Management Discussion & Analysis

In the 2023-24 fiscal year, we continued to make progress in achieving the ambitious plans set out in our Strategic Plan to 2025, including our five core strategic goals:

Goal 1: Mature existing development innovations

Since 2010, Grand Challenges Canada has built a robust innovation platform to procure and source bold solutions to global challenges. As we continue to learn and grow, we recognize that we have an important role in sourcing bolder solutions, supporting proven innovations to accelerate their impact, and facilitating the ecosystems that will allow these bold ideas to flourish.

Our grand challenges in global health, humanitarian innovation and child development have allowed us to develop deep expertise, strong networks and relationships, and a strong foundation for our next phase of growth.

We continue to draw on the lessons of our Scale and Sustainability Portfolio Review, recognizing the importance of local leadership in sustaining and increasing impact, finding ways to engage public sector actors to scale proven innovations, and ensuring that we can provide flexible, tailored support to TTS innovators so that they have a solid foundation from which to grow.

This year, we began a Risk Appetite Analysis, reviewing our portfolio of investments and our ability to source and support bolder innovations across our grand challenges. The results of this analysis will be completed in the coming year.

Goal 2: Incubate new grand challenges

Our incubation of new grand challenges is progressing well. This year brought new funding from the LEGO Foundation for a challenge on inclusive learning in crisis settings, the completion of the first phase of the Being initiative for youth mental health, and new funding for Grand Challenges Canada’s focus on the health impacts of climate change.

In December 2023 Grand Challenges Canada received $10M USD in new funding from the LEGO Foundation for a challenge on inclusive learning in crisis settings. This new program draws on our expertise in both early childhood development and education (through our Saving Brains portfolio) and the lessons from Creating Hope in Conflict: A Humanitarian Grand Challenge.

We completed Phase One of the Being Initiative, publishing the findings from a year-long landscape analysis of youth mental health in 13 countries worldwide in a new public good report. Led by local partners in each priority country, the consultations identified the primary drivers and challenges related to youth mental health in each context.

The lessons from these consultations were used to identify the priority funding areas to improve youth mental health and wellbeing through research, innovation and ecosystem building in Being’s 12 priority countries: Colombia, Ecuador, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Morocco, Pakistan, Romania, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, and Vietnam. Launched in April 2024, Being’s Request for Proposals seeks innovations at the seed, Transition-to-Scale and ecosystem catalyst grants for each priority country, with an emphasis on youth-led innovation.

Goal 3: Secure financial sustainability

We are currently mid-way through the seven-year, $200 million Institutional Support Grant from Global Affairs Canada. This anchor investment has provided us with flexibility and has been instrumental in helping to secure complementary funding across our portfolios.

In December 2023, the LEGO Foundation awarded Grand Challenges Canada $10M USD in new funding for Inclusive Learning in Crisis Settings, a new challenge that draws on our expertise in early childhood development and humanitarian innovation.

Fondation Botnar approved the second phase of funding for the Being Initiative, which will support investment in research, innovation and ecosystem building in 12 priority countries, drawing on the insights from Being's year-long landscape analysis.

Building on our seed investments in climate and health through the Stars in Global Health portfolio, Grand Challenges Canada received a $1.5M CAD investment from ARM to support our investments in climate and health innovations at the Transition-to-Scale phase.

In June 2023, AfricInvest and the Health Finance Coalition announced the first close of the Transform Health Fund, followed by a final close in October 2024. Grand Challenges Canada was among the Fund’s first investors, providing USD $5M in catalytic funding, as well as $500K for the Health Finance Coalition Deal Construction Platform, which offers technical assistance and pipeline support to bridge the financing gap for promising innovations with the potential to scale.

In January 2024, Cross-Border Impact Ventures announced the close of its first fund, the Women’s and Children’s Health Technology Fund, securing over $90 million USD ($135 million CAD) in total commitments. CBIV was incubated in partnership with Grand Challenges Canada, and spun out as a women-led, impact-focused venture capital firm in 2019, to address the health needs of women, children and adolescents and improve health systems worldwide.

Goal 4: Be the preferred innovation for impact partner

This year, we undertook an extensive strategic planning process, engaging hundreds of partners, innovators, stakeholders, and peer organizations. This engagement has deepened our understanding of the context in which we operate, ensuring our work remains relevant, impactful, and aligned with the needs of our stakeholders.

These dialogues were instrumental in clarifying our unique value proposition and situating our work within the broader political, social, and economic landscape. Key outcomes of this process included:

Understanding the needs and goals of our key partners and stakeholders
Identifying opportunities to amplify our impact through partnerships and collaboration.
Aligning our strategy with the evolving needs of the communities we serve.
Positioning the organization for long-term success in a dynamic funding environment.

Localization and power-shifting remain central to our mission and approach. This year, we launched an Innovator Council—a monthly working group bringing together innovators at various funding stages across GCC's global portfolios. The council’s aim is twofold:

To place innovators at the heart of our decision-making processes.
To align our efforts with the needs of those who are closest to the challenges we seek to address.

By fostering this direct connection with innovators, we are ensuring that our strategies and investments reflect the realities on the ground. This approach strengthens our commitment to equitable and inclusive partnerships while amplifying the voices of those driving change within their communities.

Goal 5: Be the preferred innovation for impact employer

GCC seeks to be a place where diverse, high-performing team members can grow, develop and thrive.

During the 2023-24 fiscal year, we hired a Chief Operating Officer, Akin Alaga, to facilitate cohesion and collaboration across the organization. Under Akin’s leadership, we updated our organizational structure and created new processes and teams to support strategy development, program delivery, and digital transformation.

This year, we continued our four-day flexible work week, which aims to achieve 100% productivity at 100% pay while working only 80% of a conventional work week.

In an independent follow-up survey conducted by Boston College, staff and partners indicated that the flexible working arrangement reduced burnout, increased overall wellbeing and contributed to reduced employee turnover.

We continue to explore how to strike the right balance between remote and hybrid working arrangements in order to facilitate a strong organizational culture and employee experience and are focused on implementing an employee engagement strategy to ensure that we continue to be the preferred impact for innovation employer.