Omidyar Network is a self-styled "

philanthropic Philanthropy is a form of altruism that consists of "private initiatives, for the public good, focusing on quality of life". Philanthropy contrasts with business initiatives, which are private initiatives for private good, focusing on material ...

investment firm," composed of a foundation and an impact investment firm. Established in 2004 by

eBay eBay Inc. ( ) is an American multinational e-commerce company based in San Jose, California, that facilitates consumer-to-consumer and business-to-consumer sales through its website. eBay was founded by Pierre Omidyar in 1995 and became ...

founder

Pierre Omidyar Pierre Morad Omidyar (born Parviz Morad Omidyar, June 21, 1967) is a French-born Iranian-American billionaire. A technology entrepreneur, software engineer, and philanthropist, he is the founder of eBay, where he served as chairman from 199 ...

and his wife Pam, Omidyar Network has committed over $1.5billion to

nonprofit organization A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...

s and for-profit companies across multiple investment areas. According to the

OECD The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD; french: Organisation de coopération et de développement économiques, ''OCDE'') is an intergovernmental organisation with 38 member countries, founded in 1961 to stimulate ...

, Omidyar Network's financing for 2019 development increased by 10% to US$58.9 million.

Activism and accomplishments

In February 2021, the network hosted
series on whistleblowing
and has provided financial support to Facebook whistleblower

Frances Haugen Frances Haugen (born 1983 or 1984) is an American data engineer and scientist, product manager, and whistleblower. She disclosed tens of thousands of Facebook's internal documents to the Securities and Exchange Commission and ''The Wall Street J ...

and

Pinterest Pinterest is an American image sharing and social media service designed to enable saving and discovery of information (specifically "ideas") on the internet using images, and on a smaller scale, animated GIFs and videos, in the form of pinboa ...

whistleblower

Ifeoma Ozoma Ifeoma Ozoma (born 1991 or 1992) is an American public policy specialist and technology industry equity advocate. After two years working on public policy at Pinterest, Ozoma resigned and spoke out about mistreatment and racial discriminatio ...

Structure

Composed of a 501(c)(3) and a

Limited Liability Company A limited liability company (LLC for short) is the United States of America, US-specific form of a private limited company. It is a business structure that can combine the Flow-through entity, pass-through taxation of a partnership or sole p ...

(LLC), Omidyar Network is structured to work across the social, business, and government sectors. Like a traditional foundation, it makes grants through its 501(c)(3) entity; through its LLC, it invests in for-profit entities. It is a part of The Omidyar Group. In 2018, Omidyar Network spun off its Governance & Citizen Engagement initiative. The group now operates as Luminate, a global philanthropic organization that invests in Civic Empowerment, Data & Digital Rights, Financial Transparency, and Independent Media. It is led by Stephen King. In 2019, Omidyar Network spun off its Financial Inclusion initiative. The group now operates as Flourish and is led by Tilman Ehrbeck, Arjuna Costa, and Emmalyn Shaw.

People

As of 2022, the CEO of Omidyar Network is Mike Kubzansky. Its board of directors include the managing directors of The Omidyar Group, Jeff Alvord and Pat Christen. The organization has offices in

Redwood City Redwood City is a city on the San Francisco Peninsula in Northern California's Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay e ...

Bengaluru Bangalore (), officially Bengaluru (), is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Karnataka. It has a population of more than and a metropolitan population of around , making it the third most populous city and fifth most ...

Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu language, Zulu and xh, eGoli ), colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, or "The City of Gold", is the largest city in South Africa, classified as a Megacity#List of megacities, megacity, and is List of urban areas by p ...

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

Mumbai Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the secon ...

Nairobi Nairobi ( ) is the capital and largest city of Kenya. The name is derived from the Maasai phrase ''Enkare Nairobi'', which translates to "place of cool waters", a reference to the Nairobi River which flows through the city. The city prope ...

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...

, and Washington D.C.

Investees

Omidyar Network invested in the microfinance sector, including Unitus Inc. , Omidyar Network counts the following organizations as partners:

Ashoka Ashoka (, ; also ''Asoka''; 304 – 232 BCE), popularly known as Ashoka the Great, was the third emperor of the Maurya Empire of Indian subcontinent during to 232 BCE. His empire covered a large part of the Indian subcontinent, ...

Comat Technologies Comat is an Indian social enterprise specializing in the delivery of information based services to rural citizens in India. It was founded in 1996 and currently has over 800 rural centers from which it serves over 75,000 citizens each day. In Jun ...

Creative Commons Creative Commons (CC) is an American non-profit organization and international network devoted to educational access and expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has releas ...

Digg Digg, stylized in lowercase as digg, is an American news aggregator with a curated front page, aiming to select stories specifically for the Internet audience such as science, trending political issues, and viral Internet issues. It was launche ...

, DonorsChoose, Endeavor, Federated Media Publishing,

GlobalGiving GlobalGiving is 501(c)(3) non-profit organization based in the United States that provides a global crowdfunding platform for grassroots charitable projects. Since 2002, more than 1.6 million donors on GlobalGiving have donated more than $750 mi ...

, Goodmail,

GuideStar Candid is an information service specializing in reporting on U.S. nonprofit companies. In 2016, its database provided information on 2.5 million organizations.Wyland, Michael. "GuideStar Introduces Program Metrics Section for Nonprofit Profile ...

, Linden Lab (developer of

Second Life ''Second Life'' is an online multimedia platform that allows people to create an avatar for themselves and then interact with other users and user created content within a multi player online virtual world. Developed and owned by the San Fra ...

global virtual community), Media Development Investment Fund, Meetup, Metaweb, ModestNeeds,

Open Data Institute The Open Data Institute (ODI) is a non-profit private company limited by guarantee, based in the United Kingdom. Founded by Sir Tim Berners-Lee and Sir Nigel Shadbolt in 2012, the ODI’s mission is to connect, equip and inspire people around ...

, Opportunity International, PRBC, Prosper, Rappler, SeaChange Capital Partners, Seesmic, Socialtext,

Sunlight Foundation The Sunlight Foundation was an American 501(c)(3) nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that advocated for open government. The organization was founded in April 2006 with the goal of increasing transparency and accountability in the United State ...

, Virgin Money, Wikia, World of Good. From 2012, Omidyar Network has been a partner of Better Than Cash Alliance. In 2017, Omidyar Network together with AVINA Americas and Avina Foundation founded the Latin American Alliance for Civic Technology (ALTEC) to invest in and support the development in Latin America of civic technology platforms and related scalable technologies. In 2009, the Omidyar Network donated $2 million over two years to the

Wikimedia Foundation The Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., or Wikimedia for short and abbreviated as WMF, is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization headquartered in San Francisco, California and registered as a charitable foundation under local laws. Best kno ...

, and at the same time, Matt Halprin of Omidyar Network was appointed to Wikimedia's board of directors. During the 2020

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identified ...

, Omidyar Network funded 67 projects under the Rapid Response Funding Initiative, investing a total of . These projects were selected from 2000 applications. The projects funded included RightWalk Foundation, Peepul India, and GiveIndia. In 2020, it invested $150,000 in the legal assistance organization Whistleblower Aid.

References

External links

*
The Omidyar Group
{{authority control Foundations based in the United States 2004 establishments in California