The Bertha Foundation

What The Bertha Foundation does

The Bertha Foundation is a privately held, Switzerland-registered non-profit philanthropic organization founded in 2012. Its stated mission is to support activists, storytellers, and lawyers working to advance social and economic justice. The foundation does not sell products or services; rather, it disburses grants and operates programs funded from its own endowment and supporter base.

The foundation's program portfolio centers on three core mechanisms: (1) The Bertha Challenge, a year-long fellowship program for activists, investigative journalists, filmmakers, and lawyers working on a single pressing social justice challenge within an international cohort; (2) The Bertha Artivism Awards, an annual global grant program providing up to USD 20,000 per project to activist artists, collectives, and organizations; and (3) The Bertha Accelerator, a themed residency program launched in November 2024 that brings cohorts of activists together for intensive collaboration. Underpinning these programs is a physical infrastructure comprising Bertha House, a multi-purpose urban hub in central Cape Town with event spaces, a media lab, cinema, and café, and Bertha Retreat, a rural convening space on Boschendal wine farm in the Cape Winelands opened in June 2023.

The foundation operates a portfolio of wholly owned program subsidiaries, including the now-archived Bertha Justice Initiative (2012-2024), which trained nearly 500 radical lawyers in human rights law firms across 20 countries. It also maintains a Partner Spaces network with member locations in Istanbul (Postane, a former 1859 British post office repurposed in 2021) and Cape Town (Philippi Village). Revenue figures are not publicly disclosed, no parent company or external venture backing is identified, and the foundation states that it does not publish financial statements on its website. Operating geographies span Africa, Europe, the Americas, the Middle East, and Asia.

Name

The Bertha Foundation

Legal name

Bertha Foundation

Website

https://berthafoundation.org

Company type

Private

Founded year

2012

Operating status

Operating

Short description

The Bertha Foundation is a Switzerland-registered non-profit foundation, founded in 2012, that funds and operates programs supporting activists, storytellers, and lawyers working on social and economic justice globally through fellowships, grants, residencies, and physical convening spaces.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Social Justice Philanthropy

NAICS

Grantmaking Foundations (813211), Social Advocacy Organizations (8133)

SIC

Services-Social Services (8300)

akta.pro primary industry

Social Justice & Human Rights Grantmaking Foundations (BPAGAKAN)

akta.pro secondary industry

International Grantmaking & Development Foundations (BPAGAKAH)

Keywords

• Social justice philanthropy
• Activist fellowship programs
• Human rights grants
• Investigative journalism fellowships
• Arts activism funding

Headquarters

HQ city

Cape Town

HQ country

South Africa

HQ region

Africa

Offices3 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Operations, Others, Marketing or Sales

Pricing tiers

Distribution channels3 records

Marketing channels3 records

Core offering

The Bertha Foundation is a philanthropic foundation that funds and operates programs for activists, storytellers, and lawyers working on social and economic justice. It delivers its mission through year-long fellowships (The Bertha Challenge), grants up to USD 20,000 for arts activism (The Bertha Artivism Awards), themed residencies (The Bertha Accelerator, including the Bertha Film Accelerator for African documentary filmmakers), and physical convening spaces (Bertha House, Bertha Retreat, plus a global partner spaces network).

Product overview

The Bertha Foundation is a philanthropy organization that operates a portfolio of interconnected programs and physical spaces supporting social justice work. Its core offerings include: The Bertha Challenge (year-long fellowships for activists, journalists, filmmakers, and lawyers), The Bertha Artivism Awards (grants up to USD 20,000 for arts activism), and The Bertha Accelerator (themed residency programs). Physical infrastructure includes Bertha Retreat (rural convening space on Boschendal wine farm) and Bertha House (urban hub in Cape Town). The foundation also maintains Bertha Stories (documentation resource) and an archive of its former Bertha Justice Initiative. These programs work together to support activists, storytellers, and lawyers working to bring about social and economic justice.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• The Bertha Challenge: Fellowships for activists, investigative journalists, filmmakers, and lawyers to spend a year working on pressing social justice challenges.
• The Bertha Artivism Awards
• The Bertha Accelerator
• Bertha Spaces
• Bertha Justice Initiative

