The Foundation believes that education is the key to a successful future both for individuals and for societies as a whole, and thus supports educational projects in both developing and developed regions of the world.
In developing countries, the Foundation’s approach is not to select specific countries in which to operate; rather, it supports trusted partners in their work, enabling them to use their local knowledge, expertise, and networks to judge where an intervention will have the greatest, or most widespread, impact. A number of large-scale studies have demonstrated the substantial positive social, economic and environmental impacts of giving girls, who would otherwise be disadvantaged or excluded, access to a good education; the Trustees therefore have a particular interest in this area.
AKO Foundation support since 2019
CAMFED tackles poverty and inequality through education, primarily in sub-Saharan Africa. It supports marginalised girls and young women to attend school, to succeed academically, and then, as young women, to realise their potential to be leaders of change. In its 30-year history, CAMFED has helped more than 6.5 million children in Malawi, Ghana, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Tanzania. Furthermore, its alumni association (CAMA) is the largest and fastest growing network of educated young women in Africa – currently with more than 254,000 members. Each member of the network is, on average and voluntarily, financially supporting another three girls to go to school, thereby changing the future for whole communities.
AKO Foundation support since 2019
Educate Girls works with the government, community and village-based volunteers to ensure that every girl in the remotest parts of India is enrolled in school. Millions of school-age girls in India are denied their right to education – primarily because of their gender. In response, Educate Girls has adopted a grassroots approach to improve access to and quality of education for almost 2 million children since it was founded. This involves implementing a comprehensive remedial and life skills curriculum to improve learning outcomes and strengthening the school governance system and its infrastructure to ensure the sustainability of improved enrolment figures.
The Foundation has collaborated with other prominent philanthropists in a joint funding initiative which aims to transform the educational landscape for millions of deserving girls in India.
AKO Foundation support since 2023
Global Schools Forum (GSF) is a collaborative community, innovation accelerator, and partnership builder for non-state organisations working to improve education outcomes at scale for underserved children in low and middle income countries. The community currently includes 111 organisations across 60 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, South and East Asia and Latin America that collectively run or support over 230,000 schools and centres providing education to almost 20 million children and young people. The Foundation is one of a small group of major funders supporting the Impact at Scale Lab programme, GSF’s innovation accelerator. The Lab seeks to transform education systems by intensively working alongside local innovators to scale solutions. This is achieved by carefully selecting promising solutions and driving funding and significant, specialised technical support to them. In addition, the Lab programme generates and amplifies evidence and best practice from practitioners on what works effectively to achieve scale.
AKO Foundation support since 2018
The Little Sun Foundation was co-founded by Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson. Little Sun creates solar-powered hand-held lamps, designed by Eliasson; they can be charged during the day and allow work to be undertaken during hours of darkness. The solar lamps thus provide significant health, educational and economic benefits, as they replace harmful kerosene lamps and expensive torches. The Foundation’s support enables Little Sun to distribute solar lamps to students in rural areas of several African countries.
AKO Foundation support since 2017
Lively Minds works in remote rural villages in Africa and trains ‘Volunteer Mothers’ to run informal, free play schemes for all pre-school children in their villages. The Volunteer Mothers are also given monthly parenting workshops to help them provide better care at home. The Foundation supports Lively Minds’ work in both Ghana and Uganda.
AKO Foundation support since 2024
The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) is an independent humanitarian organisation that supports and protects displaced people. It has long experience in providing access to education for crisis-affected communities, and can also rely on links with state governments, local NGOs and the communities themselves.
In Nigeria, where NRC has been present since 2015, there are estimated to be 20m children and adolescents who are not in any kind of formal education, thereby severely limiting their chances of escaping poverty and securing meaningful employment. In 2024 the AKO Foundation made a grant to support NRC’s efforts to address the educational needs of displaced youth in two provinces in northern Nigeria, Borno and Adamawa.
The NRC is targeting young people across a wide age spectrum, school-age children (3-17 years old) and youth (15-24 years old), with the dual aim of increasing their access to education, and the ability of these young people to adapt to climate change. NRC offers technical and vocational education and training (TVET) in addition to digitised learning and climate resilience initiatives. The NRC will also link graduates from its TVET courses with potential employment opportunities, as well as offering business support grants for those students seeking to establish a small business with an environmental focus.
