POOLING PHILANTHROPIC CAPITALTO IMPROVE HEALTH AND LIVELIHOODS

However, in 2012, when the couple looked across the full range of health needs in the Middle East and Africa, the challenges seemed almost overwhelming: polio, human African trypanosomiases (“sleeping sickness”), meningitis A, and neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) like cutaneous leishmaniasis. These and other diseases afflict millions of vulnerable people, especially children, throughout the region. “We wanted to better address these critical health needs,” Olfat notes.

Philanthropists in the region, building on the long-standing traditions of charitable giving in the form of zakat and waqf, have supported initiatives that address some of the need. However, the Juffalis believe that no single philanthropist or charitable foundation, despite their best efforts, can really make more than a dent against diseases that claim the lives of millions. The need and funding gaps are simply too great.

“[One person’s] philanthropy can be a drop in the ocean,” explains Khaled Juffali, “and we wanted to maximize our impact. Our belief is: don’t give alone.”

To bring their idea to life, the Juffalis recruited other ambitious philanthropists, and teamed up with the Gates Foundation to access the organization’s expertise and substantial experience working in health. In November 2012, the group took a learning journey to Senegal, where they visited health clinics treating malaria and tuberculosis. They also witnessed firsthand a campaign to combat meningitis A.

Informed and inspired by what they saw, the group strategized on how best to channel their giving to the highest-potential programs, approaches, and organizations. The Juffalis designed an approach to donor collaboration that they believed would lead to larger investments and accelerate progress on the issues relating to health and livelihoods afflicting the region’s most vulnerable people.

The Shefa Fund represents a bold new approach to Arab philanthropy, with three particularly striking elements. First, the Shefa Fund aims to make meaningful progress on underfunded health issues in the region.

“We wanted to focus on health problems such as polio and neglected tropical diseases because there are not many people who focus on them [in the region],” says Olfat Juffali.

Though much of the funding for neglected tropical diseases comes from international aid agencies and local governments, a dramatic funding gap of USD 200 to 300 million remains.

Second, by pooling funds and making grants together, more capital flows more efficiently to issues the participating donors care about. Members make a minimum contribution of USD 250,000 for a defined period, usually two years. The approach lets them learn together and benefit from shared expertise, rather than each having to find, vet, and manage their own philanthropic investments.

Additionally, they quite literally become a larger actor in the region’s health field, which puts them in a stronger position to narrow funding gaps for neglected health issues and also to influence the programs or funding of other actors. Collaborative approaches are becoming increasingly common across the global philanthropic community, including such examples as Co-Impact and Blue Meridian Partners.

Finally, the Shefa Fund takes a highly strategic approach to its grantmaking. It chooses investment areas where it can have a major impact, and carefully defines what success looks like and how to achieve it. The Shefa Fund’s grants are substantial, with an average investment size of over USD 1 million and a duration - of up to four years - long enough to see results.

The Shefa Fund’s relationship with the Gates Foundation, which helps the fund identify promising investment opportunities while keeping its operations lean, is critical to this kind of strategic grantmaking.

Since its founding in 2013, the Shefa Fund has drawn on funding from over 20 different donors, and raised and deployed over USD 14 million. The results thus far suggest that, in a region where individual and family giving is the norm, pooling funds has power and appeal.

For the Juffalis, there is no doubt that the Shefa Fund is having more impact than the family, or each individual member, could have had on their own. Through its investments - in combatting diseases such as meningitis A, sleeping sickness, and cholera, and the Covid-19 pandemic; providing care for women and children; and supplying critical emergency relief to conflict zones - the Shefa Fund has helped save or improve the lives of more than 16 million people.

Consider the Shefa Fund’s interest in research as one of several approaches needed to address cutaneous leishmaniasis. The Gates Foundation, in response to a request from the Juffalis, identified the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine as a potential partner already researching health issues in Saudi Arabia. The Liverpool School was considering undertaking research on cutaneous leishmaniasis interventions and needed funding to evaluate new, on-the-ground approaches.

Since that initial discussion, the Shefa Fund has granted nearly USD 1.7 million for this research, which is exploring novel diagnostic methods, evaluating current disease treatment protocols, and assessing new ways to control cutaneous leishmaniasis in Saudi Arabia.

