Impact Report 2023

Learning Today to Transform Opportunity Tomorrow

IMPACT REPORT OVERVIEW

A year of impact, learning, and listening

A world facing multiple upheavals, many of them climate-related, needs bold action and determination to address our most pressing issues. We can find and craft solutions only through fresh thinking and alliances that bring together the necessary capital and skills.

This report chronicles The Rockefeller Foundation’s journey in 2023 to reimagine our work and learn from past successes and shortcomings, all with the goal of improving the lives of the world’s most vulnerable and underserved populations. As we have over more than a century, the Foundation sought to identify and construct durable solutions around evidence, alliances and partnerships, and the willingness to grow and adapt as we go.

Explore our results and lessons on these pages, download the full report, or view a snapshot of our achievements.

Select Impact by the Numbers:

What We and Our Partners Achieved

Energy Results

Speeding the Energy Transition

We’re assisting energy-poor countries to grow through a mass deployment of renewable energy sources and a transition away from fossil fuels.

Explore the Energy Chapter
  • 147megatons

    of CO2 emissions averted through the provision of renewable energy

  • 1.2million

    people connected to new or improved energy systems

  • 600,000jobs

    have been created

  • 137million

    people with improved nutrition security through our global Good Food Initiative

  • 100,000+

    produce prescription patients in the U.S. up from 12k in 2013

  • $3.3billion

    committed to Good Food Purchasing in the United States and $92 million in Africa

Food Results

Scaling Good Food

We’re working to promote food systems that bring nutrient-rich and regeneratively grown food to vulnerable populations.

Explore the Food Chapter
Health Results

Advancing Health Solutions

We wrapped up some of our biggest pandemic-related initiatives and turned to disease surveillance during a year of discovery and rededication.

Explore the Health Chapter
  • 518,000

    community health workers across 13 countries supported by stronger national community health policies, investment cases, and digital tools

  • 61+ million

    people reached by more precise infectious disease surveillance tools

  • $100million

    leveraged for community health systems on top of RF's $15M funding from bilateral and multilateral donors

  • 300+

    U.S. communities reached with clean energy projects

  • $1+ Billion

    capital mobilized for fully-funded Zero Gap Fund of 12 program-related investments―a 35x total leverage

  • $100+ Billion

    in new deposit commitments for Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs) and Minority Depository Institutions (MDIs)

Finance Results

Unlocking Finance

We are working to tap new sources of capital for renewable energy while funding partners committed to global ecological restoration.

Explore the Finance Chapter
  • As this report makes clear, empowering the people we serve will require all our existing capabilities and partnerships—and more. That’s why the Foundation will continue to learn from what’s working today to adapt, plan, and work for impact tomorrow.
    Dr. Rajiv J. Shah
    President
    The Rockefeller Foundation
On Reflection

Lessons Learned

Less than a year after launching the Foundation’s five-year climate strategy, this report is not meant to grade our progress but to inform it. As such, this year’s report abounds with lessons learned across the span of the Foundation’s history and over 2023’s twelve months. All of them will help inform our work as we build momentum on our climate strategy, including:

Lean into risk. Amid an unprecedented crisis someone has to go first. One benefit of philanthropic capital is its flexibility, we must remember to try new things and invest early even if it means taking on risk.

Getting as close to community as possible enables impact. When we work closely with regional and local partners, projects are better implemented and have the most transformative and durable impact for the people in those communities. In some cases, we have found ourselves too headquarters focused or detached from the communities we hope to serve.

Use more than grants alone. When RF has real impact, it is often when we look beyond the traditional use of grant capital to other innovative investment structures, and work with partners to promote new ideas, host convenings, build partnerships, and mobilize capital. Thinking bigger must extend to the array of tools we bring to the table.

We have a long way to go when it comes to being part of alliances. Big bets require big alliances of doers, funders, conveners, and more. Sometimes, we made assumptions about how easily collaboration between actors would come, underestimating the hard work it takes.

Speed counts, but impact comes with persistence. Meeting our goals requires patient and consistent focus. At times impatience has hindered impact.

Sudesh Rai owns a flour mill powered by a minigrid through Smart Power India, Parsa, Bihar, India.

Read the first chapter