The Agency Fund

What The Agency Fund does

The Agency Fund is a US-based, non-profit multi-donor collaborative founded in 2021 and headquartered in San Francisco, California. It operates as a grant-making and R&D platform whose unifying thesis is that well-tailored counseling and coaching — especially when scaled through AI — can expand "human agency," defined as the capability to envision, navigate toward, and realize a better future. Since 2021 the Fund has invested in over 100 organizations across health, education, poverty reduction, and livelihoods, with grantees operating in 28+ countries spanning South Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, and the Pacific.

The Fund does not sell a unified software product; instead it combines (i) pooled-fund grants made directly through its books, (ii) affiliate-fund awards where it plays a scoping, due diligence, or technical-assistance role, and (iii) operational tooling such as 'Grants2vec', an internal LLM/ML pipeline used to evaluate proposals. Grants range from $10,000 to $1 million with a median around $200,000, and a dedicated $2-4 million allocation has been carved out for AI-for-human-agency projects. Distribution channels include periodic open calls for proposals with multi-reviewer scoring, accelerator partnerships (Chat for Impact with turn.io, Social Impact Fellowship with South Park Commons), and content channels (Substack, LinkedIn, X, white papers).

The Fund is governed by a small in-house team (1-10 employees, split between technical and operations) plus a five-member Board of Directors and a three-member Advisory Board. It does not charge for services; instead it pools capital from a community of 20+ funding partners — including OpenAI, Cartier Philanthropy, Wellspring Philanthropic Fund, GiveWell/EA Funds, Advancing Health Online, and the Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation — and reinvests it in portfolio organizations, impact evaluations (e.g., J-PAL, University of California, Berkeley), and benchmarking initiatives such as the AI for Global Health Benchmarking Initiative with Endless Health.

Name

The Agency Fund

Legal name

The Agency Fund

Website

https://agency.fund

Company type

Private

Founded year

2021

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

The Agency Fund is a US non-profit, multi-donor collaborative founded in 2021 that mobilizes pooled philanthropic capital to fund 100+ organizations applying science and AI to expand human agency in global health, education, and livelihoods.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Philanthropic Grantmaking

NAICS

Grantmaking and Giving Services (81321), Grantmaking Foundations (813211), Grantmaking and Giving Services (8132), Other Grantmaking and Giving Services (813219)

SIC

Services-Membership Organizations (8600), Services-Social Services (8300)

akta.pro primary industry

Public Charities & Grantmaking Intermediaries (BPAGAKAE)

akta.pro secondary industries

Grantmaking & Philanthropic Funds (Institutional Donors) (BPADAOAB), Behavioral Health & Substance Use Program Funding (Public Health) (HLAJALAI), Grantmaking Agencies & Education Program Grants Administration (EDADAHAD)

Keywords

• Philanthropic grantmaking
• Human agency research
• AI for development
• Nonprofit funding collaborative
• Behavioral science interventions

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Operations, Technology or R&D, Others

Revenue model

1. Multi-donor funding: Collaborates with a community of donors representing a wide range of world views, unified in their interest in expanding human agency. Funders pool or align their resources through The Agency Fund.

Go-to-market motion3 records

Distribution channels3 records

Marketing channels6 records

Core offering

The Agency Fund is a multi-donor collaborative and US-based non-profit that provides grant funding to organizations working to expand human agency through science and technology. It operates as a funder-doer, making pooled fund awards via its multi-donor funding vehicle and affiliate fund awards with a supportive role in scoping, review, due diligence, or technical assistance. Grants typically range from $10k to $1m with a median around $200k, deployed across health, education, poverty reduction, livelihoods, and mental health.

