Oak Foundation

…When you collaborate with an organisation that is fully aligned with the programme, it makes sense to just support them to do what they do, rather than imposing a project or restricting the funding for X, Y, or Z..

Adriana Craciun, Oak Foundation Senior Adviser, President’s Office

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About Oak Foundation

Named after the oak tree for its strength, resilience, longevity, and protection, Oak Foundation provides grants, including for organisational strengthening and to contribute to intermediaries. The team at the foundation collaborates closely with other funders on issues that contribute to a safer, fairer, and more sustainable world.

What was the challenge?

Oak Foundation was formally established in 1983. Early grants were made in Denmark to organisations supporting single mothers and torture victims (1983) and in Zimbabwe to groups supporting vulnerable children and families, primarily at community levels (1984). Grants continued to be made annually in several countries until a new phase for Oak Foundation began in the early 1990s, when annual grant-making increased and staff were hired to run substantive programmes. As the foundation grew, the team started to understand the limitations of project-based funding – principally, in how its narrowed focus can tend to neglect the overall operational sustainability of organisations – and were challenged to evolve their approach to better meet the needs of the grantee partners they hoped to support under their chosen themes. If they truly wanted to create impact and contribute to their goal of a “safer, fairer, and more sustainable world”, they would need to re-evaluate how they allocate their resources.

What was the response?

Oak Foundation understood that to support organisations that were already fully aligned with their programmes, they should offer resources to fund general work and operations rather than imposing projects or restricting funding for specific activities. 

Oak Foundation’s transformative shift to unrestricted grants would not only require changes to their policy and logistics, but would mean significant internal transformation, from shifting mindsets within the organisation, to broader information-sharing efforts for more equitable, trust-based forms of grant-making in the philanthropy ecosystem at large.

The foundation has always been committed to learning and providing better forms of grant-making. This can be seen in the gradual shift and increase in core funding each year. Today, 45% of Oak Foundation’s budget is directed to this core funding in all of its thematic programmes. The foundation generally awards multi-year grants, prioritising complete flexibility in funding indirect organisational costs, which are tailored to the needs of each partner. 

To get to this point, the foundation team worked on shifting norms, habits, and internal culture. Programme Officers were asking questions like, “How can I be accountable when awarding core grants?” and “What exactly do I measure?” Without clearly defined objectives tied to a specific project, the challenge of demonstrating impact and showing what had been achieved became a central concern. To address this, the foundation’s Senior Impact Adviser led a workshop focused on how to assess the impact of core support. A key insight that emerged was the understanding that a grant’s success should be evaluated within the broader context of an organisation’s overall work, and projects should not be viewed in isolation, but as integrated elements of an organisation’s general operations. The foundation also considers qualitative signals – such as shifts in the context where organisations operate and feedback from partners – as important indicators of impact. To support this, Oak conducts grantee perception surveys every five years, helping to inform and refine its approach. To shift internal mindsets regarding measuring impact, it was important for Oak Foundation to reframe accountability, choosing to understand organisations as systems whose core operations are inseparable from their projects, and whose value must be read in context.  Oak Foundation remains actively engaged in sector-wide conversations and research on its value.

Over time, Oak Foundation has also recognised that core funding should be directed towards building the resilience of its partner organisations. As a private foundation, it is well placed to invest in themes, geographies, and organisations that are in most need and may otherwise be overlooked or underserved by philanthropy. Their seventh and largest grant-making programme, ‘Special Interest’, is important in this regard, allowing them a level of flexibility and responsiveness to support important work beyond the scope of usual programming, and to fund people and places that are in unexpected crisis. Examples of Special Interest themes have included the Covid-19 crisis, the fentanyl epidemic in the US, and so on. Through this category, Oak Foundation retains the ability to be responsive to social and environmental issues, and to ensure organisational support and resilience even in times of crisis. 

