StartFund provides start-up grants to early-stage grassroots projects around the world in the areas of community care, environmental stewardship and integrated health. Our mission is to help these projects start, succeed and spread, with the aim of contributing to a more functional global society.
Since 1997 StartFund has helped start over 225 projects in 51 countries with only $3.5 million, an average grant of about $14,000. As first funders, we’ve helped these projects attract an additional $10.6 million.
StartFund is an initiative of the Fred Foundation, a private foundation based in the Netherlands, near Amsterdam. The Foundation was created by Fred Matser, a prominent Dutch humanitarian and philanthropist.
The inspiration for StartFund came from a visit Fred paid to Moscow at the invitation of Mikhail Gorbachev in 1992. There he visited a children’s hospital in dire need of a bone marrow transplant unit. Fred convinced Gorbachev and the Russian government to partner financially to provide the unit. The experience taught Fred that capital provided in the early stages of a project’s development served as a “vote of confidence,” a powerful motivator to bring an idea to fruition. Fred also learned that funding a percentage of a project budget compelled its leaders to build a wider circle of financial support. He suspected that this wider support circle would better the chance for long-term project success.
To test these assumptions, Fred started StartFund Netherlands in 1996 using his own funds. In 2009, to better serve western hemisphere projects, StartFund opened a U.S. office in New York City, financed by Fred and a handful of U.S. philanthropists, including Dr. Deepak Chopra.
In 2010 StartFund is beginning to seek investors to finance additional expansion.
About
StartFund provides start-up grants to early-stage grassroots projects around the world in the areas of community care, environmental stewardship and integrated health. Our mission is to help these projects start, succeed and spread, with the aim of contributing to a more functional global society.
Since 1997 StartFund has helped start over 225 projects in 51 countries with only $3.5 million, an average grant of about $14,000. As first funders, we’ve helped these projects attract an additional $10.6 million.
The inspiration for StartFund came from a visit Fred paid to Moscow at the invitation of Mikhail Gorbachev in 1992. There he visited a children’s hospital in dire need of a bone marrow transplant unit. Fred convinced Gorbachev and the Russian government to partner financially to provide the unit. The experience taught Fred that capital provided in the early stages of a project’s development served as a “vote of confidence,” a powerful motivator to bring an idea to fruition. Fred also learned that funding a percentage of a project budget compelled its leaders to build a wider circle of financial support. He suspected that this wider support circle would better the chance for long-term project success.
To test these assumptions, Fred started StartFund Netherlands in 1996 using his own funds. In 2009, to better serve western hemisphere projects, StartFund opened a U.S. office in New York City, financed by Fred and a handful of U.S. philanthropists, including Dr. Deepak Chopra.
In 2010 StartFund is beginning to seek investors to finance additional expansion.