Why do we prioritize monetary donations as our main method of helping?

We chose to partner only with well established, efficiently functioning Ugandan organizations that provide health or educational resources to impoverished communities. We made this choice to maximize the likelihood of making permanent contributions towards alleviating poverty and suffering in the world.

By supporting local Ugandan nonprofit institutions, we empower people to change lives in their local environment. After much concentrated study about the various ways we could help, we were convinced that the people we were interested in helping have ideas and passion and knowledge, and are only lacking the means to implement their life changing ideas. So rather than moving into Uganda and implementing our own programs, we search for heroes in Uganda who are already working to make a difference and only need a little financial support to achieve their goals. And we support their work, their ideas, and their institutions.

How do funds from Social Promise help our partner organizations?

In keeping with our philosophy of supporting Ugandan nonprofits without intervening in ways that create greater dependency, we do our best to ensure that our donations to their operations do not create any additional burdens for our partners. For this reason, we are a relatively unique nonprofit in that we do not require our partners to create a new program to apply for funding from us, but instead we help support the projects they are already doing well with limited funding.

Our partners work closely with us to keep us updated about what programs we have supported. We receive quarterly written reports as well as copies of annual audits by external reviewers. In addition, someone from Social Promise travels to Uganda each year to visit our partner organizations, meet with the directors of these organizations, and see their programs in person.

We pick our partners because we find that they are already doing extraordinary work addressing problems in access to healthcare and education in their communities. We have found that the best way to ensure that they continue to do their essential and effective work is to provide them with supportive funds until the day they are able to find that support through their own economy. By supporting access to healthcare and education, we will hasten the arrival of this day.