Oak Foundation’s deepened commitment to organisational development and resilience was a key organisational milestone of the 2010s, marked by their appointment of a senior adviser dedicated to this area. Today, many of the foundation’s grants include built-in support for organisational development, tailored to the unique needs and contexts of each partner. In one case, the foundation allocated a significant portion of a grant to help a young, growing organisation build its internal capacity. The support included the development of a fundraising strategy, the training and coaching of board members to engage donors, and the recruitment of new board members, among other practices. As part of organisational development, and in collaboration with financial management support providers, Oak Foundation also helps partners calculate their annual budgets and overheads. This ensures more accurate cost recovery, especially for expenses often overlooked in project-based funding.

To that end, Oak Foundation is also committed to supporting the true cost (i.e., overheads) of project-based grant-making. The foundation officially removed a rule that limited funding for operational or administrative costs several years ago. Nevertheless, Programme Officers were still administering grants as if this rule were in place, limiting spending on indirect costs, like overhead or administrative expenses. This discovery demonstrated that fundamental changes to traditional grant-making methodologies require major mindset shifts in order to take hold meaningfully. 

Beyond its grant-making, Oak Foundation plays an active role in promoting core support across the philanthropic sector. In 2019, the foundation joined the Funders for Real Cost (FRC) Collaborative, which – over two and a half years – worked to raise awareness among funders about the importance of covering operational or ‘indirect’ costs. The initiative aimed to break the ‘nonprofit starvation cycle’, where underfunded core costs can weaken the sustainability and effectiveness of organisations. The foundation has also championed this approach through its involvement with the  Funding for Real Change initiative hosted by Ariadne and the EDGE Funders Alliance. As part of this initiative, a series of case studies was developed to highlight diverse funder and partner experiences with core support, offering practical examples and strategies for the wider sector. Oak Foundation offered one of the six case studies, documenting their partnership with a Zimbabwean community-based organisation called Simukai Child Protection Program.

Oak Foundation has continually evolved to stay responsive and make an impact even as the world shifts and its role expands. The foundation team is deeply engaged in the foundation’s work. Perhaps this deep engagement has contributed to Oak’s confident commitment to giving core funding. In fact, the foundation is so firmly grounded in the core funding approach that staff are more often expected to justify proposals for project-based funding than for core grants.

Another imperative of the foundation, regardless of its financial growth, has been to limit its size to not more than 100 employees. This helps the Oak Foundation team to stay close to each other and the grant-making process. They believe it helps maintain a working culture of familiarity, friendliness, and trust. Furthermore, by staying small and avoiding the over-complicated policy and practice investments big organisations need to make, the foundation has been able to limit its own overheads. These imposed constraints – a small team and low running costs – have meant limited capacity, and the need to be strategic about how to best manage the financial resources, particularly given a significant grant-making budget. To manage these constraints, Oak Foundation largely awards big grants ($250.000 to over $10 million) in respect of their capacity, although smaller grants are also awarded. 

As part of its strategy, Oak Foundation allocates around 40% of its grant budget to intermediary organisations and funds that are able to distribute resources more flexibly across organisations of all sizes. These intermediaries – providing support to organisations from foundations and NGOs to informal or unregistered movements – play a vital role in strengthening local giving ecosystems. They may operate at national, regional, or issue-specific levels, and are trusted to re-grant Oak’s funding to smaller organisations that align with their thematic or geographic focus. While this giving shows up in Oak Foundation’s record as “project funding” (the project being ‘re-granting’), the reality is that much of this money also ends up as core organisational support funding, as well as in supporting women’s movements, who sometimes employ participatory granting processes – further aligning with Oak’s values of flexibility and trust.

With each step toward strengthening its core mandate of providing flexible, core support, Oak Foundation continues to encounter new challenges. One such challenge emerged in their intermediary funding approach: While much of their grant-making has shifted to support the majority world, the intermediary organisations they fund are still predominantly based in the Global North. To address this imbalance, they commissioned a study – completed in late 2024 – to identify intermediary actors already operating within the global majority world. The goal was to better understand and collaborate with locally rooted organisations that are already driving change in their own ecosystems. The foundation had observed that other funders facing similar challenges often responded by establishing new intermediaries in specific regions, effectively meaning that the resources and agency remain with Global North-led organisations. Intending to break this cycle, Oak Foundation sought to support and strengthen existing local networks in line with a commitment to supporting local experts. To promote similar approaches among Global North funders, the foundation has published the report and related resources on its website, as part of its broader effort to promote and invest in more equitable local giving ecosystems.

