A Transformative Grant to Empower the Voices of Women Farmers

Digital Green is delighted to share that we received a $15 million unrestricted grant from MacKenzie Scott. It goes without saying, but this is an extremely generous gift that will be exceptionally transformational for Digital Green and the small-scale growers, especially women, that we serve. We are also humbled to be among this group of 286 organizations working on “empowering voices the world needs to hear.”

Since 2008, Digital Green has improved the lives of more than 2.3 million farmers, more than 75% women, in rural communities across South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, with digital solutions to enhance climate smart agriculture and nutrition practices. In partnership with local government and other grassroots-level organizations, Digital Green builds the agency of women farmers, in particular, through access to markets and protecting their data interests. With this gift, Digital Green will continue innovating and learning, allowing us to test new ideas and scale our collaborations to reach more farmers globally, as well as strengthen our internal systems.

“This gift is an exciting recognition of our work and mission to empower smallholder farmers to lift themselves out of poverty by harnessing the power of technology and grassroots-level partnerships. It gives us an opportunity to amplify the voices of small-scale farmers around the world,” said Rikin Gandhi, Digital Green’s Executive Director.

Kentaro Toyama, chair of Digital Green’s board, W.K. Kellogg Professor of Community Information at the University of Michigan School of Information and a fellow of the Dalai Lama Center for Ethics and Transformative Values at MIT, said, “We recognize that not all deserving organizations were similarly awarded and that we will do what we can to make the best use of these funds. In the process, we will also help other philanthropists recognize the value of Ms. Scott’s model of giving.”

To learn more about Ms. Scott’s motivation for investing in Digital Green and many other impressive organizations, please see this announcement: https://mackenzie-scott.medium.com/seeding-by-ceding-ea6de642bf.