Palms for Life Fund (PFL) is a New York City-based nonprofit with an extensive track record of ongoing international projects in Africa, Latin America and Asia that promote access to education, food, water and sanitation (WASH).

Since its inception in 2006, Palms for Life has impacted the lives of thousands of people around the world. Today, Palms for Life is a thriving nonprofit with multi-million dollar grant-programs operating across the world.

Palms for Life was founded in 2006 by Hannah Laufer-Rottman who has spent her entire career helping poor people improve their livelihoods.

Palms for Life’s headquarters are based in New York City and in 2010 a satellite office in Swaziland was also established to manage a 3 year, $1.9 million dollar USAID-funded project impacting 40,000 school children in 120 schools across the country.

Expertise:

Palms for Life brings to the table more than 35 years of expertise in:

• - Establishing reliable local partnerships
• - Designing program interventions that are effective forces for change
• - Developing implementation strategies
• - Establishing Monitoring and Evaluation systems
• - Providing financial management, oversight and support
• - Mobilizing support for the most vulnerable in the global community.

Their Projects’ Selection Criteria:

All projects supported by Palms for Life must address the following:

• - Participatory (inclusive)
• - Empowering (creates jobs)
• - Responsive to actual needs (proper baseline research & local engagement)
• - Cost-Efficient (easily maintained locally)
• - Replicable (potential to scale)
• - Environmentally Conscious (utilizes local resources & improves natural environment)
• - Gender Sensitive (systematically considering the needs of women and girls in program architecture to ensure implementation)

Their Impact

• - They build sustainable local capacity.
• - They ensure that their projects generate changes of attitudes and behaviors and long lasting results.
• - They raise awareness and understanding about hunger and poverty from a human rights perspective.

Mission

Palms for Life Fund’s mission is to advocate for and support the creation of infrastructure that provides access to education, food, water and sanitation for vulnerable communities throughout Africa, Latin America and Asia. They operate from a basic human rights perspective – because access to safe and sustainable food, water, sanitation and education is a right not just a humanitarian issue.

An important part of Palms for Life’s mission is also to raise awareness about hunger and poverty in the United States. In 2009, Palms for Life produced the Faces of Hunger in America film contest in which young filmmakers all across the country revealed the nature of hunger in their communities.