Approach and Strategy

We aim to significantly increase the impact of our outcomes-focused and innovation-driven philanthropy by building partnerships with philanthropic investors to improve people’s lives by growing incomes.

Goals

Our goals are ambitious! In FY25 we are building the systems and processes to expand our network of philanthropic investors to raise $20M in leveraged funds, double the amount from last year. This goal will be challenging in part because it is unusual for philanthropies to raise money, and this work is unpredictable and slow.

Our FY25 goal is divided into the following categories:

  1. $5M in Direct Investment: Direct cultivation of new donors that fund us directly.
  2. $12M in Co-Investment: Direct ask by GitLab Foundation, where both parties agree to support an organization or issue area; includes our funding being used to “unlock” additional investment or create matching opportunities; potentially includes the development of funds that GitLab Foundation manages.
  3. $3M in Indirect Investment: Additional funds directed to an organization as a result of an introduction that was made by GitLab Foundation.

We will remain agile, efficient, and effective to sustain growth over the next two years. The aspirational goal is to raise an incremental $10M each year, to $30M (FY26), then $40M (FY27) in leveraged funding.

Strategy

We will reach these goals by focusing on building relationships grounded in trust with ultra-high- and high-net-worth individuals and institutional funders to inspire investments in our mission.

These philanthropies vary in size of budget but have small staff, so our due diligence is valued as a service to help them reach their goals. We have plans to share pipelines for co-investment where interests align. We are also pursuing follow-on funding opportunities, where we serve as an early investor, serving up evidence-supported programs that are ready to scale.

Next Steps

Between now and our next board meeting in September we will focus on:

  1. Tracking and Reporting: Implementing Salesforce as our CRM to track and report on partnerships, including assets under management vs. assets “under influence”.
  2. Partnership Development:  Building network maps of connections to see who (including board members) might make strategic introductions. To strengthen relationships with philanthropic investors we will be showcasing the impact of our collective efforts, shared learning, and successes via live and virtual events.

We are confident that with your continued support and engagement we will achieve our ambitious goals to improve incomes and lives. Thank you!

Our Funds

AI for Economic Opportunity

While AI-enabled tools and technologies continue to rapidly evolve, organizations focused on social outcomes are often last in line to test and implement them — the GitLab Foundation’s AI for Economic Opportunity Fund enables frontline organizations to experiment with emerging technologies to improve productivity gains.

AI Funder Roundtable

Green Jobs for Economic Opportunity

Green Jobs for Economic Opportunity Fund was created to support organizations and multisectoral partnerships in developing early-stage initiatives to improve economic mobility.

Learning for Action

The GitLab Foundation launched the Learning for Action Fund in June 2024 to alleviate these problems and increase our grantees’ capacity to deepen their impact measurement, learning, and feedback work. This aligns with our philosophy that greater investments in evidence-building and feedback activities lead to more effective programs, with higher potential ROI.

To learn more about partnering with us, please contact [email protected].

Our Partners

GitLab Inc.

The Foundation was formed by GitLab, Inc. as part of its mission to create a world in which everyone can contribute. The company leadership felt it was important to support organizations that could further this goal on a global scale. When GitLab, Inc. [went public](https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/being-a-public-company/#:~:text=GitLab began trading on the,part of realizing our mission.) in October 2021, it dedicated 1% of its shares to further this aim.

The GitLab Foundation is an independent private foundation. While it was formed by and is associated with GitLab, Inc., the Foundation operates independently of the company, including having its own President and CEO and strategy. The Foundation board is partially composed of GitLab, Inc. executives (Sid Sijbrandij, Brian Robins and Robin Schulman) and partially composed of independent board members.

GitLab Engagement Plan

Sytse ‘Sid’ Sijbrandij

When GitLab Inc. committed 1% of its shares to the Foundation, Sid Sijbrandij made a personal commitment to match those contributions personally or through his family foundation, the Sijbrandij Foundation.