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.

Our Geographic Areas

🇨🇴 Colombia

🇰🇪 Kenya

🇺🇸 United States

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.

• Individual Donors: We believe individuals who will be excited by our unique model and 100X North Star ROI are those who have made their money in tech, as well as supporters of Effective Altruism, because their experiences and values are aligned with the need for philanthropy to make measurable impacts in people’s lives.
• Institutional Funders: We believe institutional funders who are newly forming, as well as established ones who are slower to move, will be interested in investing with us because we are able to quickly source opportunities and effectively screen for economic impact. We will also pursue opportunities with GitLab customers that have foundations.

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: