Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation Portfolio Funding
Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation
Venture-philanthropy funding for early-stage social enterprises, delivered as either unrestricted grant funding or investment capital over three years and released in tranches, alongside intensive board-level engagement and pro bono capacity support. The unrestricted character is the point for research-minded organizations: it can pay for the measurement infrastructure, outcome tracking and evaluation partnership that restricted programme grants normally exclude.
- Indicative award
- up to $300k (total award)Funder's page states up to $300,000 USD in either unrestricted grant funding or investment capital over a three-year period, usually in multiple tranches, plus capacity support valued at up to $500,000 USD in in-kind assistance. No published minimum.
- Timing
- Rolling / openNo specific published date recorded. This funder publishes a cycle rather than a date, and this database does not invent one.Applications accepted year-round with no stated deadline. Funder describes an initial review of 8–10 weeks, then formal diligence of 2–4 months, with further stages after.
- Who can apply
- Community organisation, Practitioner, Early-career faculty
- Eligibility
- Open to social entrepreneurs leading early-stage organizations with a product or service showing proven ability to improve the lives of underserved people; the funder describes priority geographies and sectors on its site. DRK's page does not state a 501(c)(3) restriction and its dual grant-or-investment structure indicates both nonprofit and for-profit forms are contemplated, so entity form should be confirmed directly. A university cannot be the applicant — the funding backs an independent early-stage organization and its founder, so an academic researcher would participate as the evaluation
- SSWR clusters
- Topics
- venture philanthropy · unrestricted funding · early-stage social enterprise · outcome measurement · capacity support
- Apply at
- https://www.drkfoundation.org/apply-for-funding/
- This entry
- Curated by the working group. Written 2026-08-07. The funder link has not yet been machine-checked.
Amounts and dates on this page are indicative and are maintained by people rather than scraped. Funders change ceilings, windows and eligibility without notice; confirm all details at the source above before applying.
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