Closing the Foreign Aid Bridge Fund – And the Beginning of What Comes Next
We're closing the Foreign Aid Bridge Fund on April 30. Make a final donation today.
Dear Unlock Aid community,
At the end of this month, we will officially conclude the Foreign Aid Bridge Fund, an emergency response effort that was never supposed to exist – but became absolutely essential.
When the U.S. government froze foreign assistance earlier this year, thousands of frontline organizations around the world were suddenly left without lifelines. In the face of political uncertainty, the American people and friends around the world stepped up, donating nearly $2 million via the Foreign Aid Bridge Fund to keep urgent work alive.
With that support, we built something special.
The Foreign Aid Bridge Fund was an emergency fund that accepted open applications from any organization impacted by the U.S. foreign aid freeze. More than 600 organizations from around the world applied. The Fund reviewed every one of them – prioritizing those with proven impact, proximity to community served, diversified funding streams, and clear, immediate needs. To date, we’ve granted emergency funding to more than 25 organizations across Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean.
We did this on a volunteer basis and took no administrative fees, ensuring that every dollar reached the selected frontline organizations (minus costs beyond our control, such as minimal credit card processing fees and international banking fees) – making this an extraordinarily cost-effective emergency fund.
Every week the Fund acted, matching the urgency felt across the global development community. As donations came in, the Fund moved quickly to deploy resources on a rolling basis, ensuring timely and impactful support for where it was needed most. Meanwhile, our group of volunteers remained focused on fundraising, working to secure more donations to make even more grants possible.
The Foreign Aid Bridge Fund has been featured in the New York Times, Associated Press, Vox, Devex, Alliance Magazine, and Chronicle of Philanthropy.
Who Advised On Where the Money Went?
One of the defining features of the Fund was our commitment to community-led decision-making.
All funding recommendations were made by an independent, neutral Investment Committee – leaders with deep experience across global development, but who were not employees of the Fund, fundraising from it, or financially invested in its outcomes. This separation allowed for rigorous, balanced, and values-driven debate, grounded in the needs of frontline communities.
Crucially, as a result, this process did not default to donor-driven decision-making. Instead, those who donated stepped back, trusting the Investment Committee to recommend where funding could have the most impact.
This is the future we’re working toward: one where those with capital lead with trust, and those closest to the problems help prioritize and guide the distribution of funds.
What Comes Next
As the 90-day U.S. foreign aid review comes to a close on April 19, it’s clear this wasn’t just a pause—it was a pivot. The future of U.S. international assistance will look very different in the future than it has in the past.
We raised this $2 million from nearly 400 individuals and family foundations. However, as we get further away from the immediate emergency created as a result of the initial foreign aid freeze, fundraising has slowed. It also appears unlikely that we’ll be able to raise significant additional capital from larger philanthropic partners. As a result, we’ve decided to close this emergency fund on April 30.
The future belongs to organizations that can adapt to rapid change, demonstrate real-world results, diversify their funding streams, and operate transparently and efficiently.
We’re now focused on creating a pathway forward for those we couldn’t fund. We will help eligible organizations that applied to the Fund to create public fundraising profiles on Every.org and share their work with prospective funders. In the coming weeks, we’ll also publish a final impact report that will surface additional opportunities for funders.
If you’d like to contribute before this April 30 deadline, please click here.
In addition, prospective future donors should also consider supporting other funds, including:
NEAR’s Bridge Fund, supporting frontline humanitarian organizations that are part of the NEAR network; and
The Rapid Response Fund, hosted by Founders Pledge and The Life You Can Save, which is supporting a number of high-impact, pre-vetted charities;
The team at PRO have also identified some of the highest-impact, most cost-effective programs affected by the U.S. foreign aid freeze that still need support.
Shifting to Advocacy to Unlock Billions
We founded Unlock Aid in 2021 with a vision to transform U.S. global development by making U.S. investments more financially sustainable, results-driven, and accessible to frontline organizations directly serving communities in need.
However, today, billions of dollars in congressionally-approved funding for critical global health and humanitarian assistance remain unspent. Philanthropic capital will never be able to close the gap.
As we transition away from the Fund, we're focusing more of our attention toward advocacy – particularly engaging Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Congressional leaders – to immediately deploy funds already approved by Congress for life-saving programs – but to do aid differently than we have in the past, including by paying frontline providers on the basis of measurable results.
The Administration took down a system with record speed. Now it needs to rebuild with the same urgency.
