About us

CIFF is an independent philanthropic organisation, working with a range of partners seeking to transform the lives of children and adolescents. Our programmes are designed to support bold ideas to solve seemingly intractable problems.

Champions for Children

As the world’s largest Philanthropy that focuses specifically on improving children’s lives, we support bold ideas for children to survive and thrive, today and in the future.

Ambitious for Systemic Change

As a private philanthropy focused on systemic change, we want to be in the vanguard of ambitious action for children. We can take on tough problems that others cannot, and we can invest for the long term. Our portfolio is regularly rebalanced away from interventions that seek to optimise the status quo, towards investments with transformative potential.

Reducing the environmental impact of our operations

We are committed to reducing our carbon footprint in line with best practice guidelines and regulation. As part of our grant-making activities, we provide philanthropic support to the Science-Based Targets Initiative (SBTI) and the Voluntary Carbon Markets Integrity Initiative (VCMI) both of which are set up to provide authoritative guidance to companies and other organisations on how to address their climate impact. We similarly provide philanthropic support to the Integrity Council for Voluntary Carbon Markets (ICVCM) which provides authoritative guidance on the quality of carbon credits. As an organisation, we commit to:

1. Independently measure our emissions

2. Take action to reduce our carbon footprint

3. Purchase carbon credits as a contribution to a global net zero goal (in purchasing these credits, we do not make any "carbon neutral" claim or similar that might imply a net reduction in our carbon footprint)

Committed to Field-Building & Investing in Leadership

As one of the world’s big philanthropies, we have the responsibility to build a thriving ecosystem of partners consistent with our localisation strategy. We pro-actively seek out and invest in emerging and established leadership, in line with our strategic and geographic priorities. We also invest in our talented staff by encouraging employees to be change agents and thought leaders in their own right.

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at CIFF

At CIFF, we have embarked on a mission to comprehensively embed diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), including gender and racial equity, in our work and operations.

Read our full commitment to DEI.

Meaningful Youth Engagement

We believe that supporting young people’s leadership, rights and perspectives must be at the core of the design, delivery and evaluation of any investment that seeks to meet youth needs in any setting. Our five principles for youth engagement are:

Young people will be respected, valued and supported to contribute to decision-making processes within the foundation, with opportunities for partnership with adults and support for the development of their capacities to participate meaningfully.

We will consider supporting youth-led work, in investments that allow for meaningful youth engagement, with sufficient and timely resources to:

  • Build a robust youth civil society movement to catalyse efficient and effective delivery of adolescent-centred investments.
  • Enable meaningful participation of young people to influence a change in laws, policies, development programmes affecting their communities
  • Facilitate continuous consultation amongst adolescent and youth groups to determine priorities for advocacy and community mobilisation.

The foundation will provide for the professional development of young members of staff, through affording diverse opportunities for advancement within the organisation and facilitating access to training opportunities.

We commit to adopting and implementing meaningful youth engagement principles and practices across the Foundation.

We will engage in continual learning and review to improve our commitment to meaningful youth engagement.

‘Young people’, ‘youth’ and ‘young members’ used interchangeably to denote the age-range (10 – 30 years) encompassing adolescents (10-19 years) and youth policy definitions of youth in CIFF’s focus countries (ranging from 15-30 years).