Grantmaking Portfolios

Guatemala

GFC’s grantmaking program is guided by children’s basic needs for growth and development, including Schools and Scholarships, Hazardous Child Labor, Commercial Sexual Exploitation, and the Distinctive Needs of Vulnerable Boys. A fifth general portfolio allows GFC to support promising new approaches that do not readily fall into the other four categories.

Schools and Scholarships

Education is every child’s right—and the most promising path to a healthy, productive future—but worldwide one in five children are not enrolled in primary school. Around the globe, some of the most successful efforts to address the problem are coming from within the communities that need education most. In 2004–2005, GFC awarded $514,000 to fifty-one grassroots organizations that are increasing children’s access to primary and secondary schooling through nonformal education, skills training, scholarships, and other innovative programs. Click here to read the full concept paper on Schools and Scholarships.

Hazardous Child Labor

Driven by poverty, cultural expectations, or a simple lack of alternatives, one in six children around the world engage in full- or part-time work that meets international definitions of child labor. Not all children’s work is harmful, but when it prevents children from attending school, it greatly limits their future prospects. In 2004–2005, GFC awarded $184,000 to twenty-one grantee partners that offer educational opportunities and other assistance to child laborers and their families, with a special focus on eliminating hazardous, exploitative, and inappropriate work. Click here to read the full concept paper on Hazardous Child Labor.

Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children

No greater violation of their health and dignity exists, yet approximately ten million of the world’s children—mostly girls—are involved in some form of the commercial sex industry. To protect children from initial and continued exposure to prostitution, sex tourism, trafficking, and pornography, organizations must address poverty and other root causes of the problem. Through $155,500 in awards during 2004–2005, GFC supported seventeen grantee partners that prevent children from entering the sex industry and that care for and reintegrate those who have experienced exploitation and abuse. Click here to read the full concept paper on Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children.

The Distinctive Needs of Vulnerable Boys

Boys without education and work are often pushed to society’s margins. Violence, intolerance, and illegal activities threaten their lives and communities—leading a growing number of organizations to design educational programs especially for boys. In 2004–2005, GFC awarded $146,500 to fifteen grantee partners that provide life skills education, job training, substance abuse prevention, and other critical support to at-risk boys and young men. Click here to read the full concept paper on the Distinctive Needs of Vulnerable Boys.

General

Creativity and innovation allow organizations—and children—to thrive. Recognizing this, GFC uses its general portfolio to support a small number of grantee partners that apply imaginative new approaches to complex problems but do not easily fall within the other portfolios.