The Nike Foundation in 2004 began investing in adolescent girls as powerful agents of change in the developing world. This focus emerged from the company's desire to support the world's developing countries, recognizing the benefits that both Nike's business and consumers derive from emerging economies. Funded by Nike, Inc., the Foundation leverages the brand's drive for innovation and positive change, and its ability to inspire both. We believe that when girls receive support and realize opportunity for their futures, they can become an unexpected and powerful force in transforming their families, communities and the world.
Nike Foundation works to get girls on the international agenda and drive resources to them. It believes the best way to do that is to prove that investment in her unleashes the girl effect.
The Foundation intends to find and support best programs for girls, including new or innovative ideas which need to be tested and developed. In other cases, it also provides funding to successful programs or called “hidden gems” that can be replicated elsewhere.
Nike Foundation’s support covers programs focused on the basic needs of girls such as safety, health and education. It also looks at supporting the community which influence the choices and options for a girl. Microfinance and entrepreneurship can be imporant means to make girls economically sustainable.
What They Do
There are 250 million adolescent girls living in poverty in the developing world. That’s a quarter of a billion girls aged 10-19 living on less than $2 USD a day. Nike Foundation's initiative, Girl Effect, focuses on changing the lives of adoloscnet girls.
Girl insights have led us to four key pillars of focus:
Partners
The Girl Effect is a movement. We are only one player in a network of doers, movers, and influencers. In addition to programs on the ground, we rely on a powerful network of organizations cooperating to add expertise, build the knowledge base, raise awareness and drive investments to adolescent girls.
Through a formal collaboration with the NoVo Foundation, we both ensure our philanthropic investments are having the greatest possible impact. NoVo has fueled the girl effect with $117 million in investments alongside their limitless passion and expertise.
We work closely with institutions to drive investment, scale up effective programs and make sure solutions are driven by in-country expertise. For example, in a joint venture with DFID – the U.K.’s Department for International Development – we’ve launched Girl Hub to inject girl-expertise into large-scale development programs.
We work in collaboration with a variety of other organizations to communicate broadly (and loudly), find and test what works, and scale up programs that are making a difference. A few of these include the UN Foundation, the Coalition for Adolescent Girls, International Center for Research on Women, Population Council and the World Bank.
Funding
The Nike Foundation does not accept unsolicited proposals.
Our current investments target large-scale systems change that transforms girls’ environments. We work closely with our partner and collaborator network to identify organizations with the capacity to bring about massive change.