AKO Foundation support since 2018
A Norwegian non-profit organisation, Partnership for Change works for the economic independence of women in Ethiopia and Myanmar. As in many developing countries, girls – particularly in rural communities – face obstacles in accessing formal education. To address this inequality and the unmet educational needs of such girls, the Foundation is funding an intensive programme of financial support and academic and life skills training in rural Ethiopia to prevent girls from deprived backgrounds from dropping out of high school.
AKO Foundation support since 2022
Pratham, one of two NGOs working in India for which the Foundation initiated support during 2022, conducts high-quality, low-cost, replicable interventions to address gaps in the education system, most notably through its Teaching at the Right Level programme. This teaches literacy and numeracy at the level appropriate to a child’s educational attainment, rather than chronological age.
AKO Foundation support new in 2025
PEAS builds and manages sustainable, low-fee secondary schools in Uganda, Zambia, and Ghana, aiming to expand access to quality education for students from low-income backgrounds. Using its innovative SmartAid model, each school becomes self-sustaining within a year—combining minimal fees, government subsidies, and income-generating activities—while supporting over 225,000 students annually and sharing best practices with partner schools
AKO Foundation support since 2013
Strømme Foundation (Strømmestiftelsen) is a Norwegian development organisation that uses education to pursue its mission of creating a world free from poverty. Its approach is holistic; in its support for children, adolescents and their families within selected communities, Strømme invariably works with and through local delivery partners, thereby strengthening sustainability and maximising impact. The Foundation supports a number of strands of Strømme’s work, including activities in Nepal, Uganda, and West Africa.
AKO Foundation support new in 2025
Teach For All (TFA) is a global network of independent local-led organisations whose shared mission is to expand educational opportunity around the world. TFA’s model is quite straight forward – local partners recruit graduates and professionals to commit to two years of teaching in high-need schools. During this period participants are provided with ongoing training and support. However, TFA understands that those who sign up to teach in deprived communities within their own countries will most likely not remain there for the duration of their careers – approximately 80% of recruits complete their two year placement. That said, having completed their 2-year minimum of teaching, more than 70% of alumni continue to work to address the educational challenges faced by marginalised children whether they remain in the teaching profession or seek other careers related in some way to education. Since 2007, TFA partners have placed over 65,000 teachers who, in turn, have worked with 6m children.
AKO Foundation support since 2022
Teach for India’s core activity is not dissimilar to that of Teach First (see below) in the UK or Teach for America: college graduates (and others) undergo intensive training followed by a commitment to (at least) 2 years of teaching. Currently 1,000 ‘Fellows’ are actively teaching; there are around 4,000 ex-Fellows, three-quarters of whom have remained in the education sector in India.
AKO Foundation support since 2020
The World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts (WAGGGS) is the world’s largest voluntary movement dedicated to girls and young women. It brings together 153 national Guiding Associations who represent 8.8 million girls and young women across the world. For more than 100 years, Girl Guiding and Girl Scouting has helped girls to develop the skills and confidence they need to achieve their fullest potential and to make positive changes to their lives, their communities and countries. This is achieved through non-formal education programmes, leadership development, advocacy and community action.
AKO Foundation support since 2021
Aalto University is a leading Finnish institution known for its focus on innovation, technology and design. Its Executive Education programmes offer high-level professional development for business leaders, combining academic insight with practical application. The Foundation provides bursaries for participants in ‘The Business of Culture’ programme which is deisgned for leaders and executives in the arts and culture sector.
AKO Foundation support since 2015
Ark aims to transform the lives of underprivileged children by providing a high-quality education, with a core focus on schools. It operates around three dozen Academy schools, at both primary and secondary levels, typically in economically disadvantaged areas with a history of educational underachievement. Ark also creates and incubates ventures designed not only to help pupils in Ark schools, but also to improve education systems as a whole, both in the UK and overseas.
