From The Chronicle of Philanthropy:

"Dylan Mathews, chief executive of Peace Direct, has learned to wait. And wait.

Like many nonprofit leaders who depend on foundation cash, Mr. Mathews is used to the months of dead time that follow a grant application. That silence, he says, often ends with a simple thumbs up or thumbs down.
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The response following his application..."
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From The Catholic Spirit:

"Salim, a Syrian refugee, flees an unwanted draft into the Syrian army, escaping the potential of having to join the Islamic State or other groups. Leaving behind his friends and family, Salim is left without an income or any form of identification in Lebanon.

Today, Salim is an assistant professor of Arabic in Italy.

The game changer was NaTakallam, a platform..."
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An NGO partnership creating a pathway to peace for ex-combatants through ethical gold production in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and a social enterprise employing drone technology to accelerate community-driven mangrove restoration for improved fish stocks and protection from natural disasters are among 5 social innovators whose solutions were chosen as 2017 BridgeBuilder Challenge Top Ideas. The cohort of Top Ideas will amplify their impact with a share of US$1 million and collaboration with GHR Foundation.

The Challenge sought ideas addressing urgent global concerns at the intersections of peace, prosperity and planet in radically new ways. Participants from 185 countries responded with more than 650 ideas. Stemming from its own Catholic roots, GHR, working with open-innovation platform OpenIDEO, launched the BridgeBuilder Challenge to answer the universal call of Pope Francis to “build bridges” and contribute to making the world a better place for all humankind.

“In his TED Talk earlier this year, Pope Francis encouraged people to apply innovation and collaboration to foster greater social equity and community in the world today,” said Amy R. Goldman, CEO and chair of GHR Foundation. “This first cohort of Top Ideas represents literally hundreds of ideas fulfilling the Pope’s invitation to bridge complex, persistent issues in radically new ways. We look forward to partnering with each of these organizations to further develop their ideas and scale their impact.” 

The inaugural BridgeBuilder Challenge sought to support innovative projects bridging peace, prosperity and planet in the United States and around the world. The winning ideas include:

• ​Ethical gold mining as a pathway to peace in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Peace Direct: Peace Direct provides a pathway to peace and environmental protection in fragile DRC while providing sustainable incomes to ex-combatants – now small-scale, subsistence miners. The miners and their families (approx. 3,400 people total) receive training in conflict resolution, peacebuilding and environmentally responsible gold production as they work toward a fair-trade-certified standard.
• Tree-planting drones for restoring mangroves and livelihoods in Myanmar, BioCarbon Engineering: Creating a strong bridge between prosperity and planet, Oxford-based BioCarbon Engineering employs drone technology to accelerate community-driven mangrove restoration to reforest depleted mangrove ecosystems in the fragile coastal regions of Myanmar, where more than 1 million hectares of forest have already been lost due to rising sea levels. In the process of planting 1 million mangrove trees annually, fish stocks will increase, a protective barrier against natural disasters will be restored, and local economies will be bolstered, leading to a more stable balance between communities and their surrounding ecosystems.
• Creative skills for peace among youth violent offenders in Cameroon, Local Youth Corner Cameroon: To counter violent extremism in Cameroon, Local Youth Corner promotes participation in peacebuilding by empowering violent offenders with leadership, vocational and entrepreneurial skills. Its Creative Skills for Peace program supports the rehabilitation and reintegration of 300 young offenders across 8 facilities in 6 cities, and trains staff members at rehabilitation facilities on countering violent extremism and peacebuilding.
• Lifting up and empowering families on Chicago's South Side, LIFT Chicago: Bridging prosperity and peace in Chicago, LIFT Chicago uses a two-generation, in-community ambassador approach to increase access to early childhood educations services and help parents and caregivers build social connections, strengthen personal well-being, and improve financial security to foster personal and community-level peace and prosperity.
• Connecting displaced persons with Arabic language learners around the world, NaTakallam: NaTakallam bridges peace and prosperity and encourages a culture of encounter by connecting displaced individuals (primarily Syrians) with Arabic learners around the world for online language practice, giving the former access to an income while fostering intercultural understanding. By 2018, it hopes to provide 150 refugees with sustainable incomes through their work with 2,000 language learners.

“The response to our inaugural BridgeBuilder Challenge was amazing,” said Jason Rissman, managing director of OpenIDEO. “Throughout the Ideas and Feedback phases, the global community offered insights and connections to contributors that added value to the ideas, even if they weren't chosen as Top Ideas. The collaborative and transparent nature of the OpenIDEO platform has far-reaching benefits, and BridgeBuilder inspired participants from nearly every country to address the critical social concerns of our day.”

From Forbes:

"Earlier this year, Minnesota-based GHR Foundation and San Francisco-based OpenIDEO joined forces to launch the inaugural BridgeBuilder Challenge, an opportunity that would award five top ideas a share of $1 million to pursue an idea that would make an impact around the world.

