Foundation History

Pivotal milestones throughout the Mastercard Foundation’s journey have shaped our pathway toward meaningful and sustainable impact. They also reflect how we approach our work and collaborate with each other, our partners, and the young people we serve. Learn more about the Foundation’s history below.

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From Origin to Impact: Pivotal Moments

The Foundation celebrates the 10-year anniversary of the Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program

The Foundation celebrates the 10-year anniversary of the Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program and commits to doubling its reach to support 100,000 young people over the next decade.

The Foundation celebrates the 10-year anniversary of the Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program

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The Scholars Program has evolved from a primarily individual-level scholarship program to an expansive program with an emphasis on institutional and systemic change. It positioned the Mastercard Foundation as a leader in secondary and tertiary education with the ability to influence institutions globally in recognizing the importance of inclusion and diversity and listening to young people’s voices. The Program’s alumni have created innovative social ventures that address critical socio-economic challenges and provide access to dignified and fulfilling work opportunities for others. Scholars are forming the next generation of transformative leaders, improving economic prosperity for themselves and their communities.

The Foundation implements Saving Lives and Livelihoods in partnership with the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention

Saving Lives and Livelihoods is one of the largest single partnerships the Foundation has undertaken, as well as the largest public health partnership between a global philanthropic organization and an African institution: a truly capacity- and legacy-building initiative.

The Foundation implements Saving Lives and Livelihoods in partnership with the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention

Dr. Robert Langat, wearing PPE, looks into a microscope as he works in a lab.

The Foundation implements Saving Lives and Livelihoods in partnership with the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, a US$1.5 billion initiative to reach millions of people and hasten the economic recovery of the continent. The initiative also enables Africa to manage future health outbreaks locally and sustainably by laying the groundwork for vaccine manufacturing in Africa.

The Foundation’s Secondary Education in Africa: Preparing Youth for the Future of Work report is published

Secondary Education in Africa has become the "go-to" resource for secondary education reform in Africa.

The Foundation’s Secondary Education in Africa: Preparing Youth for the Future of Work report is published

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The Foundation’s Secondary Education in Africa: Preparing Youth for the Future of Work report is published, showcasing best practices and forward-looking recommendations for how secondary education can better prepare youth to succeed. The publication provides strategies and models on how secondary education can prepare youth for employment or entrepreneurship opportunities.

The Foundation creates the COVID-19 Recovery and Resilience Program

The Foundation’s rapid response enables quick mobilization, targeting, and scale-up to help economies cope, and even thrive, during the pandemic.

The Foundation creates the COVID-19 Recovery and Resilience Program

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The Foundation creates the COVID-19 Recovery and Resilience Program to respond to a global pandemic by delivering emergency support for health workers, first responders, and students. The program assists institutions, small businesses, and young learners within Africa and in Indigenous communities in Canada to respond and adapt to the short-term impacts of COVID-19. It also seeks to enable economic recovery by deepening the capacity and strengthening the resilience of communities and diverse institutions.

The Young Africa Works strategy is launched

The Young Africa Works strategy is launched to enable 30 million African youth, 70 percent of whom are young women, to access dignified and fulfilling work by 2030.

The Young Africa Works strategy is launched

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After its first decade of programming and research, the Foundation leverages its learnings in education and financial inclusion to inform the development of the strategy. Understanding that employment is a particularly important measure of poverty reduction, the Foundation focuses the strategy on a single, significant challenge — youth unemployment — to achieve even greater impact across the continent.

The Foundation expands and establishes offices in seven African countries

The Foundation expands and establishes offices in seven African countries with the Young Africa Works strategy. The countries are chosen for their enabling environment for growth and commitment to addressing the youth employment challenge.

The Foundation expands and establishes offices in seven African countries

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This transformative shift in operations demonstrates the Foundation’s commitment to being closer and more responsive to its work, partners, and program participants. Establishing a significant presence in Africa has enabled the Foundation to curate and execute programs that align with national, regional, and Pan-African priorities and are co-created with governments, the private sector, young people, and other relevant stakeholders.

Digital Access: The Future of Financial Inclusion in Africa is published

Digital Access: The Future of Financial Inclusion in Africa is published, highlighting the opportunities and challenges in furthering financial inclusion on the continent.

Digital Access: The Future of Financial Inclusion in Africa is published

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The report recognizes financial inclusion as a catalyst for equitable development and inclusive economic growth.

The Foundation’s Leaders in Teaching initiative and its Centre for Innovative Teaching and Learning in ICT are established

The Foundation’s Leaders in Teaching initiative and its Centre for Innovative Teaching and Learning in ICT are established.

