OUR COMMITMENTS

For over 20 years, we’ve committed 1.5% of our profits to communities in the countries in which we work. We do this through Let’s Make it Possible, a platform founded and funded by Palladium to provide direct financial support to innovative positive impact initiatives across the globe. Through this platform and in partnership with the Kyeema Foundation, we fund humanitarian relief efforts, supports community projects nominated by employees, and runs an annual Challenge Fund to tackle a major global problem.    

We encourage our employees, colleagues, entrepreneurs, partners, affiliates, and non-profits to apply for support and consideration. 

Our Communities 

Since 2004, through our Communities Fund, we’ve donated over US$800,000 to a range of activities and initiatives identified and recommended by Palladium employees. These small grants build on the strength of communities to enhance or expand the skills, capacities, and assets of people in the areas in which Palladium works. Ultimately, the goal is to enable locally identified solutions to local problems.  

For example, we’ve used our Communities Fund to support The Women’s Microfinance Initiative (WMI), a Ugandan organisation providing village-level loans, training, and support programs for women entrepreneurs in rural East Africa. WMI’s unique village level economic platform launches rural women into owning and operating small businesses. These businesses generate income and savings, enabling women to improve household living conditions and end the cycle of poverty. With our funding support, WMI expanded their program services to benefit 50 additional village women. 

Meeting the Challenge 

We recognise that the future demands new thinking, new approaches, and new solutions. To help deliver these, our Palladium Challenge Fund brings in ideas from our network in over 90 countries and partnership with over 1,600 organisations globally to source innovative responses to global challenges. We fund organisations and initiatives that pilot new technologies and innovative approaches, de-risk start-up ventures, deliver outcomes from innovative financial mechanisms, and support the convening of innovative challenges.  

The theme for our 2023 Challenge was “Technology for Humanitarian Action” and we looked at proposals that use technology—whether a new innovation or a way to scale something already tried—to increase the impact of humanitarian crisis response.   

Based in Australia, Uncharted Waters, one of our winners, uses digital twins, or virtual models, to identify the impact of climate volatility on water and food security. With Palladium’s support, the non-profit plans to pilot the use of localised digital twins, to monitor the impact of emerging regional climate hazards, water and food security, or geo-political instabilities around the world. The goal is to provide policy makers and society with timely information about risks and to increase support for climate action. 

Humanitarian Relief 

To address increasing global crises, natural disasters, and conflicts, we use our Humanitarian Relief Fund to respond to disasters as they occur. We leverage the expertise of our staff, positioned close to communities around the world, and ask them to nominate ideas to support communities in Palladium countries suffering from the impact of humanitarian disasters. 

In Bangladesh, through our Humanitarian Relief Fund, we supported the Participatory Development Action Program (PDAP), a local women-based development organization, to respond to Cyclone Sitrang. In December 2022, Cyclone Sitrang caused widespread destruction along the Southern Coastline of Bangladesh. Among the severely impacted were the fisherman community in Bandartila Beribandh Jelepara. Already grappling with poverty and heavily reliant on fishing for sustenance, the cyclone left these fishermen devastated, destroying their homes and shattering their livelihoods as boats and fishing equipment were damaged or lost. 

Responding to this crisis, the Participatory Development Action Program (PDAP), a women-based development organisation in Bangladesh specialising in disaster management, with funding from Palladium’s Humanitarian Relief Fund, provide vital assistance to the families of Bandartila Beribandh Jelepara. PDAP’s efforts focused on rebuilding and repairing homes, as well as replacing or repairing fishing equipment, while ensuring families received essential supplies like food and clothing. 

For over 20 years, we’ve been proud to support the communities in which we work and the projects our teams and employees are passionate about. We look forward to 20 more years of putting our expertise to use in building a better world and supporting organisations joining us on this journey.