OVERVIEW: Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors is a philanthropic service provider that assists individuals, families, foundations and corporations with financial, strategic and other types of support across many thematic areas of philanthropic giving and impact investing. 

IP TAKE: Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors traces its “roots back to John D. Rockefeller, Sr., who in 1891 set out to manage his philanthropy with the same professionalism as his business ventures.” This organization offers “global expertise, experience and vast international network to provide tailored services that meet your unique circumstances and needs.” If your organization is looking to collaborate, evolve, streamline, or scale its giving, reach out to one three U.S. offices in New York, Chicago or San Francisco to explore opportunities. Phone numbers are provided on the contact page.  

PROFILE: Established in 2002, Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors (RPA) is a global philanthropic service organization with headquarters in New York, Chicago and San Francisco. RPA’s broad mission is “to accelerate philanthropy in pursuit of a just world by providing deep global expertise to make philanthropy more thoughtful, equitable and effective.” RPA “manages more than $500 million in annual giving by individuals, families, foundations, and corporations” and “serves as a fiscal sponsor for more than 100 projects, providing governance, management, and operational infrastructure to support their charitable purposes.” RPA is committed to the pursuit of equity, the centering of “people and communities” in decision making, and knowledge sharing in the interest of maintaining “the highest standards of integrity and trust.” 

RPA names five types of services that it provides to its clients, collaborating organizations and the philanthropic sector at large:

• Strategy and Consulting services help grantmakers develop “ideas and intentions into a program that charts a clear path to your desired impact.” 
• Management and Implementation provides various levels of staffing, management, administration, communications and evaluation services tailored to grantmakers specific needs. 
• Fiscal Sponsorship provides grantmakers with a “professionally managed fiscal home” to maximize impact and efficiency of projects and funding initiatives. 
• Impact Investing helps grantmakers “find new ways to increase their impact by transforming their approach to investments.” 
• RPA also provides Thought Leadership and Global Research to support best practices and advance innovation in philanthropy. The organization’s online Knowledge Center features free resources for grantmakers and others including RPA’s Philanthropy Roadmap, Impact Investing Handbook, Philanthropy Topic Briefs and more.  

RPA’s philanthropic work spans a broad range of issue areas including arts and culture, climate and environment, education, financial inclusion, health, impact investing, philanthropic practice and rights and equity. However, is it important to note that as a philanthropic service provider, much of RPA’s work engages the overlapping and interconnected interests of its collaborators and clientele. The organization’s engagements are global in scope. Since its inception, the organization has “facilitated more than $4 billion in grantmaking to more than 70 countries.” It is currently headed by philanthropy veteran Latanya Mapp.

Grants for Global Development, Health and Human Rights 

A significant portion of RPA’s work addresses intersecting themes of sustainable global development and the rights and inclusion of underserved and vulnerable people around the world. 

• For several years, RPA has sponsored and managed grants from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundationfor large-scale financial inclusion initiatives in Nigeria. Major areas of focus for this ongoing work include efforts to digitize Nigeria’s public benefits program, support for a national microloan program and the creation of a regulatory infrastructure for digital financial services. 

• RPA provided strategic and administrative support to FinnSalud, a program of the global impact firm BFA that is funded by the MetLife Foundation. The project “aimed to develop a measuring standard and tool, CIMA, for socially-driven financial institutions in Mexico.” 
• RPA sponsors the Catalyst Fund, which works globally “to provide early stage capital injections for fin-tech start-ups that design and produce financial inclusion solutions.”  
• RPA assisted Italy’s Fondazione CRT in “identify[ing] opportunities for integrating an SDG lens in its work.” 
• Brazil’s Lemann Foundation enlisted RPA to assist with its grantmaking for education equity and “development of leaders committed to the social transformation of Brazil.” 
• In the area of global health, RPA sponsors the Community Health Acceleration Partnership, whose past work supported organizations working to meet “the UN Millennium Development Goals around child survival, maternal health and the devastation caused by HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.” 

