A foundation · not a non-profit "brand"

Where every
dollar actually
lands.

A small foundation that has, for nineteen years, taken roughly 96 cents of every dollar it has been given and turned it — directly — into a classroom, a well, a roof, or a meal. The other 3.6¢ is the bank fee, and we publish the receipt.

Give today → See the receipt ↘ a real 990, audited every year
Amara, 9Back in school, Sept '25
Roll N° 24Bondo Primary
Kakamega, KE
your $20 paid for
her year of books ↗
14,820 children in school last year × 2,420 water points repaired × 980 homes rebuilt after the floods × 3.1M meals served, on the ground × since 2007 ×
2025 in numbers · audited Feb 2026

A year, plainly
counted.

Numbers verified by KPMG East Africa, signed off by the board, in a 28-page PDF we email anyone who asks.

N° 01 · Education
14,820children back in school
↗

42 schools, 6 countries. Books, uniforms, fees, lunch, and the bus that brings them. Year-on-year cost per child: $87.

N° 02 · Water
2,420water points repaired

Bore-holes drilled, hand-pumps repaired, rain-water tanks installed. A water point serves an average of 320 people, for 12 years.

N° 03 · Housing
980homes rebuilt

Concrete, corrugated roof, two rooms, mosquito netting. Average cost: $1,440 per home, after the 2024 floods.

N° 04 · Food
3.1Mmeals served
+22%

Local sourcing, 70% from within 80km. School lunch, post-disaster, the elderly. Average meal cost: $0.34, on the ground.

Four programs · since 2007

Four things we
only do.

A small foundation does a few things very well or many things very badly. We picked four, and we have done them for nineteen years.

Education

Books & fees.

School fees, uniforms, books, and the bus. We pay direct to the school, never in cash, never to a "child sponsor" account. Receipts on file.

Per child / year$87
2025 reach14,820
Read the program brief →
Water

Wells & pumps.

Hand-pump bore-holes, rain-water tanks, and pipe repairs. Always with local labour, always with a maintenance fund built in for 10 years.

Per water point$3,400
Serves · 12 yrs~320 people
Read the program brief →
Housing

Roofs & walls.

Post-disaster rebuilding — concrete walls, two rooms, a galvanised roof, mosquito netting. Title deed in the family's name, not ours.

Per home$1,440
2025 rebuilt980
Read the program brief →
Food

Meals & kitchens.

School lunch, post-disaster soup-lines, and meals for the elderly. 70% sourced within 80km of where it is eaten. Always cooked, never bagged.

Per meal$0.34
2025 served3.1M
Read the program brief →
Transparency · the receipt

Where your $1
actually goes.

Most foundations bury the breakdown three clicks deep in a PDF. Ours is on the home page, audited every February, signed by our chair.

72¢ · PROGRAMS
Of every $1
96.4¢
reaches a program
Programs, direct costschools · wells · housing · meals
72¢of every $1
Programs, on-ground stafflocal team, paid local-market rates
21¢of every $1
Field audit & reportingso we can publish the receipt
3.4¢of every $1
Bank & card feesunavoidable · publish anyway
3.6¢of every $1
Audited by KPMG East Africa · published in the 2025 annual report, page 14. IRS Form 990 filed February 2026 · public on Guidestar. Download the 28-page PDF →
Stories · in their own words

A program is
a person, named.

We don't talk about "beneficiaries". Three people we know by name, who agreed to be named, sent these words last quarter.

Kakamega, '25

My books arrived on a Tuesday. By Friday I had read three of them. The teacher said I am allowed to take them home if I do not lose any."

Amara, 9 Bondo Primary · Kenya
Program · Education
Lima, '25

The well is forty steps from my door. I am 71 years old. For 71 years, I walked an hour. Now I walk forty steps. That is the whole story."

Isidro, 71 Huaycán · Perú
Program · Water
Mokha, '25

After the flood we slept in the school for nine months. The new house has a door that locks, and a roof that does not lift in the wind. My son will grow up here."

Leila, 34 Mokha district · Yemen
Program · Housing
Where we work · 11 countries

Eleven countries.
One way of working.

Always a local team. Always direct receipts to the school, the supplier, the family. Never a "country office" larger than the program.

hover a pin ↑
KenyaKakamega · since 2009
3,240children in school
TanzaniaArusha · since 2011
2,180children in school
EthiopiaMekele · since 2014
540homes rebuilt · '24
PerúHuaycán · since 2012
682water points · total
HondurasComayagua · since 2018
1,120children in school
HaitiCap-Haïtien · since 2020
440homes rebuilt
IndiaTamil Nadu · since 2013
2,920children in school
YemenMokha · since 2021
980meals · per day
Trustees & team · the 14 people

A small team.
That is the point.

Fourteen people across the whole foundation. Six in Nairobi, four in Lima, two in Lisbon, two in New York. Salaries published in the annual report, p. 22.

Marta Estefânia

Chair · founder

Founded the foundation in 2007 after twelve years at Médecins Sans Frontières. Based in Lisbon. Salary: €0 (works pro-bono since 2018).

Omar Kibet

Head of programs · Nairobi

Joined 2011. Runs the Kenyan and Tanzanian programs from the Nairobi office. Built the maintenance-fund model used across all 11 countries.

Priya Nair

Finance & transparency

Joined 2015 from KPMG. Writes the annual 28-page receipt with chair, signs it, sleeps fine. Will answer any question you ask her about a number.

Hugo Larrañaga

Lead engineer · water

Civil engineer, ex-Oxfam. Designed the bore-hole standard we now use across Peru, Ethiopia, and Haiti. Based in Lima.

Questions, honestly

The questions
you actually ask.

honest@bridgefoundation.org →

If something here is wrong or out of date, write to us at the email above. A trustee reads it, replies within 48 hours, in plain English.

Is the 96.4¢ figure real?+

Yes — audited by KPMG East Africa, published in the 2025 annual report (page 14), and filed on our IRS Form 990 (page 6). The 3.6¢ that doesn't reach a program is the credit-card / bank fee — there is no way to avoid that one. The rest is in.

Where does the money actually go first?+

Into a separate non-profit current account at the Triodos Bank, Netherlands. From there, every dollar is wired direct to a country office or to a vendor (school, supplier, builder). We do not run a "general fund" that programs apply to — there is no slush.

Why only four programs?+

Because doing four things deeply for nineteen years has consistently outperformed doing fourteen things at once. Each program lead has been with the foundation eight years or more. We turn down roughly six "scope expansion" requests a year.

Do you take government grants?+

No. About 92% of our income is from individual donors; 8% from a small number of named family foundations. We have turned down state grants four times — they tend to come with restrictions that do not match how our programs work.

Can I visit?+

Yes — we have an open-door policy for monthly donors at any level. Write to visit@bridgefoundation.org, the local lead will arrange a half-day or a week. We do not, however, run "voluntourism" trips.

Become someone
who's in on it.

One quiet email a month — what we did with your money, in your name, in plain English. No "campaigns", no urgency theatre, no donor-of-the-month hand-wringing. Just the receipt and a story.

↑ one email · the first of every month
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