Products and services

• The Bertha Challenge Fellowships for activists, investigative journalists, filmmakers, and lawyers to spend a year working on one pressing social justice challenge within a collaborative international cohort. Includes salary and project funding.
• The Bertha Artivism Awards Global funding program for arts activism providing up to USD 20,000 per project for activist artists, collectives, and organizations. Applicants may include up to USD 1,000 for program reporting within the grant amount. Payments originate from Switzerland.
• The Bertha Accelerator A residency program for people in social justice to take time and space to advance their work alongside a global community of co-conspirators. Each program is curated around a different theme or pressing social justice issue.
• Bertha Film Accelerator An eight-day residency designed to support bold, justice-driven documentary filmmakers from across Africa, hosted at Bertha Retreat in Cape Winelands, South Africa.
• Bertha Retreat A rural retreat and convening space located 45 minutes outside of Cape Town on Boschendal wine farm, designed for collaboration, community, and revolution. Serves grantees, NGOs, partner organizations, and surrounding communities.
• Bertha House A multi-purpose hub centrally located in Cape Town for individuals and collectives working to make a difference, featuring event spaces, offices, media lab, cinema, and Activist cafe.
• Bertha Spaces (Partner Spaces Network) A program and network of physical spaces (member space partners globally plus Bertha's owned spaces) intentionally designed to advance spatial justice, including Bertha House and Bertha Retreat plus partners such as Postane Istanbul and Philippi Village South Africa.

Quantifiable outcome

• Nearly 500 radical lawyers trained and placed in 20 countries over 12 years
• +1 more outcomes

Segments3 records

Ideal customer profiles5 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Partnerships

Five partnerships are on record, tiered core and minor.

• PostanecoreOthersPostane is a member space partner located in Istanbul's historic Galata district. It is a social enterprise dedicated to fostering social innovation and collaboration for the well-being of people and the planet, repurposed in 2021 as a multi-functional urban hub.
• Philippi VillagecoreOthersPhilippi Village is a member space partner, a vibrant community and entrepreneurial hub in Philippi, South Africa that co-creates and connects local communities to services and opportunities.
• Finance UncoveredcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerFinance Uncovered is a British-based financial investigative outfit that focuses on strengthening public interest investigative journalism. They partnered with Bertha Challenge Fellows to examine financial ties and support investigative work.
• Article OneminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerIn April, the Bertha Impact Fund supported Article One to coordinate civil society engagement on South Africa's AI policy during a 60-day public comment period. Article One found fabricated sources (AI hallucinations) in the policy and after informing the Minister, the policy was withdrawn.
• Partner Spaces NetworkcoreOthersThe Bertha Spaces program partners with spaces worldwide who share commitment to advancement of social justice and human rights, radical hospitality and inclusivity, environmentally sustainable practices and fair labor practices.

Scale indicators5 records

Recent moves5 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Direct peers

• Open Society Justice Initiative: Operational arm of Open Society Foundations focused on strategic human-rights litigation and lawyer training globally — directly comparable to Bertha Justice Initiative's mission of training and placing radical human-rights lawyers in leading law firms across multiple countries.
• OAK Foundation: Private family foundation funding social justice, human rights, and environmental causes globally with politically engaged grantmaking — directly comparable to Bertha's mission and grantmaking model, though with a larger endowment and broader issue portfolio.
• Sundance Documentary Fund: Funds independent non-fiction storytelling and documentary filmmakers addressing social issues, offering grants and creative support — directly comparable to Bertha's Artivism Awards and Bertha Film Accelerator programs.
• Pulitzer Center: U.S.-based journalism-focused grantmaking organization that funds investigative reporting on global social justice issues, providing grants and editorial support to journalists — directly comparable to Bertha Challenge storytelling fellowships and Artivism Awards.
• Magnum Foundation: Photography-and-storytelling-focused grantmaking nonprofit that supports documentary projects on social justice, providing fellowships and grants to visual storytellers — directly comparable to Bertha's focus on activists and storytellers working on social/economic justice.

Broad incumbents

• Ford Foundation: Major global grantmaking foundation with significant work in social justice, human rights, and documentary storytelling (via JustFilms), making it a comparable incumbent; operates at much larger scale than Bertha but pursues overlapping grantee themes.
• Open Society Foundations: One of the largest private grantmaking foundations globally, with explicit focus on social justice, human rights, and 'politically' oriented philanthropy across multiple regions — directly comparable to Bertha's mission and grantmaking structure, but operating at far larger scale.
• Rockefeller Foundation: Major U.S. philanthropic foundation with global programs on social and economic justice, climate, and equity — comparable as a broad incumbent grantmaker but operating at vastly larger scale across more issue areas than Bertha.

Emerging players

• Mozilla Foundation: Philanthropic arm of Mozilla that funds internet health, digital rights, and AI-policy advocacy — comparable to Bertha Impact Fund's recent AI-policy work (e.g., Article One partnership on South Africa's AI policy) but focused on technology justice.

Others

• Ford Foundation's JustFilms: Ford Foundation's documentary film grantmaking initiative, supporting social-justice storytelling; comparable as a programmatic adjacency but operates as a sub-program of Ford's broader foundation rather than as a standalone grantmaking entity like Bertha.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Subsidiaries3 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

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M&A

Investments

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Frequently asked questions about The Bertha Foundation