Grants for Climate Change and Clean Energy 

Several of RPA’s featured Climate and Environment projects involve philanthropic efforts for climate change resilience and clean energy transition:

• RPA sponsors Accelerate Resilience L.A., a SoCal organization that “engage[s] in capacity building, cross-sector collaboration, and community engagement to advance multi-benefit approaches that are key to developing individual and collective climate resilience.” 
• In 2015, RPA helped to establish the Just Transition Fund, a collaboration among the Appalachia Funders Network, the Hewlett Foundation and others to “to help local organizations secure funding through the POWER Initiative, the first federal program targeted to communities impacted by the changing coal economy.” 
• Another sponsorship, Fashion Makes Change, is an “industry-wide initiative” focused on “[c]oordinating and accelerating the industry’s sustainable, responsible transformation at scale.”

Grants for Environment and Wildlife Conservation 

Projects in RPA’s Climate and Environment focus also broadly address environmental, marine and wildlife conservation:

• Oceans 5 is a “funder collaborative dedicated to protecting the world’s five oceans,” focusing on the creation of marine reserves in target areas and the prevention of overfishing. 
• Another collaborative, the Shark Conservation Fund, “is focused on reversing the precipitous decline of the world’s sharks and rays and ensuring their long‐term conservation and management.” 
• The Plastics Solutions Fund addresses the “growing emergency from plastic pollution” and funds sustainability, recycling and clean-up efforts around the world. 

Grants for Women, Girls and LGBTQ Causes 

Philanthropy for women, girls and LGBTQ causes are reflected throughout the organization’s education, financial inclusion and rights and equity engagement areas:

• RPA supports Echidna Giving, a collaborative that advances “girls’ education in the developing world,” by providing “flexibility to make grants, cover operation expenses and sponsor special programs to make progress against their mission.” 
• A signature RPA program, the Gender Centre of Excellence, works in Nigeria to advance “gender-responsive policies, products, and services that serve the needs of the unbanked or underbanked populations, particularly low-income women.” 
• Fondation Chanel enlisted RPA to conduct “a multi–pronged evaluation of its grantmaking programs, processes, governance, and operations” in advance of an “increase in organizational resources.” Fondation Chanel’s mission involves freedom for women and girls to “shape their own destiny.” 
• The Collaborative for Gender and Reproductive Equity is a sponsored project that makes grants to support the interconnected issues of “gender, reproductive, and racial equity.” This organization has recently centered its work on the issues of abortion and contraception access. 
• The Collective Future Fund is a funding and movement building collaborative that works toward “a future where all girls and women, cis, transgender and gender non-confirming, can live, learn and work with safety and dignity.” 

Grants for Education, Work and Opportunity 

RPA’s engagements in the areas of education, work and economic opportunity in the U.S. span organizations working in the areas of early childhood, K-12 and higher education, as well as nonprofits and funders supporting labor rights, fair employment and sustainable job creation across sectors. 

• RPA provides philanthropic services to College Promise, “a national, non-partisan, non-profit initiative that builds broad public support for funding the first two or more years of postsecondary education for hard-working students.”
• RPA also sponsors Promise Venture Studio, which “supports and connects entrepreneurs focused on early childhood development,” including ventures that “catalyze system-wide change — and create sustainable impact for the most disadvantaged children (age 0-5) and their families in the U.S.” 
• In partnership with TIAA, RPA created Achieving Success in Postsecondary Education, a resource that documents “the landscape of student debt in the U.S. as well as trends and innovative approaches in private funding of higher education.” 
• The Worker Justice and Dignity Fund is an RPA-sponsored grantmaker and organizing platform that works to “create the conditions for all people to live and work in dignity.” 

Grants for Racial Justice, Indigenous Rights, Immigrants and Refugees 

RPA names equity as a core value of its work, and many of its engagements address racial equity, the rights of Indigenous peoples, immigrants and refugees:

• The RPA-sponsored Mayors Migration Council works to secure mayors and other municipal leaders “a seat at the global policy table and unlock resources to accelerate and scale local solutions” to issues related to global migration and refugee services.  
• Another sponsored organization, the Abundant Futures Fund, is a collaborative that seeks “to widen the circle of funders and allies supporting immigration issues and the immigrant justice movement.” 
• RPA also sponsors the Pop Culture Lab, which makes grants to “to transform the narrative landscape in America around people of color, immigrants, refugees, Muslims, and Indigenous peoples, especially those who are women, queer, transgender and/or disabled.” 
• The Spirit Aligned Leadership Program, another sponsored organization, works to address “systemic problems and oppressions” of Indigenous communities and tribal nations “through investing in and elevating the inherent power of the undervalued assets of North American Indigenous women.” 
• Another project, the Black Trustee Alliance for Art Museums, was established in 2020 to “increase the inclusion of Black perspectives and narratives in North American art museums to make our institutions more equitable and excellent spaces of cultural engagement.” 