Driven by a strong commitment to support local organisations through core support and organisational development opportunities, Oak Foundation has undertaken significant inward and outward-facing efforts and transformation to make this vision a reality. From the bold decision to eliminate indirect cost limits to investing in intermediary organisations and actively championing the value of core support across the sector, Oak Foundation continues its transformation journey.

What have they learned?

1. Core support is the most effective way to support partners and break the starvation cycle. Too often, project-based grants leave organisations scrambling to cover essential operational and administrative costs – trapping them in a ‘starvation cycle.’ Oak Foundation challenges this norm by championing core support grants that fully fund partners’ true needs and not limiting the use of grants to covering operational costs of their partners. When core funding isn’t possible, Oak ensures its project grants cover the real, full cost of delivery — including indirect costs such as administration. 
2. Invest in the long-term health and resilience of your grantee partners. Over time, Oak Foundation learned that core and flexible funding alone aren’t enough. To truly strengthen partners, it must be paired with targeted organisational development (OD). While flexible support gives grantees the autonomy to pursue their mission, OD helps them build the internal muscle – governance, leadership, fundraising, and systems – that ensures long-term resilience. The foundation sees OD as a strategic companion to core support, investing not just in what organisations do, but in how well they’re equipped to grow, adapt, and sustain impact over time.
3. Build flexibility into your grant-making – crises don’t wait for funding cycles. In an era of polycrisis – where multiple, interconnected challenges collide – grant-making must be flexible and responsive. Rigid funding models can’t keep pace with today’s rapidly evolving realities. A thematic programme that adapts to shifting needs is essential for supporting people and places in crisis. Oak Foundation’s Special Interest Programme is designed with this agility in mind, enabling rapid response to emerging issues and funding critical work that may fall outside traditional programme boundaries.
4. Bring the team on board: shift mindsets, don’t penalise. Shift mindsets, not just policies. Core funding is still the exception in philanthropy – and embracing it requires a conscious shift from default grant-making habits, like capping indirect costs. To make this change stick, bring your team on board. Equip them with the why behind core support – its values, impact, and long-term benefits – rather than enforcing top-down rules or penalties. Culture change starts with understanding
5. Align organisational structure with your values. The structure of Oak Foundation is designed to reflect its values – fostering trust, continuity and shared purpose across the team. This values-driven design keeps the organisation deliberately small, limiting bureaucracy and keeping internal costs low, allowing more resources to flow to partners and communities they serve.
6. Collaborate with like-minded funders to champion change and drive collective impact in philanthropy. Systemic transformation requires shared vision and bold, collective action. By joining forces with values-aligned funders, through the Funders for Real Cost (FRC) Collaborative and the Funding for Real Change Initiative, Oak Foundation amplifies its influence and helps shift the philanthropic ecosystem towards more ethical, sustainable, and partner-centred grant-making.
7. Shift power by supporting local intermediaries. Oak Foundation values power-sharing by supporting intermediary partners based in the communities they serve. They strive to support local actors that already hold deep relationships with community movements and small organisations – registered or not – and are better positioned to channel resources where they’re truly needed. Instead of creating new structures or supporting existing ones that are away from the needs on the ground, Oak identifies and invests in existing local intermediaries with strong, values-aligned networks – helping to build thriving local philanthropy ecosystems and supporting organisations in communities across the globe.

Key outcomes and impact indicators

In 2024, Oak Foundation provided 411 programme grants to 368 organisations in 40 countries for a total of USD 466 million. In Oak Foundation’s 2022 grantee perception survey conducted through the Centre for Effective Philanthropy, the foundation surveyed 1058 participants, receiving 801 responses (76%), a significant jump from 2015, in which 454 surveys were received. The 2022 survey found: