Since our founding in 2014, the Freedom Fund has pursued its mission to mobilise the knowledge, capital and will needed to end slavery. Our impact is well-documented; however, perhaps not enough has been said about our particular funding model and how collaboration, working in deep connection with donors, forms part of our success.
It is part of the Freedom Funds mission to bring more donors and resources into the anti-slavery space. When our anchor investors initially looked at the market, they saw a sector with relatively low levels of often fragmented investment. Our ability to successfully engage investors from a variety of sectors, and to offer them return on investment in form of frontline impact and best-in-class fund management and donor servicing, is therefore an essential part of our work – especially against the backdrop of insufficient overall funding levels for anti-slavery work and the reluctance or inability of some donors to provide funding directly to grassroots programs.
In our experience, there is a high degree of overlap between donor interests and the interests and needs of our local partners and beneficiaries. And by optimising our performance as an effective intermediary, connector and catalyst, we can deliver significant value to both investors and beneficiaries, as well as to the wider sector.
In this new paper we reflect on what makes us a partner of choice for donors in the anti-slavery space. After years of working closely with an intensely engaged, ambitious and knowledgeable group of donors, and with an ever-growing and maturing network of local grassroots partners, we have developed rigorous mechanisms to regularly assess whether our program impact, thought leadership, management systems and donor servicing are indeed meeting the needs and expectations of both our beneficiaries and our investors. We hope by sharing our experiences and approach, we can serve as a resource for others and help drive the global movement forward.
Our vision is of a world free of slavery – and we need to work together, and ever harder, to deliver.