Unlock Aid is raising $180,000 to support a time-bound campaign to unlock billions. Please contact us if you want to learn more or to support this campaign, either by replying to this email or by writing to us at policy [at] unlockaid.org.
Deep Gratitude
We want to thank every organization that applied, every individual who donated, and every person who helped to operate and evangelize the Fund. Most of all, we want to express our deep gratitude to our key partners who stewarded this work with us from its inception, including Joanne Sonenshine, Smarter Good, Panorama Global and Every.org. We also owe a debt of gratitude to the Investment Committee, whose insights, urgency, and compassion shaped every decision we made.
We asked each Investment Committee member to share what they learned through this process:
“What made the Foreign Aid Bridge Fund unique was its ability to move at the speed of the moment. In times of crisis, we need funding structures that can respond with urgency—without sacrificing thoughtful decision-making. By stepping in quickly, it gave frontline organizations the time and space they needed to pivot for what comes next. I’m very proud to have served alongside my fellow committee members to bring some relief during such a critical moment.”
— Dr. Alix Peterson Zwane, Director for research engagement and strategy at the Nicholas Institute for Energy, Environment & Sustainability“My two greatest takeaways from the Bridge Fund and working with Unlock Aid were not new but were profound lessons that as leaders we need to challenge ourselves to relearn at every opportunity. The first was to “just do it” and trust that action will lead to learning and refinement. The IC’s processes were iterated at every meeting and I was proud to practice “progress over perfection” because speed is crucial in the work of social impact. The second lesson was that a diversity in decision makers breeds rigor in investment decisions. Let’s be clear that no matter how tight an investment policy is, decisions are made by use of “good judgement” which is inherently biased. I enjoyed the different perspectives of our IC - whether in subject matter, regional/contextual representation or philosophical view. These decisions were HARD, required debate and active listening and would have been easier but far less just if we were a homogeneous group.”
— Ineza Mutimura, Co-founder, Funders of African Descent"Through the Foreign Aid Bridge Fund, we have demonstrated how values-based, urgent, nimble action can protect vital programs and save lives in a crisis. The significance of this fund goes beyond the immediate relief it provided; it stands as a model of principled, agile action and a testament to what is possible when we unite urgency with unwavering commitment to our values."
— Lalit Kumar, CEO, Velocity“My experience on the Investment Committee for the Foreign Aid Bridge Fund has shown me the extraordinary resilience and impact of frontline organizations in the Global South, and it’s clear that as traditional bilateral donors reduce funding, we must urgently rethink aid by prioritizing locally-led, adaptable, and sustainable approaches that put communities at the center of development solutions.”
— Phyllis Kurlander Costanza, Chief Social Investment Officer, APM, Social Investment Solutions“The Foreign Aid Bridge Fund Investment Committee brought together diverse backgrounds and perspectives, all united in our determination to act fairly and with a sense of urgency. In each decision to fund an organization for, say, their lifesaving HIV and TB treatment efforts to continue, there were other worthy organizations we were unable to fund. This was difficult. And yet, I hope this funding buys time to find alternatives for every single patient who can continue their treatment without catastrophic interruptions resulting in drug resistance. I’m grateful for the wisdom of my fellow Committee members, for the opportunity to be proactive in a moment of change, and most of all for the frontline organizations providing life-saving and life-affirming services to vulnerable people.”
— Dr. Krishna Jafa, CEO, Precision Global Health“The emergency bridge fund helped fill a critical gap ahead of time when organizations were facing extreme uncertainty. There are so many deserving organizations that need help, and continue to provide critical life-saving services that I wish we had the resources to keep funding. Now I hope that folks in our sector prioritize longer-term viability, led by locally based organizations partnering with governments in more sustainable ways.”
— Rohit Gawande, Senior Investment Principal, The Mulago Foundation“Unlock Aid’s leadership and swift action to raise critical emergency funds in response to the foreign aid freeze are bridging a vital financial gap, restoring hope, continuity, and dignity to millions of lives around the world. I am grateful for the opportunity to collaborate with you and for your unwavering commitment to ensuring that progress doesn’t pause where it’s needed most.”
— Almaz Negash, CEO & Founder, African Diaspora Network
This fund was always meant to be a bridge – not a destination. But it showed us what’s possible: fast action, smart allocation, and trust in those closest to the work.
We look forward to working with you to build what comes next.
To progress,
Unlock Aid