Alfanar Venture Philanthropy (Alfanar)

Strategy

Financial inclusion for women; future of work programs; investing in job creation

Summary

Alfanar Venture Philanthropy funds, supports and scales high-impact social enterprises in the Arab world. Their mission is to build a thriving impact economy in the Arab world – where locally-led social enterprises drive inclusive growth, resilience and long-term systemic change. This is a general support grant to Alfanar for their work across the region.

Who

Alfanar was created to fund and support social enterprises that are too mission-driven for commercial capital, too growth-oriented for traditional grants and too early-stage for institutional investors. These organisations sit in the ‘missing middle’—where innovation risks stagnation without the right kind of intervention.  Alfanar’s grantmaking helps social enterprises move along the investment continuum—with (1) funding, (2) capacity building, (3) access to networks and (4) impact measurement rigor. They have two funding mechanisms: (1) SEED and (2) SUSTAIN.

What

Alfanar works across four themes: Learning, Earning, Climate and Heritage; and have supported more than 220 social enterprises across Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Palestine. Women are central to the portfolio as both founders and beneficiaries. In 2025, 50% of supported enterprises were women-led and 54% delivered programs directly to women through income generation, employment, entrepreneurship, education and skills.

Since inception, Alfanar’s portfolio of enterprises have delivered the following: