We believe that learning is key to well-being and equitable and healthy societies. As a global philanthropic investment firm, we are unabashedly impact-first. We aspire to shift inequitable systems and bring to life transformative solutions for learners of all ages. We do this work in collaboration with partners across public, private and social sectors in Brazil, Sub-Saharan Africa and the United States.
We invest in people and ideas that unlock human potential through holistic learning. Together with partners, we are co-creating more equitable and healthy systems so that all learners, families and communities can thrive in a changing and interdependent world.
What we call our “JEDI” principles inform everything we do and what we aspire to achieve. They guide our beliefs, drive our strategy, and shape our culture, operations and actions.
We believe that equitable access to learning is central to healthy, just and prosperous societies. Every person—regardless of race, background, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religion, income, health and abilities—should have the opportunity to learn and realize the future they imagine.
We know that the systems of oppression still embedded around the world—including colonialism, racism and sexism—mean not everyone has the same opportunity to thrive. We work in partnership with changemakers to dismantle these systemic barriers by ensuring that those most proximate have a prominent seat at the table and by co-creating solutions for learners and their families.
As a social change funder, we understand our privilege and the inherent power imbalances in our work. As individuals, we are committed to doing the work to change our own perspectives and behaviors. Within our organization, we are committed to nurturing an environment that encourages constant learning and adaptation, welcomes authentic conversations around hard and difficult topics, and values diversity in viewpoints and cultural perspectives. And externally, we are working to shift harmful philanthropic practices and support the creation of more equitable systems where learners are represented, liberated and able to live dignified, fulfilling lives.
Imaginable Futures (IF) envisions a world of universal well-being where every person has the opportunity to build a brighter future for themselves, their community and the world.
As a social change funder, Imaginable Futures supports people, ideas and initiatives that contribute to more equitable and healthy systems so that all learners, families and communities can thrive. Investing at the intersection of learning and equity, Imaginable Futures collaborates with communities and partners to disrupt patterns of inequity and catalyze meaningful change for learners of all ages in Brazil, Kenya, South Africa and the United States.
Imaginable Futures is committed to continually working to embrace and embody the concepts of justice, equity, diversity and inclusion (JEDI) across its strategy, operations, and culture.
Launched in 2020, Imaginable Futures is a venture of The Omidyar Group and has invested over $300 million in more than 200 partners.
Imaginable Futures spun off from the education initiative at the Omidyar Netwfork in 2020. When we spun off, we brought with us our learnings and relationships built over many years, as well as our portfolio of over $200M in invested capital and grants. Omidyar Network is a sister organization within The Omidyar Group, also founded and funded by Pam and Pierre Omidyar.
As an independent organization, we have the flexibility and autonomy to invest and collaborate with partners to create more equitable, healthy systems for learners in Brazil, Kenya, South Africa and the US.
Imaginable Futures is a venture of The Omidyar Group. The Omidyar Group creates, funds and fosters a diverse collection of independent organizations and initiatives, all united in the pursuit of ideas that have the potential to create positive change in the lives of people and societies. Learn more about The Omidyar Group.
Building on our years of experience in impact investing and venture philanthropy, we have recently added to our toolbox. This includes being much more intentional around equity, diversity and inclusion. And, it includes using a systems approach that will allow us to go even deeper to understand what is happening at the roots of these complex systems and ask: What patterns are behind these systemic inequities? In addition to being informed by local and global insights, this approach is grounded in looking for underlying patterns and being more holistic, collaborative and adaptive.
We are committed to using our resources and privilege to: [1] collaborate with changemakers to challenge and dismantle inequitable systems that are in the way of learners from reaching their fullest potential, [2] ensure that those most impacted are at the table co-creating and driving solutions that work best for their own communities, [3] uplift learning as crucial to individual and family well-being and critical to building more equitable and thriving societies and [4] prioritize impact first. We work across public, private and social sectors with partners concentrated in Brazil, Sub-Saharan Africa and the US.
With a global team in Brazil, Kenya and the US, Imaginable Futures has invested over $300 million in more than 240 partners since 2009.
Our portfolio includes a wide variety of investments—from equity investments and multi-year general operating grants to smaller research and project grants—and our partners work reaches across Brazil, Sub-Saharan Africa and the US. Historically, we have also made investments across Latin America and India.
