|
It is the policy of the Tree Foundation to
make grants that do not discriminate based
on the recipient's race, ethnicity or
religious affiliation. Grants may be
targeted to address imbalances of
opportunity between men and women.
The Tree Foundation strives to maintain an
open and transparent operating environment,
and toward that end keeps as much
information about its activities publicly
available as possible without violating the
privacy of its grant recipients.
The Tree Foundation also subscribes to the
policy of "doing no harm" in its
grant-making activities, resolving to make
grants only after considering their
long-term effects and making every effort to
minimize their cultural and environmental
impacts.
The Tree Foundation is committed to keeping
administrative costs (well below 10%) to the
absolute minimum necessary in order to
ensure that the maximum amount possible goes
directly to those communities in need.
How does the foundation decide which
applicants should receive grants? The
foundation has always been very fortunate in
having an extensive network in the local
communities. The father of the co-founders
grew up in a remote village in Sri Lanka,
giving both a vast contact network and
valuable knowledge to the founders of the
foundation. Until the Tsunami disaster in
2004, the foundation was directly helping
over 100 children attend school, putting
roofs on houses, giving micro grants for
local businesses. As an example, the
foundation gave a micro grant to the top
girl of a local school's sewing class, which
enabled her to buy a sewing machine and
begin making clothes to sell. Another
example of such work is building a small
"factory" for local people, in which
schoolbags are now being produced to be sold
onwards. These activities are continuously
accelerated to answer the growing needs of
the local communities.
The Program Director of the foundation is a
medical doctor with a practice in the region
covering villages along the cost with
thousands of people. The other trustees in
Sri Lanka include a social worker, a lawyer,
and a senior person from the milk board, all
from different ethnic and social
backgrounds. These family networks into
local rural communities ensure that even the
smallest of donations is able to be put to
extremely effective use, going to people who
truly are in need, and given in a way to
help them to help themselves. The Tree
Foundation is not about creating a body of people dependent on
external help. It is about helping local
people rebuild their own lives, create jobs,
get children back into school to free up the
time of parents, help people rebuild their
homes and in time, their lives. |
