Of the total grant dollars awarded in support of international causes from U.S. foundations between 2016 and 2019, only about 13 percent went to local organizations, a report from the Council on Foundations (COF) and Candid finds.

Advancing Locally Led Development: An Overview of U.S. Foundations’ Direct Global Giving (34 pages, PDF) is a companion report to the The State of Global Giving by U.S. Foundations: 2022 Edition and analyzes direct global grantmaking by private and community foundations included in Candid’s Foundation 1000 dataset. According to the report, another 26 percent of grant dollars flowed through intermediaries based outside the United States, while the remaining 61 percent went to U.S.-based organizations.

Of globally focused U.S. foundations, 29 percent made at least one direct grant; 47 percent of them exclusively supported organizations in the Global North. The share of overall direct grant dollars awarded to Global North organizations grew over the four-year period, from 36 percent to 60 percent, while the share of direct funding to Global South organizations steadily shrank, from 64 percent to 40 percent. Dollars awarded to organizations headquartered in the Global South were almost twice as likely to target work within the country as those going to the Global North (45 percent vs. 24 percent).

The top 25 global funders account for more than 75 percent of direct giving in this time period, accounting for 88 percent of grant dollars to  Global South organizations and 77 percent to Global North organizations, with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation providing the largest share of direct giving for both.

Largely reflecting the priorities of the Gates Foundation, the analysis found that among issue areas, health accounted for the largest share of grant dollars for both Global South (33 percent) and Global North (26 percent) organizations. However, direct grants to the Global South organizations were also focused on community and economic development (22 percent), human rights (22 percent), and public affairs (16 percent), whereas direct grants to Global North organizations prioritized education (25 percent) and science and engineering (15 percent).

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