We fund and co-create initiatives with the right design to not only address systemic challenges, but also strengthen organisations and networks, 
influence policies and shape industry narratives.

It means focussing on bigger bets. In 2020, we committed 20% of our annual budget to longer-term and larger grants that gave mission-aligned partners more flexibility and stability. But we have more work to do. Our median grant size of EUR 200,000 and average grant duration of 18.4 months do not yet reflect the long-term commitment we want, and we are working hard to improve on this.

That said, as a new foundation that launched only in January 2020, we have spent our first year experimenting, testing new concepts, and developing relationships with new partners. As we build trust (on both sides), we will make increasingly longer-term strategic grants to these partners.

Core support grants – as opposed to earmarked funding for specific initiatives – give partners the ability to deploy funds wherever they see the need for the most support. Core funding builds strong, viable organisations, which is critical for the larger systems change we aspire to.

We believe that for it to be most impactful, it must be unrestricted and supported by targeted, non-financial assistance in areas such as strategy, communications and leadership that will ensure our partners’ effectiveness and longevity.

A quarter of the grants we made in 2020 provided core support to our partners and when we add the Covid-19 Emergency Fund, that number increases to 29%. Inspired by other funders that came before us such as the Ford Foundation and OAK Foundation, we are committed to increasing this percentage.

Core funding is still relatively uncommon and yet, it is a valued approach for philanthropic partners. If properly deployed, it can have a transformative effect on recipient organisations. A paper, jointly developed by Laudes Foundation and Intrac, examines the use of core grants and outlines five key insights:  

The problems exposed by the pandemic are symptoms of a broken economic system, which require more collaboration among funders to achieve change on a global scale.  

The same is true of the dual crises of climate change and inequality. That's why, in 2020, we joined five new global alliances, such as Funders Organized for Rights in the Global Economy (FORGE) and the Philanthropy Coalition for Climate, and are supporting over 30 membership bodies and

multi-stakeholder initiatives.

FORGE is a donor collaborative launched in 2020 to foster a global economy that works for all people and the planet, shaped by and accountable to workers and communities. The collaborative, which shares lessons and creates pooled funding strategies for a just economy, brings together funders working across multiple sectors, including corporate accountability, climate justice, women's rights and workers' rights. Its members include the Ford Foundation, Fundación Avina, Humanity United, Laudes Foundation, Omidyar Network, Open Society Foundations, SAGE Fund, True Costs Initiative, Wellspring Philanthropic Fund, and The Wallace Global Fund.

We provided EUR 500,000 of initial funding to the alliance, encouraging other FORGE funders to provide an additional USD 1 million. In September 2020, FORGE's Response and Vision Fund announced its inaugural slate of grants, totalling USD 925,000 to organisations helping vulnerable workers and frontline communities bearing the brunt of the economic crisis, worsened by Covid-19. 

Within FORGE, Laudes Foundation has joined a coalition of committed organisations, who by aligning on overall objectives, pooling funds, sharing due diligence, combining our expertise and unlocking further funding, can make far more progress towards our shared goals than any of us could on our own.  

When we enter into new partnerships, we are intentional about bringing other funders with us through co-financing agreements and forming

multi-donor coalitions to ensure our partners remain supported long after our grant has ended. At the same time, we increasingly join with other funders to support their initiatives which are relevant to the change we want to see.

Co-financing and leverage are both critically important to our partners’ financial viability and longer-term change. Still, not enough philanthropic foundations spend the time needed to find and partner with other funders. In 2020, by proactively engaging other funders and investors, we unlocked an additional EUR 34.6 million in co-finance into our partners and alliances.   

Co-financing unlocks additional resources for our partners’ initiatives, but our systems change ambition means that we are ultimately aiming to achieve greater leverage – where other philanthropic, government and business funders are inspired by the results of our initiatives and commit their funds to replicate and scale them. This leverage is harder to measure than our co-financing, but we estimate we created EUR 65.8 million of leverage in 2020. Recognising this type of influence can occur years after our own funds are deployed, we believe the overall impact of others following in our footsteps will be cumulative as our organisation matures. 

We continue to support the industry changing work of Fashion for Good, which was established in 2017 by Laudes Foundation (formerly C&A Foundation). This collaborative innovation platform nurtures and scales technologies and business models that can transform the 'take-make-waste' structure of the fashion industry.   

Over the last four years, Fashion for Good has gone from strength to strength, supporting more than 115 innovators, attracting 20 corporate partners, including C&A, adidas and PVH Corp, and running more than 80 pilot projects (small-scale feasibility studies in partnership with brands and retailers). 

In 2020, it enabled more than EUR 250 million in investment into innovators (and many of these demonstrated their creativity during the Covid-19 crisis, pivoting their business models to serve the PPE market, for example). At the same time, as a convenor for change, the Fashion For Good Museum (despite the challenges brought on by Covid-19) secured official museum status and has attracted more than 79,000 visitors since its launch in 2018; 83% of whom committed to changing their behaviour as a result of their visit. It also moved to offer virtual tours when the pandemic forced its temporary closure.

An independent external evaluation of Fashion for Good's work from its inception to early 2020, which assessed its design, implementation, results, financial sustainability and lessons learned, found that it had been well designed, developed, adapted and refined to address most of the critical issues and innovation needs of the fashion industry.  

It also found, after three years of operation, most Fashion for Good supported innovations were still at an early stage, with 60% still in the pre-pilot phase. Innovation takes time and the next four years will be critical to move the most advanced innovations from early stage pilots to industry wide initiatives, adopted at scale. This is why Laudes Foundation has established and provided an initial EUR 10 million in funding to the Good Fashion Fund to unlock the funding needed to scale.  

We have taken the lessons from Fashion For Good – specifically the need for a long-term commitment; the recruitment of a dedicated team backed by strong philanthropic and corporate partners; and the need to execute quickly against its mission and incorporated them into the design of new collaborative initiatives.