Digital Inclusion: Companies, Investors & News

Evidence-based literacy tools for teachers.

Open-source telemedicine for communities without doctors.

Dignified data work that makes AI more inclusive.

Offline digital learning for classrooms with limited connectivity.

Open AI infrastructure shaped by educators.

GTIA Foundation is the charitable arm of the Global Technology Industry Association, a vendor-neutral membership organization representing more than 3,700 companies across the global IT channel. The foundation is a separate 501(c)(3) nonprofit that has been tax-exempt since 1999. The organization began in 1982 as the Association of Better Computer Dealers and later became CompTIA. After CompTIA’s certification and training business was sold in 2025, the nonprofit membership community continued as the Global Technology Industry Association. GTIA’s giving programs are funded through its endowment and investment income rather than public fundraising. Its work includes nonprofit and school grants, member-directed giving, and volunteer projects in communities where GTIA members live and work. In 2026, GTIA committed $5 million to charitable giving, up from approximately $1.9 million in 2025. By September 2026, it had awarded more than $3.2 million to 73 nonprofits across the United States and several international markets. Grants support digital inclusion, workforce development, STEM education, cybersecurity, accessibility, AI-powered learning, and economic mobility. Kelly Ricker serves as chief operating officer and staff liaison to the Charitable Committee. Carrie Green, CEO and co-founder of The CanIT Collective, chairs the committee. The GTIA Foundation reported approximately $2.1 million in net assets for 2024, although the broader giving program is funded through the association’s endowment.

The Interledger Foundation is a U.S. nonprofit working to make digital payments more open, affordable, and accessible. It supports open payment technology and funds the developers, researchers, educators, and organizations building on it. Its work began with the Interledger Protocol, created in 2015 by Stefan Thomas and Evan Schwartz. The goal was to help money move between different banks, wallets, currencies, and payment networks as easily as information moves across the internet. The foundation became a nonprofit in 2019 and began operating publicly in 2021. Briana Marbury serves as president and CEO. Stefan Thomas chairs the board, and Evan Schwartz remains a director. The organization is based in San Francisco but has a distributed international team. The foundation supports three main technologies. The Interledger Protocol moves value between different financial systems. Open Payments gives developers a standard way to add payment features to their products. Rafiki provides open-source software that banks, wallets, and other regulated financial institutions can use to connect. The foundation does not charge a fee for using the protocol and has no investors. Grantmaking is also a major part of its work. The foundation reports awarding more than $21 million to over 300 projects across more than 45 countries. Its programs support payment infrastructure, education, research, leadership, public policy, and creative work exploring how financial systems are built. Grants range from small campus awards of up to $5,000 to larger fellowships and accelerator programs offering between $50,000 and $92,000. The foundation reported $96.4 million in net assets and $10.6 million in charitable distributions for the year ending December 2024. This financial base allows it to fund open payment technology and expand access to financial services without relying on protocol fees or outside investors.

Mastercard Impact Fund is the charitable fund Mastercard established in 2018 with an initial $500 million commitment following U.S. tax reform. It finances philanthropic programs that advance inclusive growth. The Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth describes and helps activate the portfolio, but the Center is the company's social-impact hub and thought-leadership platform; it is not an interchangeable legal or canonical name for the Fund. The current official Fund page reports $432 million “at work” in 104 countries. That is an organization-reported deployment description, not current AUM, independently audited beneficiary impact or proof that the full original commitment has been disbursed as grants. The portfolio works through large nonprofit, research, financial-inclusion and implementation partners on financial health, small-business resilience, data and technology for good and economic mobility. The Fund does not present a general public grant application or a broadly applicable cheque range. Programs such as Mastercard Strive are delivered through selected global and regional partners and may create downstream opportunities for small businesses or local organizations, but participation in those programs is not the same as receiving a direct Impact Fund grant. This profile therefore leaves application and cheque fields empty.

Microsoft Philanthropies is Microsoft's internal corporate philanthropy organization, announced in December 2015, rather than a separately incorporated Microsoft foundation. Its work combines cash grants, donated or discounted cloud and productivity products, technical assistance, skilling and partnerships. Legal and financial claims therefore belong to Microsoft Corporation or to named nonprofit intermediaries unless a source identifies another grantmaking entity. The current public-access channel is Microsoft for Nonprofits. Eligible organizations can register and be validated for nonprofit offers that may include grants or credits for selected technology, discounts and training. This is a real public eligibility route, but it is not a general cash-grant application. Product value, foregone commercial revenue, cash contributions, employee matching and volunteer activity are different forms of support and should not be added together as though all were cash deployed. Program themes include nonprofit digital transformation, cybersecurity, responsible AI access, digital inclusion, skilling and support for communities facing economic or humanitarian barriers. Microsoft publishes large organization-reported donation and reach totals in impact materials, but those totals may include software and services valued under company methodology. They are not AUM, an endowed pool, a broadly available cheque range or proof of independently verified beneficiary outcomes.

Salesforce Foundation is the grantmaking foundation associated with Salesforce and dates to the company's 1999 founding and 1-1-1 philanthropy model. It supports education-focused nonprofits and public-school partners, with current emphasis on academic success, strong educators, career readiness and access to future-oriented skills. The legal foundation and its grants must be distinguished from Salesforce, Inc.'s broader corporate philanthropy and employee programs. Salesforce.org is also not a synonym for Salesforce Foundation. Salesforce.org historically organized Salesforce's nonprofit and education technology business, but its domain now redirects to Salesforce's commercial Nonprofit Cloud page. Product donations and discounts through the Power of Us program, employee volunteer time, employee-directed matching and Salesforce Foundation grants are related parts of the company's social-impact model but are different resources. The current Foundation page highlights named grantees and Salesforce-announced education grant totals, including a September 2026 announcement of $27 million in new education grants. That announced cohort amount is not a perpetual pool, AUM, independently verified outcome or generally available award range. No broad open Foundation grant application was verified, so this profile does not publish an application URL or check size.

Vodafone Foundation is an independent UK charity associated with Vodafone and principally funded by Vodafone Group Plc. The foundation reports more than 30 years of activity and is governed by a board of trustees. It connects Vodafone's charitable giving, technology, connectivity, employees, and market presence with specialist partners. Country-level Vodafone foundations and programs may be separate local entities, so this profile describes the group foundation rather than collapsing every national organization into one legal body. Its current strategy has three global challenges: digital learning and inclusion; tackling harm and abuse; and resilience and response in times of crisis. Programs include digital education for refugees and young people, digital confidence, technology supporting survivors of domestic abuse, maternal-health referral and transport systems, emergency communications, and crisis-response tools. Some support is cash, but much of the model is co-designed technology, connectivity, employee expertise, and long-term program delivery; these in-kind and operational contributions are not equivalent to grants. The foundation says it is not a traditional grant funder and does not respond to unsolicited funding requests. It instead builds long-term partnerships with shared responsibility for design, delivery, evaluation, and innovation. The reported goal of improving 300 million lives by 2025 is an organization-defined aggregate claim, not a count of grants or independently verified causal outcomes. No broadly applicable cheque range or open application route is published.