Types of funding
We bring the best of Cisco to our partners through a mix of funding, strategic guidance, and technology -- helping highpotential organizations scale their tech-enabled solutions for maximum social impact.
Catalytic funding via grants and impact investments: Our unique investment model is designed to fill a critical gap in funding for high-potential organizations.
We identify those with early-stage, tech-enabled solutions that we believe have the potential to scale exponentially and deliver extraordinary impact across our four priority social impact sectors. We provide early-stage, seed-level funding to high potential organizations to design, create, test, and scale technology enabled and delivered solutions thatWe invest in both non-profit and for-profit innovators:
- Global Impact Grants: Funding to non-profits leveraging technology to deliver programs and opportunities that can be replicated and scaled at a country, regional, and/or global level. Learn how to apply.
- Regional Solution Grants: Funding to non-profits leveraging technology to deliver programs and opportunities within a specific community or country. (By invitation only.)
- Habitat for Humanity grants: Providing support to Habitat affiliates for home builds housing families in need around the world. (By invitation only.)
- Impact investments for climate solutions: Funding investments in early-stage climate companies, from Pre-Seed to Series A, in support of our $100M climate commitment. Explore climate investments.
Strategic guidance: We do more than just write a check. As a technology company with a long history of innovation, we share the best of Cisco’s strategic expertise with our partners, providing ongoing support to help them advance promising ideas to pilot project to proven concept, and then to replicate and scale for maximum impact.
Technology investments: We also find that the same Cisco technologies that deliver maximum impact for our business customers work equally well for our partner organizations. Our partners and other qualifying nonprofit organizations can tap into Cisco’s Technology Grant Program so they can secure connect and deliver their programs, get better data and insights into their business operations, and improve their productivity, efficiency, and effectiveness. This program is funded solely by Cisco, Inc.
Cisco Foundation grant giving policies: In addition, organizations must adhere to Cisco policies related to nondiscrimination, religious proselytizing, nonsupport of violence and terrorism, advocacy, lobbying, and other political activities and other areas listed in our grant giving policies.