Mission

“There is reason to hope that humanity at the dawn of the twenty-first century will be remembered for having generously shouldered its grave responsibilities.” 
—His Holiness Pope Francis

Our Mission: Take up the challenges set forth by Pope Francis in Laudato sì to “answer the cry of the poor and the cry of the earth”—through bold, co-created and measurable impact.

INSPIRED BY HIS HOLINESS POPE FRANCIS’S 2015 encyclical letter, Laudato sì: On Care for Our Common Home, The Laudato sì Challenge Foundation supports proven and scalable solutions to the global challenges set forth by Pope Francis in Laudato sì. We strive to implement concrete solutions to care for our common home and to empower vulnerable people to change their orbit by being the protagonist in their own solution, supporting the vision of the Sustainable Development Goals of “being a human dignity narrative that leaves no one behind.” 

model

To put the principles of Laudato sì into action, The Laudato sì Challenge builds bridges between courageous leaders, unlikely allies from the “four legs of the stool”—the public, private, faith and academic sectors—in a spirit of solidarity and humility to advance and accelerate new, specific, measurable and time-bound “Commitments to Impact.” We seek to combine the rigor of venture capital and venture philanthropy with the alignment of the commitment model—to drive measurable, sustainable and enduring impact to move humanity forward.

First, LSC finds and partners with private sector individuals and enterprises that have bold and innovative solutions to specific challenges facing humanity such as financial inclusion, human safety or energy.

Next, we work with our community of experts and partners to co-create Commitments to Impact, which are new, specific, measurable and time-bound impact initiatives, and we provide capital to support those commitments.

Finally, we convene leaders from the private, public, faith and academic sectors to advance and accelerate those commitments.

Our approach is unique, bold and often fraught with criticism and conflict. But, when it works, it really works. It’s centered around what we call authentic alignment. In other words, it’s okay to make money and do good. We must be willing to upgrade the “charity model” and “martyr mindset” around money because those things undermine the very causes we care about. If an entrepreneur can improve the lives of a million refugees, why can’t she make a million dollars a year for herself and her family? (Yes, we said it was bold.) The Laudato Si’ Challenge aligns stakeholder interests so that the private sector can make money, the faith sector can drive impact and the public sector can celebrate wins for their citizenry, in-country. When we’re honest about what we need and want, then we can all pull in the same direction—and truly move humanity forward.

FIVE-YEAR VISION

Our five-year vision is to:

• Build the LSC community to 1,000 engaged global leaders in the public, private and religious sectors who share a common mission of building better businesses as we build a better world;

• Close our $100 million venture philanthropy fund to scale our impact;

• Fulfill all of the LSC Commitments to Impact;

• Secure additional Commitments to Impact that improve the state of Our Common Home and sustainably improve the lives of at least 10 million vulnerable people.

• Work with key LSC partners to deploy successful pilots of each Commitment to Impact, prove the model and scale the commitments globally.

• Secure sufficient mission-aligned, strategic and high-integrity capital to advance the Laudato Si’ Challenge mission and accelerate the Commitments to Impact.

long-term Vision

Our long-term vision is to strike a balance between short-term impact and value creation while looking towards a 100-year vision by building an effective and durable model of co-creation and collaboration between the public, private, faith and academic sectors—in a way that benefits all stakeholders: private sector can drive economic outcomes, public sector can drive public outcomes, faith sector can drive impact outcomes and academic sector can implement academic findings, so that all people can lead better lives.

Our Approach

We invite you to watch the five-minute video below to understand what we believe, why we do what we do—and, perhaps most importantly: how we do it.

VALUES

We own The Laudato sì Challenge story. All of our lessons, and successes, are part of who we are as a company and a community. We’ve upgraded our model over the years and operate on a set of values and operating principles that have been forged from the pain of our past as they honor the promise of our future: Service, Humility, Solidarity, Inclusion and Action.