Product overview

The Agency Fund is a multi-donor collaborative and grant-making organization that provides funding to organizations working to expand human agency. The organization does not offer a unified technology product or software platform; instead, it operates as a funder-doer that makes pooled grants and affiliate fund awards to organizations across sectors including health, education, livelihoods, and mental health. Their approach is research-oriented, supporting organizations that leverage evidence, behavioral science, and technology to scale cost-effective interventions. The Fund publishes white papers, academic research, and case studies on human agency and development approaches.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Pooled Fund Grants
• Affiliate Fund Grants
• Open Calls for Proposals
• AI for Global Health Benchmarking Initiative
• Social Impact Fellowship
• Chat for Impact Accelerator

Quantifiable outcome

• Vast reserves of human potential can be practically and cost-effectively tapped through approaches that activate human agency
• +1 more outcomes

Named customers9 records

Segments4 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Feature2 records

Partnerships

Four partnerships are on record, tiered core and minor.

• turn.iocoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerPartnership for Chat for Impact Accelerator - organizations leveraging chat to improve health outcomes
• South Park CommonscoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerPartnership for Social Impact Fellowship - fellows exploring new agency innovations
• Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLPminorOthersProvides pro bono legal support to The Agency Fund
• Endless HealthcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerPartnership for AI for Global Health Benchmarking Initiative - addressing gap in high-quality benchmarks for AI models in global health

Scale indicators5 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Direct peers

• GiveWell: GiveWell is a top charity evaluator and grantmaker in the effective altruism space, also serving as a donor to The Agency Fund. It shares the evidence-first, RCT-driven philosophy and direct funding of high-impact global development and health interventions.
• Open Philanthropy: Open Philanthropy is a large effective-altruism-aligned grantmaker making multi-hundred-million-dollar bets on global health and development. It overlaps with The Agency Fund on theory of change, evidence orientation, and grantee pool, but at vastly greater scale.
• J-PAL (Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab): J-PAL is an MIT-based research network running randomized evaluations on poverty alleviation. It is both a partner and a methodological peer of The Agency Fund, sharing the commitment to causal evidence in development economics and overlapping on grantees and evaluation contracts.
• Blue Meridian Partners: Blue Meridian is a 'big bet' pooled-fund philanthropic partnership that aggregates capital from multiple funders to scale proven solutions for children and families. It is highly comparable to The Agency Fund's pooled-fund, multi-donor, evidence-driven model, though focused on US social issues rather than global development.
• Omidyar Network: Omidyar Network is a philanthropic investment firm combining grants and impact investing across global development, with a strong emphasis on evidence and behavioral science — closely paralleling The Agency Fund's human agency and behavioral science orientation.
• Co-Impact: Co-Impact is a global collaborative philanthropic platform pooling funds from multiple donors to support evidence-driven systems-change initiatives in health, education, and economic opportunity — directly comparable in pooled-fund, multi-donor, evidence-led model to The Agency Fund.

Broad incumbents

• Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation: The Gates Foundation is the largest global development funder, with multi-billion-dollar annual grantmaking in global health, education, and poverty. It overlaps with The Agency Fund on grantees (e.g., GiveDirectly), evidence frameworks (RCTs), and the development ecosystem, but at a fundamentally different scale and scope.
• Wellcome Trust: Wellcome is a large UK-based foundation funding health research and global health interventions. It overlaps with The Agency Fund on health-focused grantees (e.g., Noora Health) and on evidence-driven, science-based grantmaking.

Emerging players

• Global Development Incubator (GDI): GDI is an incubator that builds and supports social enterprises in global development. It is structurally adjacent to The Agency Fund (its name appears in the Fund's copyright and infrastructure) and shares a portfolio of development-focused organizations, though GDI is more implementation-oriented.
• The Nudge Institute: The Nudge Institute is a behavioral science-focused organization and a $3M grantee of The Agency Fund. It shares the agency's focus on behavioral and psychological levers for development, and represents the kind of portfolio organization the Fund supports.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/agencyfund
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/the-agency-fund

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles8 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

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M&A

Investments1 record

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Frequently asked questions about The Agency Fund