The same advisory. Granted.
Round one grants a full subscription — the risk register, rebuilt and kept alive — to five causes, anywhere in the world, in full. Not a lite version, not a workshop, not a webinar series: the same portal, the same board pack, the same quarterly readout and the same partner time a paying subscriber gets.
Expressions of interest are open now, through 30 November. We will also go looking — approaching organizations whose work we already follow — and the five are selected from 1 December.
A grant is the product — not a gesture.
A lite version would be visible, and it would read as decoration. So there isn’t one.
What each grant contains.
The ERM subscription in full: your risk register rebuilt in about five weeks — described, scored, owned by name, running in Risk Radar — followed by four quarterly refreshes in year one. An executive owner on your side attends the calibration workshop and each readout; that commitment is part of the deal, because a register nobody governs dies the same way whether it was paid for or granted.
A grant is run as an engagement, not as a favor. Written scope, a named partner, the same methodology version, the same quarterly gates, the same independence rules and the same printed foreclosures. If we could not audit something for a paying client after doing this work, we cannot audit it for a grantee either — and we say so before the award rather than after.
If we can’t measure what changed for you, we shouldn’t be running the program — so we report grant outcomes the way our own methodology demands: what the organization can now see, decide and evidence, not how many hours anyone gave.
Why five. Why global. Why still bounded.
The classic pro-bono failure is unbounded: hours without limit, no defined exit, and guilt attached to leaving. Round one is bounded on purpose — five causes, one window, one year each. Grant capacity is reserved on our own bench before any paid seat is sold, not carved quietly out of a paid delivery pod whose clients bought its full attention.
Bounded is not the same as small. Five is more than we granted before, the subscription is granted whole rather than at a reduced tier, and the work runs remotely — which is why the boundary is now the number of engagements we can genuinely staff rather than the distance we can drive. A cause doing serious work in Nairobi or Manila is as reachable as one four blocks away.
We will not wait passively for a form to be filled in. Between now and the end of November we will approach organizations whose work we already follow and invite them to register interest, alongside anyone who comes to us.
Eligibility, weights, and what we don’t fund.
Published in full, because a selection process you can’t inspect is a lottery with better stationery.
- 01A registered nonprofit or charitable organization in good standing in its own jurisdiction — independently verifiable. US 501(c)(3), UK charity number, or the equivalent register where you are
- 02Able to work with us in English, remotely, with an overlap of at least three hours with either US Eastern or Gulf Standard Time
- 03No dedicated risk or compliance function — the grant has to matter
- 04A named executive owner who will attend calibration and readouts
- 05Organizations serving children, patients or vulnerable populations: additional safeguarding verification applies before award
- 30%Mission impact — who is served, how directly, and what fails for them if the organization stumbles
- 25%Risk exposure the register would address — where blind spots carry real consequence
- 25%Readiness to sustain the rhythm — leadership time, owner availability
- 20%Stability to complete the year — four readouts is the deal
- ×Cash. This is advisory in kind — there is no monetary award
- ×Individuals or unincorporated groups
- ×Political campaign or lobbying organizations
- ×Active-crisis remediation — a live incident needs a response team, not a published rhythm; we’ll still point you toward help
- ×Organizations with a mature risk function — the grant should change something
- ×Organizations we cannot lawfully serve — where sanctions, export controls or our own conflict register prevent it. We will tell you which, where we are permitted to
What a grantee gets is what a subscriber gets.
Reporting is the one difference — we report outcomes achieved, never hours donated. If we can’t measure what changed for you, we shouldn’t be running the program.
The timeline, plainly.
Round one runs on one window, with the dates fixed in advance rather than announced when we are ready.
Interest is open now
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01
Now – 30 Nov
Expressions of interest
The form opens. In parallel we approach organizations whose work we already follow and invite them to register. Ten minutes, seven questions, every one mapped to a published criterion.
You get: a direct answer on eligibility, before the panel ever meets
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02
Early December
Scoring and conversations
Every eligible registration is scored against the published weights, and shortlisted organizations get a real conversation rather than a form response.
You get: your score against each weight, whether or not you are selected
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03
From 1 Dec
Five selected
Five causes are selected and awarded under a written grant agreement. Every registrant hears back directly — selected or not, with the reason.
You get: a written scope and a named partner, the same as any client
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04
Year one
The subscription runs
The rebuild in about five weeks, then four quarterly refreshes, packs and readouts. The same rail every subscriber is on.
You get: the register, the packs and the full history — yours to keep
The round-one roster — the five organizations — publishes here once grants are signed, with each organization’s consent.
Door two is open.
Ten minutes, seven questions, every one of them mapped to a published criterion. Open to causes anywhere, from 1 September. If it’s not a fit, you’ll hear that directly too.
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