2011 Q1 Board Book (Staff)

The March 23-24th, 2011 Board Meeting focused on strategic grant-making, refining its approach to measurement and evaluation, and addressing a disbursement quota shortfall. Key agenda items included director recruitment, reputation strategy, and program updates.

A significant development was the launch of a large secondary education scholarship program, partnering with the Institute of International Education (IIE). The program, which includes a pilot phase in Ethiopia, Indonesia, and Guatemala, aims to provide comprehensive support to disadvantaged students. Edith Cecil of IIE joined the board to discuss the program. The program's design was influenced by best practices from other global scholarship programs, such as the Ford Foundation's International Fellowships Program.

The Foundation also explored other partnerships to address its strategic goals: a $14.6 million, five-year initiative with the International Labour Organization (ILO) to expand the global evidence base on youth transitions from school to work, a $3.8 million grant to Aflatoun to pilot and scale a social and financial education program for disadvantaged youth, and a $600,000 investment in Calmeadow to develop an innovative microfinance product for higher education financing in Latin America. The Foundation is also considering a $20.9 million grant to the Legatum Center at MIT to advance entrepreneurship among students from developing countries.

The Foundation also grappled with a disbursement quota shortfall, caused by an unexpected increase in the value of its MasterCard shares. Options included seeking further relief from the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) and identifying new ways to increase charitable disbursements. Gale Berkowitz, the new Director of Evaluation and Learning, presented their initial impressions and approach to measurement, emphasizing the importance of using evaluation findings for strategic decision making. The Foundation is moving from outsourced evaluation practices to integrating evaluation within strategy.

Overall, the Foundation continued its work on strategically investing in programs to improve the lives of youth around the world, whilst also dealing with internal issues of governance and financial responsibility.