The Foundation’s Leaders in Teaching initiative and its Centre for Innovative Teaching and Learning in ICT are established

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In collaboration with the Ministry of Education and other national agencies, the Leaders in Teaching initiative addresses a significant need to improve secondary education and enhance the quality and appeal of the teaching profession in Rwanda, followed by Ghana in 2023. The Centre for Innovative Teaching and Learning in ICT is established to be an incubator and accelerator of education technology innovations, helping to increase access to quality education while advancing the integration of technology in education policies and practices across Africa.

The Foundation co-creates the EleV Program

The Foundation hears the Calls to Action from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada and listens to the voices of young Indigenous people. In September 2017, the EleV Program is co-created in partnership with Indigenous communities to support Indigenous transformation of education and employment systems in service of First Nations, Metis, and Inuit youth.

The Foundation co-creates the EleV Program

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The Foundation hears the Calls to Action from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada and listens to the voices of young Indigenous people: Education is essential to reconciliation, to revitalizing Indigenous languages and cultures, and to ensuring Indigenous youth can chart their own paths to meaningful work.

The EleV Program is launched in September 2017 in partnership with Indigenous communities and two post-secondary institutions: Vancouver Island University and Yukon College (now Yukon University). Built on co-creation, listening, learning, respect, reciprocity, and commitment, EleV supports Indigenous-led solutions to transform systems of education and employment to better serve and meet the needs of Indigenous youth.

The Foundation publishes its first commissioned research report — Invisible Lives: Understanding Youth Livelihoods in Ghana and Uganda

The Foundation publishes its first commissioned research report — Invisible Lives: Understanding Youth Livelihoods in Ghana and Uganda — informed by the Youth Livelihoods Diaries research project. The report engages youth directly to understand the strategies they use to address the pressures and opportunities they face when engaged in a mix of informal employment, self-employment, and agriculture-related activities to sustain their livelihoods.

The Foundation publishes its first commissioned research report — Invisible Lives: Understanding Youth Livelihoods in Ghana and Uganda

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The report provides insight into how development programs that offer skills training for formal-sector careers fall short of reaching the millions of youth engaged in mixed livelihoods and makes the case for an innovative approach to youth employment training strategies in Africa.

The Mastercard Foundation Fund for Rural Prosperity is launched

The Mastercard Foundation Fund for Rural Prosperity is launched to stimulate the innovation and scaling of products and services by financial service providers.

The Mastercard Foundation Fund for Rural Prosperity is launched

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Initially intended to reach one million financially excluded rural people, the Fund has enabled over five million people to access innovative savings, credit, and insurance products and services, while also enabling entrepreneurs to create access to more than 4,000 jobs. Over a seven-year period, the Fund led to financial inclusion and improved rural and agricultural livelihoods. While the Fund has closed, its success motivated the co-creation of the Fund for Resilience and Prosperity in 2022. This new Fund addresses the barriers that hinder opportunities for dignified and fulfilling work for young people and supports youth-led MSMEs to spur innovation among young entrepreneurs.

The inaugural Young Africa Works Summit

The inaugural Young Africa Works Summit highlights effective approaches to youth unemployment and opportunities in the agricultural sector. Over 50 young people are invited to share their perspectives and experiences as panelists and moderators.

The inaugural Young Africa Works Summit

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This signature learning event convenes multiple viewpoints, partnerships, and connections to better understand how the agricultural value chain can be a primary source of opportunity for young men and women across Africa. The Summit’s namesake and our learnings lead us towards our future Young Africa Works strategy.

The Foundation publishes Change That Matters: Learning from Our Partnerships

The Foundation publishes Change That Matters: Learning from Our Partnerships, the first learning report issued by the Foundation.

The Foundation publishes Change That Matters: Learning from Our Partnerships

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Change That Matters becomes the first in a series of learning reports. It offers a transparent view of successes and challenges in the Foundation’s work and underscores the organization’s commitment to learning and collaboration.

The Foundation evolves its programming from microfinance to financial inclusion

The Foundation evolves its programming from microfinance to financial inclusion. As part of this, the Foundation expands its outreach to rural areas and to the livelihood needs of African youth, with a focus on reaching marginalized, agriculture-dependent communities.

The Foundation evolves its programming from microfinance to financial inclusion

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With a deeper understanding of the financial needs of these households, the Foundation is able to take a more holistic approach, recognizing that access to health care and education plays a critical role in economic stability.

The first Mastercard Foundation Symposium on Financial Inclusion (SoFI) is developed

The first Mastercard Foundation Symposium on Financial Inclusion (SoFI) is developed in partnership with the Boulder Institute for Microfinance. Its goal is to promote client-centred solutions to achieve scale and impact.

The first Mastercard Foundation Symposium on Financial Inclusion (SoFI) is developed

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SoFI becomes the first of five annual symposia exemplifying the Foundation’s role as a convenor and providing opportunities for traditional and non-traditional actors within the financial inclusion industry to create partnerships and build networks. Through this, the Foundation championed the importance of prioritizing client needs in the development and provision of microfinance products and practices.