Consider the Shefa Fund’s 2016 grant to the UN Foundation, which supported the distribution of 180,000 insecticide-treated bed nets in the Central African Republic. With an estimated 400,000 people contracting malaria each year in the country, these bed nets have the potential to address a large proportion of the unmet need. The Shefa Fund also supported radio broadcasts and posters that help educate mothers about when to seek help for a sick child who may have malaria.

The Shefa Fund’s 2014 grant to the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine was also powerful, supporting an effort to protect over 1 million people in Uganda and Chad from sleeping sickness, a potentially fatal parasitic condition transmitted by tsetse flies. The Shefa Fund’s grant allowed the Liverpool School to purchase over 47,000 insecticide-treated nets that attract and kill the flies.

The nets reduced tsetse fly numbers by at least 90 percent in the treatment areas (which totaled 2,800 square kilometers), potentially reducing the risk of disease transmission for up to one million people.

Aiding its ability to make a difference is the fund’s minimal bureaucracy, which frees it to move fast. For example, the Shefa Fund made a grant to address urgent funding gaps for meningitis A vaccination in Ethiopia, Nigeria, Sudan, and the Gambia just four months after its founding. Since its rollout, the vaccine against meningitis A has all but eliminated the deadly disease from sub-Saharan Africa.

The Shefa Fund’s approach has drawn international notice. “The impact in only two years is impressive,” said Bill Gates in 2015. “I hope that others will follow [their] lead as philanthropists and changemakers in Saudi Arabia and beyond."

Beyond the progress on health issues, the Shefa Fund also has helped fund members continue to grow their strategic philanthropy. “Conversations with the Shefa Fund members at annual meetings have become more in-depth,” says Jennifer Alcorn of the Gates Foundation.

At a membership event with the END Fund, “people were so engaged and asked a lot of questions,” recalls Dana Juffali. “One was even inspired to spin off a corporate social responsibility arm from his cosmetic business in Saudi.”

Navigating challenges
The Shefa Fund’s grantees have encountered their fair share of challenges, as they seek to gain the upper hand on underfunded health issues. As a result, the Shefa Fund enables its grantees to adapt and adjust as challenges emerge. Refugee populations on the move, for example, required the Liverpool School to be flexible to the changing context and explore new approaches to treating sleeping sickness in Chad. Supply chain delays for vaccines and drug treatments required the END Fund to modify targets and create new treatment plans for neglected tropical diseases in Yemen.

Since donor collaboration is still a relatively new concept in the region, the fund conducts ongoing outreach to members and potential members through convenings, grantee site visits and newsletters. The Shefa Fund’s first hire – Naif AlObaid – focuses on member engagement and other operations.

“Donors here are not yet used to this type of philanthropy,” AlObaid explains. “My goal is to help them understand this type of grantmaking – to keep them engaged and committed.”

Education and impact stories play a major role, helping members understand how they can achieve greater impact by pooling their resources.

Moving forward
As the Shefa Fund continues to address unmet health needs in the region, it aims to expand its portfolio to include new focus areas and add new members. For example, Olfat Juffali has long cared about maternal and child health, which a learning visit by the Shefa Fund further illuminated. After learning that UNHCR, the United Nations Refugee Agency, lacked the financing to support a maternal and child health program at two refugee camps in Jordan, the Shefa Fund stepped in. This grant helped 805 refugees receive critical maternal health related services, inlcuding safe delivery, emergency care and post-natal support.

The fund is also working to attract new donors, including the younger generation. Says Olfat Juffali: “We are building an approach that will work in the future, for our children and their children.”

The Juffalis have involved their children in the fund’s work. Their daughters, Dana and Haya Juffali, have become particularly engaged in the fund and intend to increase their involvement.

“We want to help the Shefa Fund stay innovative and relevant,” says Haya. Dana adds: “Impact comes through scaling, collaboration, and partnerships. Shefa has saved many lives, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t potential for growth.”

With grant funding for new health areas and a push for new membership, the Shefa Fund is primed to continue its investments in confronting the region’s neglected health challenges.

Learn more at shefafund.org