We are always looking for impactful, values-aligned partners and for new ways to support our mission to co-create more equitable and healthy systems for all learners, families and communities to thrive in a changing and interdependent world.
If you are helping to change the future of learning, working in our core geographic areas and think our strategies and values align, we invite you to connect with us. Introduce yourself by using our Open Door Portal, now available in English, Spanish and Portuguese.
As a partner, we support organizations financially, strategically and operationally. We provide our partners with the support needed to ensure they are as impactful as possible. We aim to support changemakers and their organization holistically by becoming partners in their journeys and supporting their teams and development. In addition to our financial capital, we look to share our co-created learnings and insights among our global network of private, social and public sector partners.
With our goal of creating more equitable and healthy systems that give everyone the opportunity to thrive, we recognize our learning must be grounded in an exploration of how systems are changing and why. We are actively strengthening our learning and impact work as part of our systems approach, including what types of metrics and measures we can let go of, and how we can replace them with more meaningful information about how systems are changing. We believe our learning needs to be in partnership with and bring value to our portfolio, recognizing that those working with complex systems can see and understand things that we cannot. Learn more about our approach to understanding and measuring impact in our Impact Redefined report.
Our investment process is agile and aligned with the needs of the organizations and partners we support. We make investment decisions following business due diligence and impact due diligence, including values alignment. When evaluating an opportunity, our first step is determining strategic, geographic and values alignment.
We often invest early and are willing to take risks, knowing that making sustained change requires trying new things–and sometimes failing. We recognize the need to be able to pivot, adapt and respond to challenges and opportunities as we work to accelerate impact and remove barriers to learning.
We believe that learning is key to well-being and to equitable, healthy societies. We also believe that the opportunity to learn is a fundamental element of thriving. Too often, the current systems reproduce inequities and create barriers to learning, failing to provide the space for all learners to thrive, reach their fullest potential or even dream of the reality they wish to see. This is why we invest in people and ideas that drive holistic learning solutions and prioritize impact through systemic change.
We believe that learning is a continuous journey and occurs in the entire context of one’s life: in school, at home, at work and in relation with the community around you. Education is only one facet of learning as a whole.
We use the term “holistic learning” to describe the type of experience that we hope our portfolio of organizations will create for learners, their families and their communities. Holistic learning cultivates the whole person, including developing well-being, emotional health and a sense of identity, awareness, agency, purpose and curiosity.
Young learners who experience holistic, whole child approaches that promote safety, mental and physical health, engagement and social emotional development have higher levels of academic achievement, are less likely to drop out of school and are more likely to build positive relationships than peers who do not experience whole child approaches. Further, learners who experience learning rooted in social and emotional approaches are able to manage stress better and have better attitudes about themselves, school and others (Durlak et al., 2011). Research tells us that these benefits are lifelong and result in reduced poverty and higher economic mobility (CASEL, 2021).
More about our beliefs about learning can be found here.
We imagine a world where every person has the opportunity to build a brighter future for themselves, their families their community. Where those most proximate to the issues drive innovative solutions that challenge and dismantle systemic barriers to learning and foster well-being. Where identity, belonging and cultural relevance are nurtured and built into learning intrinsically. This is what we are co-creating with our partners.
We define a healthy system as one that generates feedback; is transparent, responsive, and resilient; and seamlessly works for all learners and their families.
A systems approach is both a concept we use to inform our strategies and a practice we use to do our work in order to better understand and address important, though intractable, social problems in the complex environments we work in.
The practice involves deep exploration of the key components, forces and patterns of a given system as a way to identify leverage points or areas of energy that have the potential to yield positive, sustainable impact. In addition to learning from the best of current science and practice, a systems approach includes listening deeply to a wide variety of voices to help build a collective understanding of needs, patterns and possibilities. This differs from a more traditional philanthropic or impact investing approach, which may provide surface fixes that leave underlying patterns untouched.
Our systems approach continually reminds us that we are a part of the larger system, not separate from it.
We use a lens of justice, equity, diversity and inclusion (JEDI) across all of our work, both internally and externally. We know that, in order to create the systemic change that we want to see, we must use and share our privilege and resources—financial, social, network and intellectual capital—to catalyze partnerships, ideas and initiatives that drive equity, particularly racial equity. Internally, we are doing the work individually and as a firm to change our own mindsets, behaviors, and approaches. Learn more about our JEDI commitment and the steps that we have taken on our journey.