AKO Foundation support since 2021
Brightside provides online mentoring that raises aspirations in school, supports students in higher education, offers career insights, and teaches work-related skills. Brightside has mentored over 100,000 young people since 2003.
AKO Foundation support since 2019
Education and Employeers was founded in 2009 with the mission to connect young people, especially from state schools, with professionals from diverse career backgrounds. Through programmes like Inspiring the Future, they facilitate thousands of volunteer interactions—such as career talks and mentorships—with the aim of boosting students’ motivation, broadening career horizons, challenging stereotypes, and enhancing attainment
AKO Foundation support since 2022
Without a GCSE in Maths or English, a young person’s life chances are severely impaired, with opportunities in both education and employment heavily restricted. Get Further employs specialist tutors to assist students who have not yet obtained a pass grade in GCSE Maths and / or English, but who have moved into further education, to do so.
AKO Foundation support since 2021
‘What works’ in education is not an easy question to answer. Using robust research methodologies to make evaluation quicker, easier and more effective, ImpactEd supports schools and education organisations, including some of the charities supported by the Foundation, to evaluate their impact, to learn from it, and to prioritise what works best in improving outcomes for young people.
AKO Foundation support since 2016
The AKO Foundation has pledged £1 million to fund 30 master’s scholarships for under-represented students in the Department of Psychological and Behavioural Sciences. Starting in the 2024/25 academic year, the AKO Masters Scholarship will fund six full scholarships for candidates from the Global South, and 24 further scholarships covering full tuition fees for other applicants. The Department explores human behaviour at individual, group, organisational and national levels, applying insights to create a fairer, more sustainable world. Scholarships will be available across all five MSc programmes, which offer training in areas such as behavioural change, organisational psychology, and the role of communication in everyday life.
AKO Foundation support since 2018
Now Teach recruits and supports high calibre, experienced professionals who have already had at least one successful career. Working in challenging schools across the country, they not only increase teaching capacity, but also bring vital links to employers, universities and other post-school options.
AKO Foundation support since 2024
Purposeful Ventures is a UK-based charity that supports not-for-profit initiatives that address education and social issues with the goal of creating a fairer society for young people. Purposeful Ventures funds, develops and grows not-for-profit organisations that have the potential to transform lives. Purposeful Ventures was spun out of Ark (another AKO Foundation grantee) where it had operated as the ‘Ark Ventures’ division. Through Purposeful Ventures, the Foundation supports a portfolio of underlying entities in the field of early-years education in the UK. Purposeful Ventures provides these organisations with financial support as well as the advice and expertise of its staff, many of whom have backgrounds in education, strategy consulting and non-profit leadership.
AKO Foundation support since 2014
Founded as a vehicle for the temporary recruitment into the teaching profession of graduates who might not have considered a permanent teaching career, Teach First now aims to improve educational attainment in disadvantaged communities through a range of programmes, including teacher training, improving school leadership, and the creation of networks among schools and school leaders.
AKO Foundation support since 2017
The University of the Arts London (UAL) is Europe’s largest specialist arts and design university. It offers courses in arts, design, fashion and communication and is attended by over 19,000 students from more than 130 countries.
In 2020 the Foundation funded the creation of the AKO Storytelling Institute, with the objective of enhancing the art of storytelling, a skill instrumental in helping make sense of complex issues whilst also acting as a catalyst for change. The Storytelling Institute works at the intersection of storytelling and social change with a mission to enable storytellers and campaigners to make greater social impact through their work. The Institute now forms part of UAL’s Social Purpose Group and has recently welcomed a second cohort of Storytelling Fellows.
AKO Foundation support since 2013
The Foundation has an ongoing relationship with the internationally renowned Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. The Foundation, and Nicolai Tangen privately, have endowed undergraduate scholarships to support more than 20 international students at any one time who would otherwise be unable to meet the cost of their education. The scholarships benefit the individual recipients and, due to the recipients’ global background and international perspective, enrich the student community. Their education will also benefit the communities and organisations they go on to lead after graduating. The Foundation previously made a major grant to spearhead construction of a new campus building, Tangen Hall, which opened in 2021. This provides a space dedicated to cross-campus student entrepreneurship at the University of Pennsylvania.