Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation’s Post

People always ask us how we measure impact. It’s actually the easiest question to answer because we measure through the only lens that matters — lives impacted. Our newly released 2023 Annual Report showcases example after example of people and communities changed for good and the organizations and leaders who have driven that change. It tells a powerful story of what is possible when people lean into problems, not away from them, and when passion, empathy, and belief in something better drive human focus. This is what impact looks like. We hope you will feel as inspired as we do by these hundreds of organizations and people working day and night to make a difference in the lives of others. Read our 2023 Annual Report: https://lnkd.in/gCBcXDrX

Worth Rises, a DRK Foundation portfolio organization, is a nonprofit advocacy organization dedicated to dismantling the prison industry and ending the exploitation of those it touches. Their advocacy work to make prison and jail communication free has saved incarcerated people and their families more than $415 million, generated over 2 billion minutes of additional call time, and improved reentry outcomes for people coming home. “Powerful prison profiteers are upholding mass incarceration so they can take home billions every year, but they are not unstoppable,” says Bianca Tylek, Executive Director of Worth Rises, in The Appeal. Read the full article, detailing Worth Rises’s recent legislative win against the largest, for-profit correctional telecommunications operator in the U.S.: https://lnkd.in/gwnh8hKa

Noora Health, a DRK Foundation portfolio organization, knows that family caregivers — given proper recognition and support — can dramatically impact healthcare, reducing preventable complications, avoidable readmissions, and mortality. Through their Care Companion Program, Noora Health equips family caregivers with the skills they need to care for their loved ones in health facilities and at home — improving health outcomes and saving lives. Since their start in 2014, Noora Health has expanded across India, Bangladesh, and Indonesia to train more than 8.4 million caregivers, impacting over 5.6 million patients. The New York Times’s recent article, also featured in the Sunday print edition, chronicles patients and their families on their healing journey while navigating India’s public health system, and demonstrates why Noora Health’s work is so important. Read the article: https://lnkd.in/gUA7JV5v

Assets are a stronger predictor of financial well-being and economic mobility than income. They provide a cushion in times of economic distress and the capital needed to invest in opportunities that move families forward. Despite this critical role assets play in supporting families, the opportunity to build assets remains out of reach for many low-income individuals. Through their client-centered savings and financial coaching programs, Compass Working Capital, a DRK Foundation portfolio organization, is expanding access to the US Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Family Self-Sufficiency (FSS) program — a promising but underutilized employment and savings program — to help families increase their earnings and build financial capability, ending asset poverty and narrowing wealth divides. To date, Compass has served 6,000 people who will collectively save over $20 million. Watch Compass Working Captial’s feature on NBC Boston Stations to learn how they are dismantling barriers to asset building and helping families save for the future: https://lnkd.in/eZxM54x9 Markita Morris-Louis, Esq., Glenn Jones, Mimi Wishner Segel, Shira Stoll

Food For Education and SaveLIFE Foundation (SLF), two DRK Foundation portfolio organizations, are named winners of the 2024 Skoll Award for Social Innovation. The Skoll Award recognizes leaders and organizations who are advancing transformational social change to create a more sustainable, peaceful, and prosperous world. Each organization will receive $2 million in unrestricted funding and flexible support to scale their work and increase their impact. This recognition is so well deserved. To date, Food for Education’s Tap2Eat program has served 31 million meals to students in Kenya and is the first true path to feeding at least 250 million African children in urban and semi-urban primary schools. And since their inception, SaveLIFE Foundation has trained over 35,000 people in life-saving procedures and facilitated the enactment of key safety legislation to save lives on some of India’s most dangerous highways. Congratulations, Wawira Njiru, Piyush Tewari, and all the recipients. Learn more: https://lnkd.in/gr2pj_5G Skoll Foundation

Jacaranda Health and Tarjimly, two DRK Foundation portfolio organizations, have joined Google.org’s Generative AI Accelerator, a six-month program supporting nonprofits developing high-impact applications of generative AI. In addition to technical training, workshops, mentors, and pro bono support from a dedicated AI coach, Google.org is providing more than $20 million in funding across projects in the program. With Google’s support, Jacaranda Health and Tarjimly will develop and scale the integration of generative AI into their models. When this AI integration is realized, 3 million women across Sub-Saharan Africa will receive improved maternal support through Jacaranda’s AI-enabled digital health platform, and 55 low-resourced languages will be made more accurate and accessible via Tarjimly’s instant AI-generated translations. Learn more: https://lnkd.in/gfrvryCE

Home care is the largest and one of the fastest growing professions in the U.S., with over 1.2 million new care jobs projected from 2019 to 2029. However, these workers continually earn low annual incomes at just under $30,000 per year, thus creating an economic disadvantage for the 75% of home care providers that are women. Through their tech-enabled care matching platform, Carina is safely and efficiently connecting the supply of care workers with vulnerable home-based populations, delivering increased worker earnings and increased access to care. More than 40,000 care seekers and care providers are using Carina’s platform, resulting in 6.7 million hours of care provided and $80 million in earnings for care providers. Women play a significant and important role in the care industry, and the statistics are compelling. Check out Carina’s video in honor of #WomensHistoryMonth, highlighting the resilience and compassion of Carina caregivers:

For The People (FTP), a DRK Foundation portfolio organization, works with key stakeholders in the justice system to remedy unjust prison sentences and reunite families and communities. FTP has innovated a new area of law, Prosecutor-Initiated Resentencing (PIR), enabling prosecutors to proactively work to redress excessive sentences. Since FTP’s launch, nearly 800 people have been released from prison, 12 laws have been proposed, and six states have enacted PIR Laws. “PIR posits that if prosecutors can recommend a sentence on the front end, then it is only just that they be able to look back, years later, and determine whether that sentence is still appropriate. There are many benefits to this innovation. When we reunite people [...] with their families, we build stronger communities with present parents, new taxpayers, and good neighbors,” says Hillary Blout, For The People’s Founder and Executive Director, in Slate. Read her full op-ed: https://lnkd.in/ekm6Pnzc

We see every day just what is possible through the work of our organizations who are on the front lines of communities too often ignored. Our organizations are dedicated to changing the status quo for those most vulnerable – by providing food where it is needed, enabling housing for those without it, creating access to health systems for those who don't have it, making education and employment opportunities available to everyone, restoring social justice to those without it, and solving so many other challenges in our society that have caused so many people to lose hope. The stories of impact featured in our 2023 Annual Report are powerful reminders that in a world where hope is in short supply, there is plenty of it in the DRK community: https://lnkd.in/gCBcXDrX

Nest , a DRK Foundation portfolio organization, supports the responsible growth and creative engagement of the artisan and maker economy to build a world of greater gender equity and economic inclusion. With Rebecca van Bergen’s catalytic leadership, Nest has supported over 2,500 handcraft business, directly employing more than 377,000 artisans while indirectly benefiting 1.6 million individuals to date. “As our world becomes more and more divided, it’s becoming increasingly clear that the unique skill and beauty of handcraft is one of the few things that remains to unify us. It supersedes politics and religion and the multitude of other things that work to separate us. Craft plays a role in many families’ identities and in every culture and is something we can all appreciate and celebrate. Today, Nest supports makers, artisans, and handcraft communities, in every US state and more than 120 countries,” says Rebecca in Authority Magazine. Read her full interview: https://lnkd.in/e8Krz8sd