Fundación Colibri’s approach and philanthropic work stem from a systemic perspective that convenes and engages the various stakeholders in the ecosystem in a conscientious, collective effort to understand the system’s complexity and identify the challenges that, ultimately, affect people and communities. We adopt a field-building approach by investing in a community of organizations and individuals sharing ideas, research systems, and practices in support of a shared goal. We back efforts to share promising practices, strengthen organizational capacity and professional development systems, and encourage alignment to facilitate complementary and coordinated actions among local actors driving change on a sustainable larger scale.
We believe that in order to address the challenges and improve the systems we seek to change, it’s imperative to break out of the paradigm of a compartmentalized, project-based perspective. We must understand the interactions, functions, and rules of the system to enable the people and organizations in it to ideate innovative solutions and envision how they might work differently.
We support those who commit to taking action, assume active roles and responsibilities, raise expectations and accountability to improve outcomes for children, youth and families, and effect scalable and sustainable change for communities in Puerto Rico.
We believe in the courage, capacity, and creative will of the people of Puerto Rico to rise after the most difficult challenges.
Our grant applications are by invitation only (Bold and Blue font). We develop relationships with prospective grantees by first learning about their vision, purpose, values, and strengths. We build trust, assure alignment, and synchrony with our areas of interest and approach before we seek to partner. We engage in an agile and collaborative grantmaking process that may involve site visits, open, honest and transparent conversations to help think through and figure out challenges, and to gain new perspectives that inform our strategy and approach. Once we determine a potential fit, we invite the organization to submit a proposal describing the scope of the project, budget, and goals. The board meets twice a year to review and approve proposals.