Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation seeks to dramatically improve the lives of underserved communities across the globe by supporting scalable, innovative, and impact-first solutions that leverage existing systems and stakeholders. Our goal is to find social entrepreneurs with dynamic products or services that have a proven ability to positively impact the lives of underserved people, and nurture those organizations at the early stages by providing capacity, capital, and community.

Our application process is designed to be open and accessible, and we accept applications year round from across our priority geographies and sectors. Borrowing from our venture capital legacy, we find exceptional entrepreneurs and provide them with: 

• Capacity: The core of DRK’s model is deep and extensive operational and technical support for each portfolio organization, both through dedicated hands-on Board service and specialist capacity-building resources for fundraising, board and organizational development, leadership, financial support, and scaling strategy,
• Capital: DRK provides up to $300,000 USD in either unrestricted grant funding or investment capital over a three-year period, and
• Community: DRK convenes our portfolio and alumni annually, facilitating connections and community. 

DRK Foundation funds early-stage social impact organizations solving the world’s biggest social and environmental problems using bold, scalable approaches. Please see below for frequently asked questions and their responses.

Question:
When is the deadline for applying to DRK?

Answer:
DRK Foundation accepts applications year round. There is no deadline by which to apply.

Question:
What are the attributes of a strong DRK candidate organization?

Answer:

• Problem-first: Organizations addressing an urgent or critical social or environmental problem in an innovative fashion and in a way that directly benefits underserved populations.
• Systems-thinking: Organizations with solutions work within existing systems, leveraging existing stakeholders, infrastructure, and incentives to grow their impact.
• Scalable: Organizations with solutions can scale significantly, in that they can grow exponentially over time to directly impact a minimum of 10,000 lives within the next five years, and ambitions to grow well beyond that.
• Geographically aligned: Organizations operating in our priority geographies of Africa, Europe, India, and the United States, although we will also consider opportunities in Latin America in select situations.
• Independent entities: Organizations that are structured as independent nonprofit or impact first, mission-driven for-profit entities, including US 501(c)3 and its non-US equivalents, C corporations, B corporations, hybrid organizations, and fiscally sponsored organizations where there is a plan to spin out.
• Financially sustainable: Organizations that have at least a growable stream of earned income revenues or plans to develop an earned income revenue stream in the immediate future.
• Measurable evidence of impact: Organizations that are developing solutions based on data and clear evidence of what works, and through their pilot(s) have a demonstrated ability to clearly and effectively measure their impact on underserved populations.  

What does DRK Foundation look for in terms of team attributes?

Answer:

• Full-time: Organizations with one or more founders who are full-time or intend to go full-time in the immediate future.
• Innovative: Founders and/or leadership teams designing creative, impactful solutions that leverage existing systems.
• Deep understanding: Founders and/or leadership teams who have a clear understanding of the problem they are solving, including the broader system they must work within to solve it,
• Learning stance: Founders and/or leadership teams who are continually learning and iterating. 
• Collaborative: Founders and/or leadership teams who welcome a deep, hands-on, working relationship with DRK the full three-year period, 
• Proximate: Founders and/or leadership teams who are proximate to the problems they are solving.