The Foundation develops its Economic Opportunities for Youth strategy

The Foundation develops its Economic Opportunities for Youth strategy, which emphasizes the need for holistic programming to remove barriers to youth employment and to focus on skills that employers require in economic growth sectors. The strategy seeks to ensure young people have better opportunities to progress to more stable livelihoods.

The Foundation develops its Economic Opportunities for Youth strategy

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Informed by the Foundation’s Youth Think Tank insights, the strategy centres on young people’s reality of mixed approaches to livelihoods and provides support to transition into the workforce.

The Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program is launched

The Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program is launched to expand access to education and to develop a cohort of 15,000 ethical leaders supporting social transformation and economic growth across the continent. Through the Scholars Program, the Foundation makes a long-term commitment to supporting youth with limited financial means to pursue their aspirations and enrich their communities.

The Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program is launched

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For the first time, the Foundation designs a program and facilitates a collaborative network of partners in education. This network has since become a driver of systemic change at scale across the higher education sector in Africa.

The Foundation Youth Think Tank is established

The Foundation Youth Think Tank is established, giving voice to youth involved in our programs while ensuring youth-led insights consistently inform the Foundation’s decision-making.

The Foundation Youth Think Tank is established

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Launched with eight members, the Think Tank has grown to over 100 researchers from across Africa who have led the research and publication of a series of learning reports and influenced program design, impact strategy, and programming goals.

The Foundation launches the Learn, Earn and Save Initiative

The Foundation launches the Learn, Earn and Save Initiative, notable for its testing of strategies to integrate education, skills training, entrepreneurship, and financial services for youth.

The Foundation launches the Learn, Earn and Save Initiative

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This novel learning partnership model is the first program to use a consortium approach. It successfully demonstrates how program implementers, funders, and learning partners can work together to enhance programming, further policy agendas, and move the youth livelihoods and evaluation sectors forward. The initiative leads to the creation of the Foundation’s third programming area, Economic Opportunities for Youth. This area's initiatives include the development of the Youth Forward Initiative, which also uses a consortium approach to improve the livelihoods of young people in the construction and agriculture industries in Ghana and Uganda, respectively.

The Foundation redefines its vision

The Foundation redefines its vision from "Making the economy work for everyone" to "Opportunity for all to learn and prosper," bringing together its key focus areas of microfinance and education and learning.

The Foundation redefines its vision

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The new vision sets a path of growth and optimism for the future and embodies the Foundation’s collaborative and values-driven way of working.

The Foundation initiates its Youth Learning strategy

The Foundation initiates its Youth Learning strategy. Based on a broad review of the global youth education sector, the strategy focuses on access to both formal and informal education in Sub-Saharan Africa. The Foundation partners with the Equity Group Foundation’s Wings to Fly scholarship program, supporting secondary education and leadership development.

The Foundation initiates its Youth Learning strategy

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The Wings to Fly program begins modestly, providing secondary school scholarships to a few hundred young people. Today, it has become the largest secondary education scholarship program in Kenya, and our initial commitment of 5,000 has doubled to 10,000 students.

The Foundation’s Board makes the strategic decision to focus its resources and work on Sub-Saharan Africa

The Foundation’s Board makes the strategic decision to focus its resources and work on Sub-Saharan Africa to heighten impact and take a long-term view.

The Foundation’s Board makes the strategic decision to focus its resources and work on Sub-Saharan Africa

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Sub-Saharan Africa is identified because of the opportunity and the challenge: It is the second-fastest-growing region in the world, with an immense youth population, yet with the highest burden of poverty. A lack of access to quality education and viable employment opportunities point to the need for innovative programs outside the formal education system to help young people transition to sustainable work and economic stability.

The Foundation launches its first microfinance program in Africa

The Foundation launches its first microfinance program in Africa in partnership with BRAC. Through this, the Foundation begins to develop its novel model for partnerships by embracing more collaboration and deeper relationships, resulting in shared learning and broader impact.

The Foundation launches its first microfinance program in Africa

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The program has provided microcredit and livelihood support services to 2.8 million people; at the same time, it has demonstrated success in using access to financial services and microcredit to deliver programming to provide education and build agricultural and entrepreneurial skills. This initial program provides a scalable model that could be implemented in other African countries.

Mastercard International creates the Mastercard Foundation

Mastercard International creates the Mastercard Foundation when it becomes a public company, with US$40 million plus 13 million shares (valued at US$500 million), for the purpose of advancing financial inclusion and education to improve the lives of those living in poverty.

Mastercard International creates the Mastercard Foundation

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The Foundation’s independent Board of Directors has provided autonomy in determining its own strategic direction and enabled it to take a long-term view with a focus on grantmaking.