Today, five top ideas were announced.

Named in response to the call of Pope Francis to build bridges..."
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From PEAK Grantmaking:

"We live in an exciting time, when the world’s changemakers can connect across enormous distances and from very different communities. Yet, with this interconnectivity comes a set of more complex, interwoven global challenges—the global economy is growing, yet much of this wealth is kept at the top and global inequality is at higher than ever.

At GHR Foundation, we recognize where our orbit—and the orbit of traditional philanthropy—is limited..."
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From the European Foundation Centre Blog:

"From Sihanoukville, Cambodia to Makululu Compound in Zambia, we are seeing children reunited with their families. These communities, recovering from issues like conflict or the impact of HIV/AIDS, are getting stronger day-by-day.
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One fact is central to our work in these communities: Most children living in orphanages..."
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As GHR Foundation continues to expand our impact, we are presented with opportunities to grow our team and add new talent. We rely on the skills and experience of our staff every day, and owe our success to their expertise. This week, we had an addition to our program staff—Arielle Milton joined as a program associate for GHR’s global development program, where she will provide support to the Children in Families and Sister Support initiatives.

Arielle previously worked at The Kresge Foundation in Michigan, where she served the human services program area and the American Cities Practice, providing project management, operational and grants management coordination. Arielle is a 2017 New Leaders Council fellow, a Michigan co-chair of the Emerging Practitioners in Philanthropy and co-chair of Young Nonprofit Professionals Network’s National Fundraising Think Tank.

Arielle has dedicated her career to the philanthropic sector, seeking learning opportunities that promote the improvement of life outcomes for children, youth and families in vulnerable communities. We are confident her support of our program team will allow us to grow and make change around the world. To learn more about GHR’s team, contact us.

When international nonprofits approach global development issues, they often use a top-down structure to work with local partners. This makes sharing local knowledge and best practices difficult, and diminishes the ability of local partners to influence governments or implement policy change.

In 2009, U.K.-based nonprofit Every Child realized the limitations of their approach to helping vulnerable children and families. Taking a radical leap of faith, they decided on a creative, innovative restructuring. Every Child disbanded itself and began a seven-year planning period, emerging in 2016 as Family for Every Child, an independent global alliance of former international partners and grassroots civil society organizations.

Family for Every Child’s act of creative reconstruction attracted GHR’s attention, and ultimately, support. In 2012, our Children in Families initiative became one of Family for Every Child’s first funders, issuing a small grant to assist them in capacity building for membership engagement. More recently, we supported Family for Every Child’s development of Guidelines on Children’s Reintegration, a valuable resource for child protection around the world. Today, Family for Every Child is a global alliance composed of 30 organizations with shared goals, connecting and collaborating to break the glass ceiling that prevents many local organizations from achieving policy changes that effectively protect children.
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Bold nonprofits that choose innovative, lean approaches to global problems often lack the support necessary for growth. To fill this gap, GHR is committed to supporting organizations like Family for Every Child. We believe impact can be maximized when approaches to challenges are continuously re-imagined, and we hope to collaborate with more organizations that embrace risk and reinvention to better serve the communities in which they work.

​GHR funds collaborations between nonprofits and civil society organizations because we value bold and innovative solutions to challenges faced by vulnerable children. What does collaboration look like within your organization or alliance? Share your success, opportunities and questions in the comments below or learn more about GHR’s Children in Families initiative here.

GHR recently had the honor of hosting a group from Kenya, visiting through the State Department’s International Visitor Leadership Program with Global Minnesota. We shared our Inter-Religious Action initiative’s funding efforts in Kenya, and learned about the inspiring work being done by these exceptional community leaders to improve lives, build peace and counter violent extremism through youth engagement.
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GHR invests in long-term peace building efforts along the Kenyan coast through our collaboration with Catholic Relief Services, the Coast Interfaith Council of Clerics and the Malindi Catholic Diocese through a project called the Dialogue Action Project, an initiative aimed at eliminating child marriage and improving household income through community saving groups.
 
Our guests shared inspiring stories from their efforts to promote peace across religions in their communities. For example, after the 2015 terrorist attacks on Garrissa University in Kenya, Ayub Mohamud, a high school teacher in Nairobi, set up Teachers Against Violent Extremism. The organization is now an interfaith network of teachers across Kenya working to share ideas that incorporate peace, tolerance and bridge-building with students in and outside classroom. In 2016, Mahamud was nominated for the Varkey Foundation’s Global Teacher Prize for his impressive work. Mahamud is an excellent example of the importance of dialogue and inter-faith collaboration in building a more peaceful world. 

We look forward to learning more from community leaders like our visitors from Kenya, and we are energized by the efforts of these individuals to promote peace and global development. To learn more about how GHR is bridging divides through our Inter-Religious Action initiative, contact us.