Grants for Arts and Culture, Journalism and Media 

Arts, culture and media represent another main area of interest and engagement:

• RPA provides strategic support to the International Fund for Public Interest Media, which works broadly “to enable global media markets to work for democracy.”
• RPA was an advisor to Sidney E. Frank Foundation as it established the Tippet Rise Art Center in Montana. 
• Programmatic and advisory support services have been provided to the Art for Justice Fund, which supports “the work of artists and advocates seeking to end mass incarceration and secure a future of shared safety for all.” 
• Mexico’s Fundación Amparo, which runs the Museo Amparo in Puebla City, works with RPA to develop “new approaches to governance and management structure” and “internal board policies and a spending and investment plan that will help to promote sustainable growth of its programs.” 

Grants for Public and Global Health

In 2024, RPA announced the establishment of its Eliminating Lead Poisoning Innovation Fund. The new fund aims to broadly mitigate global instances of lead poisoning, which affects an estimated “50% of children in low- and middle-income communities” globally. According to IP’s coverage of the new fund, RPA will “direct $10 million — contributed through its broad philanthropic network” to support the development of “low-cost, portable and affordable tools to measure blood lead levels and lead in the environment,” including “an innovation prize program to support breakthroughs that may have been previously underfunded.” The initiative will also support communities and stakeholders in the coordination of advisory and regulatory mechanisms for monitoring and removing lead from the built environment. The fund is collaborating with the Partnership for a Lead Free Future, which was launched by USAID and UNICEF at the 79th UN General Assembly, to further this work.

Grants for Nonprofits 

In addition to providing organizational, strategic and technical support to philanthropic organizations of all shapes and sizes, RPA creates and shares information about best practices and the sustainable future of the sector. 

• RPA’s Theory of the Foundation initiative was a multi–year project that involved “learning cohorts, publications, and convenings with leading philanthropies from Europe, the United States, Africa, South America and Asia.” Findings and conclusions from the initiative are linked to the program page. 
• RPA has authored two publications relating to philanthropy and the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goals: Philanthropy and the SDGs: Getting Started and Philanthropy and the SDGs: Practical Tools for Alignment. 
• A signature program, the Resilience Initiative, was established in 2017 in collaboration with the Packard Foundation “to build the operational and personal resilience of organizations as they adapt to shifting policy and programmatic demands and increasing challenges to their operations and the wellbeing of their staff.”  
• RPA provides “admin and financial supports” to the Fund for Shared Insight, a “collaborative to pool financial, intellectual and human resources together so as to stimulate innovation and support increased openness between foundations, grantees and those we seek to help.” 
• RPA has also created resources for impact investing, including the Impact Investing Handbook, Impact Investing: An Introduction and Impact Investing: Strategy and Action. 

Important Grant Details: 

Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors is not a grantmaker in the strictest sense, but it does administer grants for individuals, families, foundations, collaboratives and corporations. According to tax filings, these grants range from about $5,000 to $6 million. 

• RPA engages with the philanthropic sector by providing strategic, financial and other types of services to donors, collaboratives, corporate giving programs and other philanthropic endeavors. 
• RPA has also conducted, shared and published a significant amount of research on best practices for philanthropic giving across multiple thematic areas. 
• For information about the types of projects it purses, see RPA’s Featured Projects Page. 
• RPA’s Knowledge Center is a trove of information about philanthropy and impact investing, with links to RPA’s many publications, handbooks and articles. 

If your organization is interested in collaborating with RPA, contact one of its three U.S. offices located in New York, Chicago or San Francisco, using the phone numbers provided at the organization’s contact page. 

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