Dropbox has launched a foundation with a $20m (around £14.3m) endowment and War Child UK is one of its first grantees.
The cloud-based online file storage company was founded in 2007 and has now set up a corporate foundation to combine unrestricted grants with skills-based volunteering to help organisations that “defend human rights”.
It has been jointly funded by Dropbox’s founders Drew Houston and Arash Ferdowsi, who said in a blog: “As Dropbox continues to grow, we want to do more — especially for organisations that are fighting for equal opportunity, basic freedoms, and fundamental necessities for people around the world.”
Alongside “flexible, unrestricted” grants, grantees will receive support from the company’s volunteers in areas such as “financial modelling, improving data security, or recruiting the best talent”, Houston and Ferdowsi said.
The foundation is not a registered charity in the UK. It is overseen by a board that includes three other Dropbox executives and four independent directors from the Silicon Valley Community Foundation.
War Child UK is among four charities announced as partners at the launch. The others are GOAL, which is a Dublin-based charity that responds to humanitarian crises, Larkin Street Youth Services in San Francisco which supports at-risk young people, and WITNESS, which is based in Brooklyn and uses video to help activists document abuses.
The foundation said it selected its initial partners after receiving applications from around the world. It is not currently accepting applications.
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