn about, engage, and invest in global partnerships that promote equity in health, education, and human rights.

Launch of GoLearn

In order to continue raising awareness about the social justice and human rights issues we all care about, GoPhil launched GoLearn last year.

Through this platform and educational series, we hope to connect with humanitarians, philanthropists, global citizens, community leaders, changemakers, and other like minded individuals and organizations to continue making collective impact towards creating a just and equitable world for all.

We can not wait to ‘GoLearn’ with you this year!

MEET NEW TEAM MEMBERS

Kathryn McDaniel, our new Global Copywriter Lead (now Communications Specialist) joined GoPhil’s Development team. Kathryn is from the United States and she has served in various leadership positions at both local and international NGOs. She is currently based in South East Asia and has lived there for over 5 years. Kathryn is passionate about grassroots development and was excited to join the GoPhil team to help share the incredible work of our partners!

We also engaged Informatics, a Web Design and Marketing Agency, to help expand GoPhil’s marketing efforts. Team members Maddie, Amanda, and Sara from Informatics work closely with the GoPhil team to help increase awareness for GoPhil’s work and mission and help reach a broader audience to raise support for our global partners.

We would like to sincerely thank our Board of Directors and Founder’s Circle for their leadership and investment in the sustainable growth of GoPhil. Their leadership and visionary support has helped the GoPhil team to have the resources and capacity to grow our community, while sustaining our support to existing program partners.

 GoPhil Board, Founder’s Circle, and team members at a GoPhil gathering.

GoPhil Board, Founder’s Circle, and team members at a GoPhil gathering.

FINANCIALS: 2020-21 FISCAL YEAR BY THE NUMBERS

Revenue

2020 – 2021

Total: $710K

2019 – 2020

Total: $730K

Expenses

2020 – 2021

Total: $568,133

2019 – 2020

Total: $538,024

Net Assets & Liabilities

2020 – 2021

Total: $621,684

2019 – 2020

Total: $485,085

Net Asset Breakdown

2020 – 2021

Total: $596,501

2019 – 2020

Total: $453,866

Go Philanthropic Charitable Fund is a registered 501(c)3 in good standing. EIN 27-4939698.

LOOKING AHEAD

In 2021, we experienced numerous triumphs, changes, and challenges that only strengthened us as a community. We feel nothing but gratitude for the opportunity to work with such a wonderful community of changemakers, ambassadors, donors, and partners.

Going forward, we will continue to pave a path for our partner programs around the world to lead the way with their unique, diverse, and creative solutions to the injustices their communities face each day. Our goal is to support our partners in overcoming the challenges of the pandemic and become more resilient and self-sustainable.

For our donor community, we will continue to provide them with a personalized experience to ‘listen and learn’ from our partners’ communities and support the causes they care about, all while connecting them with other like-minded humanitarians and global citizens.

In the coming months, the GoPhil team will get together to develop a strategic plan to support the sustainable growth of the organization. Together, we will continue to evolve and implement strategies that will help us to redefine the traditional philanthropic model and turn it into something more active, engaging, locally-informed, and self-sustainable.

Here is a sneak peak into what is coming next:

We are expanding into Oaxaca!
Read more

Launching a new learning portal for our partners
Read more

Expanding our ‘GoLearn’ Platform
Read more

Thank you for being a part of a collective effort to advance equity in health, education, and human rights!

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